7 days in Ukraine, June 2025

On my 6am flight to Krakow there are two huge stag parties. Both Stags are wearing tiny pink lycra cheerleading dresses saying ‘Beer Leader’ on the front. I hear one stag, who is wearing shorts under his skirt, say to his friend, after seeing the other stag who is not wearing shorts, ‘should I take my shorts off, d’you think? or just pull them up a bit?’

The  journey to Lviv is a long straight road. Our driver is talking a lot to the others and I can’t understand, but I notice her right hand is trembling on the steering wheel. 

We wait for about an hour to cross the border. It’s hot. Brand new military vehicles thunder past. Huge, sexy, repulsive. People making disgusting money from this, salivating, somebody's bank balance skyrocketing.

And then we arrive in Lviv and it’s the same as the last times - the weeks of mental preparation for the reality of sirens and drones and fear has left no space in my imagination for the stunning beauty and vibrancy of this city and its people. 

****

Guess who skids back on stage just hours before we are due to leave for Dnipro? You got it. Crocodile. This time, ready for their Solo, wearing a full sequin onesie, snazzy bow tie and top hat. I recoil but they hold me in their gaze and begin to shimmy. It’s deeply unnerving. I look away, they slide back into view. I cross my legs and arms, scanning for Pink Fluffy. 

The shimmy transforms into a Samba of Sirens, a slow, wave-like movement that is uncanny and repulsive. Bile rises in my belly and I get up to leave. Crocodile pins me to my seat with his cold stare and the tempo picks up - the paso doble drone attack is both horrific and nimble. This isn’t helping my nausea. Where is Pink Fluffy?

I can only see sequins and teeth as the spray of saliva hits my face, a frenzied, dazzling dervish of rockets and shells and fire. My breath quickens. I close my eyes and call out for Pink Fluffy but my voice is drowned out by singing…a kind of Phil Collins number, but with more teeth. My pupils dilate, my stomach drops. You can’t expect me to sit here and listen to this? I turn my back.

Crocodile leaps into the air with a double salto and lands squarely in front of me without dropping a single note. He tips his hat with glee, tail slapping the floor. He is working hard. No, not sweating…because don’t be ridiculous, crocodiles don’t sweat…but salivating, breath rasping, eyes shining with need. It’s clear that they won’t stop, they will not stop until I pay attention. 

I wake up to Igor poking his head around the door
‘coffee?!!’
Ye..
‘Dnipro was heavily bombarded last night, second night in a row’
Oh…
Jan said he witnessed a kind of Star Wars in the sky as he walked to his car. We look at Telegram and see the extent of it - 27 civilians injured, 3 dead, apartment windows smashed... the list of rockets, drones, shells launched at the city goes on and on and on.

I desperately don’t want to look at this ridiculous, horrific crocodile, so I cover my face, but the change of rhythm intrigues me. I peek. Oh God. They’ve started a whole new sequence, this time a kind of avant garde semaphore routine. Are those..bells?...are they wearing bells on their ankles?!


Wait, WHAT? Jan was on his way to his CAR?? During the siren?!


Somehow I am on my feet, and Crocodile and I are prancing together in unison. We Macarena, we Rumba, we Cha Cha Cha, we attempt the Charleston but some things are best left to the experts.


Another message arrives from Tanya in Kharkiv, ‘we are living here. Everything will be fine’ followed by another, ‘Thank you for coming. I don’t know why are you putting your psyche at such risk, but respect’
Huh
Nothing like a well timed question.


And just as suddenly as we started our dance, we stop. Right in the centre of the stage. Crocodile’s little arms dangling at their sides. Sequins glittering in the spotlight, top hat askew. Ankle bells stilled.

We stay like that for some time, just looking at one another, catching our breath.


Our conversation spirals inward, from logic, through obligation, guilt, pride, vanity, empathy, stumbling over our inner adrenaline junkies and crashing down into shame. We keep going through hope, disappointment and confusion, spiralling inwards and inwards until suddenly it is clear. We are not going to Dnipro.

We are not going to Dnipro because the worst case scenario isn’t death, it is sitting in a bomb shelter for six days, scared shitless, feeling that our trip has been meaningless because we can’t work. Our psyches aren’t up to that.

Pink Fluffy is pulling me there to meet this need with all their might, but Jan and the other clowns also have big hearts, hearts with the capacity to work through sirens, through it all. We hear that this massive bombardment isn’t bad relative to what is expected in the coming days. Their courage would be our stupidity. We are so fortunate to have a choice.

Saying this no, accepting this huge failure and the disappointment it will cause is painful and deeply humbling. We deal with it the only way we know how.

After a pause, Igor looks over at me;

‘So we will clown in the street here tonight?’

And the dance of Crocodile and Pink Fluffy continues.

****

The melody of a violin catches our ears and pulls us softly into the street. A mother sits on the statue wall, arms tightly crossed over her body. Robin’s gesture for her to join our dance only tightens this immovable knot. Nothing to lose, I hop in front of her, cross my arms and wait. Her eyes brighten slightly. I wiggle my fingers, she turns to her daughter, ‘should I?’ and then turns back and wiggles hers with a smile. We wiggle and prize apart the knotted rope of our arms until we are suspended, hearts open to the world and each other for one tender moment. I drop my hands down into hers, she bows her head, I bow mine. I look up and her eyes sparkle with tears.
The fountain that we washed our hot feet in earlier is a minefield, water jets set to explode at any moment. We are cats in a bathtub, frozen with fear, then berserk with panic. Later we are twirling and spinning, splashing golden sunlight, dancing joy and abandon. My awareness expands to include all of it - there is nothing that separates me from Igor from the pigeons flying overhead, from the audience, from the setting sun. 

In the first orphanage it feels as if we’ve all known one another forever. The games bubble with laughter and flow with ease. We have to remind everyone to call us Maybee and Robin instead of Mama and Papa. In the second, aggression seems the only way the children know to say ‘don’t go’. One moment of calm, when I am crying because I stepped in a puddle, and a small group mirror Robin, gently soothing me and one boy sings a lullaby. 

We climb out of the window so they don’t see us out of costume. On the street, Igor gets stopped by an undercover police officer asking to see his passport, checking he is not escaping the Draft.

Sirens last night. We look at Telegram. The map of Ukraine is covered with different coloured arrows pointing to Kyiv and Dnipro. The straight yellow ones are ballistic rockets. We sleep in the bathroom squeezed between the washing machine and the bathtub, thinking of our friends, who can hear the arrows landing on education centres, industrial estates, maternity wards.

In hospital, a boy separates and reunites us over and over again, demands we do push ups and laps of the corridor until he decides enough is enough. He marches over with his hands in a Karate position and annihilates us in slow motion. With one blow he chops my head clean off and rips Robin's body in two.

A huge field of graves and flags and empty plots waiting to be filled. A mother tending her son's grave starts to talk and there isn’t a moment’s pause where I can say that I don’t speak Ukrainian. She talks and talks, looks at the sky, looks at the portrait of her son (the spitting image of her own face) and holds mine and Igors hands warmly, smiling, talking, talking, talking. Somehow it is clear that she is talking about love, nothing but love.

At Unbroken Mothers, we are greeted by a nun, the first I have ever met. She behaves and seems exactly like all the kind nuns of my imagination.

One small girl bursts with excitement as soon as she sees us then squeezes her baby brother around the waist and lifts him up shouting ‘MINE!’. It reminds me of how I used to carry my cat, under the armpits, smooshing my face into his head, no mercy. I pick up Robin and squeeze. She squeals in a kind of frenzied delight. It is only after a couple of minutes of this intense interaction that we realise the room we are in is a vacuum of ice cold grief. Everyone else is silent and non-responsive, hearts tightly tucked away inside. The thought, ‘accept that this isn’t working and might never work’. We drop everything and let them see us, lost. Something imperceptible shifts, and we begin gently spinning silk into the void. Robin taps my hand and it drifts forward, lightness sensing lightness, a hope seeking missile. He taps again and we continue like this, quietly, gently in silence until my hand lands on the wall above the shoulder of a teenager. They look and smile. They help to blow my hand away from the wall, and follow us outside.

As I walk around the military cemetery, my mind tries to bring these boys, sons, brothers, dads, beloveds back to life, back where they belong. I recognise so many of them, somehow. A mother is trying to get her young son to pose next to a portrait of his dad for a photo. He must have been born around the time the war started.

****
Ivanna explains that the soldiers here are amputees and are traumatised. No loud noises, no sudden moves. A pause. We say soldiers. They are not soldiers. They are simply civilians who had to take up arms. This is a state hospital that is well resourced in terms of rehab equipment, but there are no arts activities - the focus is on recovery through physio and therapy. Body and mind covered, then, but not spirit.

Seconds after entering, a young man shakes our hands brightly and within minutes I know he is half Ukrainian half Peruvian, 25 years old, a sniper. I know he was the only survivor in his battalion of the shelling that sliced his left leg clean off. I know he saw the explosion that killed his little brother, that he hoped Bogdan had survived until he saw his arm, lying on its own, his head obliterated. I know he was a paediatrician in Peru. We walk into our changing room and I have the feeling my face is grey. 

It feels like our noses will be a barrier to connection rather than a bridge, so we don’t wear them. 

A young man lying on his back in physio. Robin does the same massage on the man’s shoulder as the therapist is doing on his upper thigh. Laughing, he says more people would come to physio if the service was always like this.

I am stuck on a physioball. I call out for help. A man exercising his shoulder says ‘sorry! Can’t help! I don’t have an arm’ as he looks down in a burst of laughter. I don’t take no for an answer, gesturing to his other arm. He pulls me to my feet, and we are laughing, really laughing, and there is no distance between us. My hero.

A Table Tennis match between Robin and Max. Maybee and an older man sit on the sidelines - Boss Coach and Assistant Coach, ‘Ras Ras Ras!’. Robin does his best but cannot ‘Ras Ras Ras’ like Max can. 

In the lunch hall we are eager waiters, delivering soup to new friends. These connections ripple around the hall. We feel others watching and smiling, not ready to participate, receiving our innocence and lightness gladly. Others don’t look up at all. 

Two men in uniform stand opposite each other in the corridor. We begin to weave their names together, singing Vova-Andrea-Andrea-Vova in harmony, our voices forming an embroidery, a vyshyvanka, a celebration of their bond. They join and we dance, twirling under their arms.

Working here is the most remarkable and stunning reminder that we are not our bodies, we are not our trauma, we are not the stories we tell about ourselves.

****
We finally have a call with Jan - our first chance to talk since we cancelled our plans to go to Dnipro. He is beautifully honest about his heartbreak. I notice myself bracing so I breathe, soften, trust myself to receive whatever needs to be shared and when we hang up I sob deep, hot, tears until I am laughing in awe and wonder at the capacity of the human heart.

Before our hospital shift Igor is horrified when he accidentally steps on a slug. We get hysterical imagining the slug children by the side of the road, looking on in shock, whispering ‘Papa?!’ Tears of laughter stream down my face. So dark, so wrong, so necessary. 

In an attempt to salvage something of our cancelled workshop we invite Lviv clowns to join us for 2 hospital shifts. Seven clowns are sitting in the hospital cafe in full costume with noses on. It is clear straight away that we have different ways of working. Igor and I clown with ‘empty pockets’ - no props, no routines, no plan, no discussion about who is high or low status. This requires us to become expertly attuned first to ourselves, then to one another, then to our environment and the people in it so that we can notice and respond authentically to what is there, to what is real, and transform that into whatever it might need to be. This is a new way of working for this group so divide we divide time between observations, practice for those who want to give it a go, and feedback.

…slippers singing opera to one another, a light switch that controls Mr Robins ‘boobopbedeebop’ song, an attempt to steal a pair of giant white crocs…

We just saw a young man having his papers checked by two men in army fatigues. He is looking me right in the eye as we drive past, unblinking, white as a ghost. The next moment he is put into the back of a car. When we get out I realise our van has black-out windows. Maybe he was looking into his own eyes then, a final goodbye to civilian life.

…a squeaky door that makes Dr Maybee cry, a teenage dance battle, repeated resuscitations of Oscar the Parrot by a dad, ‘Mama Rosa’ the ward clerk, a Chicky Chicky Boa Bats orchestra…

I’ve eaten nothing but cheese cakes, dumplings and pizza since we arrived. During last night's pizza, Ivanna explains why it’s important to go into a shelter when there is a siren. This explanation involves a detailed description of all the different types of rocket and their impact, including the impact of ricocheting defence bullets. I think, you are a 35 year old film producer, you shouldn’t know any of this.

…an epic thumb war that Maybee looses 3-0, Princess Victoria our New Boss, copying a nurse as he stands in front of us, transforms into an aeroplane and runs around the corridor three times the morning after a Khinjal Rocket is launched towards Kyiv and intercepted…

The slug story gets more elaborate. Some of the slug family have decided to get shells, just as a precaution. It’s a shocking betrayal, an irreparable rift. Granny slug falls asleep in shock. 

Stomach-sore with laughter and deliriously tired, we sleep too, ready to go home tomorrow.

When we arrive back at Krakow airport after a seven hour wait at the border it is impossible to understand that we were here only 7 days ago. I see myself getting into the car, see the driver with trembling hands, remember wondering if I would come back with trembling hands. My hands aren’t trembling, but my heart is, a little.

My family wants to hear that ‘I’m Okay’. And I am Okay, but it is too bland a word, too numb, too neutral. I feel as though all the cells are reconfiguring in my body, having understood something new about humanity’s capacity for suffering, survival and love. It’s not a comfortable sensation and it’s impossible to name.
​
The human experience is defined by an endless tide of polarities - day and night, fear and love, yes and no, sublime and ridiculous. The clown exists in that imperceptible moment where the tide turns, where inhale becomes exhale. Clowning, meeting the world with our open hearts, requires us to embrace both the yes and the no as necessary, beautiful, inevitable, inseparable. I have been called to that lesson over and over again this week and I have been left awestruck and devastated by the immense and staggering capacity of the human spirit. 

some reflections in the days leading up to our trip to Dnipro

​I realise I am avoiding talking to my parents about the trip. I know there is nothing I can say that will stop them from worrying.

****

Hearts & Minds are doing a new project in high schools, in the additional support for learning units. In our first session we went into an English class and when faced with questions about why we are Clowndoctors, we assumed it must be an exam. I got stressed, snapped my pencil, ate my exam paper in a panic and fell off my chair. We didn’t manage to answer even one question, but they gave us A+++++++++++ so it worked out okay in the end.

****

I noticed myself tidying today. I remembered my granny telling me how important it is to wear clean knickers in case you die suddenly, how she cleaned her house so carefully before she went into hospital for the last time. It was comforting to imagine that she knew she might die, that she was ready. This is not on a suicide mission, I am not expecting to die. I fully intend to come home healthy and wholehearted. But to be sure, when I die, it will be with a heart full of love and gratitude and joy. Or that’s the intention anyway.

****

On the beach, I’m enjoying the feeling of knowing that there is a stone waiting for me. I take a breath and look down and there it is - a flat, tear shaped pebble. Love at first sight.

Kate shared an exercise - to use our stone to ground ourselves in our bodily experience and then experiment with sending ourselves out into the environment - into the movement of a tree, a bird soaring overhead. To allow our cells to feel the sensation of flight.

It reminded of me our work in hospitals - how if we have make a meaningful connection with a child lying in a hospital bed, and they see us dancing or stretching, their mirror neurones mean that they can experience those bodily sensations as if they were their own. I’ve explained this badly, but it’s a thing.

Later, I was rolling around on a beach (highly recommend Kate’s work if you like the sound of that!), and came to a stop - I looked down and saw the tear shaped stone - it must have fallen out of my pocket. I put it back, feelings of loss and relief crashing into one another. Later, I opened my other pocket and found the first tear shaped stone. I’m stunned and not at all surprised.

I put them side by side, and felt me and Igor, each other’s anchor, fully grounded and simultaneously soaring in the sky, stretching our wings as wide and far as we possibly can, hearts open and….let’s be honest…probably in a fit of giggles.

****

We have a call with Jan. He describes Dnipro as ‘normal’. The part of a horror movie before the monster arrives. He describes drones passing over head in the evenings low enough that you feel they will brush the top of your head. He describes our journey to the surrounding villages, and the check points and tanks and mine fields that we will pass. Jan’s normal is not our normal. Soaring in the sky? It is a reality check.

****

Another visit to the high school. The last two visits, one boy has hidden in a den in the corner of the class for the whole session. The teacher says he really struggles with connection. This week, he found a tiny pink fluffy ball and poked it through the gap in the chair. I went over, ‘Wow! A pink Fluffy!’ I tried to meet it - gesturing with my hand, gently. It was hard to tell what he was responding to. I moved my hand closer, palm up. Pink fluffy moved towards it and then suddenly a tiny green crocodile enters, Stage Right. My hand retreats. The crocodile exits. I move closer again, pink fluffy lets me stroke his soft little head and then suddenly the crocodile arrives, my hand leaps back. The boy has managed to create a non-verbal ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ - we are building a language.

I bring out my harmonica and play a note - Pink Fluffy responds immediately, and Crocodile skids back onto the scene. I play a little tune and they dance, in perfect harmony. I speed up, slow down, checking that we are all together. I reach a crescendo, they are dancing in a frenzy and then we stop, in sync. They take a solemn bow and there is applause coming from behind me - a sceptical classroom assistant has been watching the whole thing.

I am delighted and call over a classmate.

Andrew! Hey! Have you ever seen a Pink Fluffy dancing with a Crocodile before?!!
Err, no
Want to?
I guess so?

He sits and the show strikes up again. Again they dance and take a bow and we applause. I invite over another student, and then another until we are ten people watching the tiny show, shouting ‘Bravo!! Encore!!’

At the end of the class, the teacher passes me a note. There is a stick drawing of a person, next to it an outline of Pink Fluffy and under it, ‘Is you friend?’

My heart just about burst.

How profound it is to recognise a need for connection, ask for it to be met, have it be met, and be able to receive the offering fully. And how complicated that is for so many of us. 

So I’m thinking about the moment we hugged Jan goodbye during our last visit and he said ‘next time come to Dnipro’ and how that need landed like a pilot light in our hearts and stayed there, gently flickering, waiting patiently, until we were ready give it the fuel of our attention and commitment.

****

Our last call before we fly, this time with Jan and the film crew who will accompany us (Madara, Valdes and Ivanna as well as Kristele who will support us from Latvia). We discuss logistics - where to pick up helmets and bullet proof vests - and I am having an out of body experience wondering how my life has delivered me to this moment, sitting in a cafe in Glasgow, talking seriously about wearing a bullet proof vest, driving through check points. And then Jan starts speaking quietly - about the villages we will visit, how isolated they are, how the war effects them. He talks about the need for human connection, and how much of a huge difference it makes, 'bringing humanity to these places'. How he has been answering this need from the very beginning of the war without doubt or hesitation, driving 100kms a week to deliver humanitarian aid and clowning missions.

And I recognise in Jan my conversations with Igor about why we are making this trip, and see in my minds eye these concentric circles of love, this ripple effect of human connection expanding out, all the way from those villages, through Jan, through us, the film crew, through our friends offering us supervision and support, our parents and families, through Pink Fluffy & crocodile and through everyone in between and beyond.

I feel we are ready to meet the world as it is - Pink Fluffy & Crocodile, the Yes and the No, the beauty and the horror, hearts wide open.

We walk in as the mum is laying a bundle of egg blue blankets on a huge cushion. She sits to one side, and the dad sits opposite her, like two proud golden eagles watching over their nest. We walk towards the bundle, and see a tiny face. I am looking at a foetus. No. A baby, whose tiny yellow body is somehow managing to breathe on its own. I look at the mum and she smiles sweetly, expectantly, inviting us to stay. I look at Wallop. The need for this encounter to be perfect fills every cell of my body. I take my harmonica out of my pocket and start to play very quietly, tuning into the shallow, sweet inhalation and exhalation of the sleeping baby, putting everything into making this moment as sublime as possible. A nudge on my shoulder, heavy breathing, that builds to a snore. Wallop. Unbelievable. I stop playing and under my breath hiss, ‘Wallop…please…for once in your life, be professional!’ The Dad giggles. Wallop wakes herself up, apologises, and we begin again. Again the snoring. ‘Wallop….if there was one moment in your life to do a good job, it is now!’ Get…a….grip!’ The dad guffaws. And so we continue until the little boy opens his big blue eyes to the bubbling, contagious music of his parents laughter.

​I heard that the baby died a few days later.

*****
Igor and I exchanged messages today about the possibility of clowning and teaching in Dnipro in June. I had the most extraordinary bodily sensation of knowing immediately that we are going and simultaneously feeling flooded with fear. We’ve got our eyes and hearts open, and so much love around us. And who knows what will happen before then. The thing is, I have this one small thing I can do in the face of pain and fear and grief, and a path has opened up. It seems to be that I have to do it.

*****
We are in a bed bay, visiting a baby, when my antenna hears a nurse and a mum say to a 10yr old boy behind us, ‘you said you were brave, well that wasn’t very brave, was it? What a scene you caused…’

We finish up with the baby and I turn around and my eyes fix on a pink armchair in the corner of the room, facing me. Fear floods my body,

‘McFlea! McFLEAAAA!!’ I shout-whisper, ‘Don’t look now…but….is that chair looking at me?!’

McFlea uses her most expert spy body language to check,

‘Yes…Yes it is’.

I hold my breath taking in the gravity of the situation and notice the 10yr old boy looking at me and nodding.

‘You see it too?!’ I shout-whisper again.

‘Yes. It’s looking at you’ he replies loudly and with glee.

My hands feel funny, I flap them. I am hyperventilating, I start to pace up and down the corridor in the middle of the room.

‘It’s looking right at you!’

For some reason both McFlea and the boy are enjoying themselves a great deal. Pleading for some empathy, some sense of camaraderie, some solidarity, I ask,

‘What do you do when you are freaking out? Do you have any calming ideas?!!!’
‘Nope’
‘Can I hide behind your curtain?’ I say, as I wrap myself in it.
‘Nope’
I emerge, desperate,
‘YOU HAVE TO HELP ME!!’.
’Sit on it’
‘What?’
‘Sit on the chair’
‘Absolutely not’
‘You have to sit on it’
‘No thank you, Nope’
‘You have to face your fear’
‘…. …..’
’GO AND SIT ON THE CHAIR RIGHT NOW!!’

The authority in his voice gives me some resolve. And a fright. On balance I think I might be more afraid of him than the chair. So I walk towards the chair. My body is tense, shaking. I say goodbye to McFlea, internally hoping she will relay my bravery for years to come, as I turn and lower myself slowly into the seat, eyes squeezed shut, ready for the inevitable. At last my bum makes contact with the seat. It’s…soft. It sort of holds me, embraces me, and my body melts into it. A wave of relief washes over me that feels like…LOVE. Ha! This is it! This is my place on Earth. Right here. This is my purpose, my meaning, my North Star! I’ve never felt such peace and happiness! I look at the boy as he laughs and says,

‘No, You can’t stay here’

I pause, confused. That’s impossible. This is LOVE. I HAVE to stay here. I communicate all of this with my desperate eyes. I begin to shuffle with the chair across the room as quietly as I can.

‘You can’t take it with you’
‘I’m not’
‘I can see you’
‘…….’
‘I can see you!’
I have to…leave it?’
‘Yes’
‘Forever?’
‘Yes’
I embrace the shiny pink leatherette, resisting a kiss as everyone is watching, including perhaps half a dozen healthcare staff. I walk away slowly, wistfully, each moment thick with meaning. My heart is broken, ripped asunder, bleeding onto the floor.

’Take your broken heart and GO!!!’ He shouts with glee, laughing with his mum.

I take a deep breath, pick up my broken heart and go.

Five minutes later I see him with the nurse receiving his treatment, calmly.

*****
She is in her usual place, lying on the floor; a yellow nightie covering thin bones. Although she is quite happily on the floor whenever we come, part of me clearly feels that frail old ladies should be tucked up comfortably in bed. I breath into my discomfort and Petal and I crouch down beside her and wait.

She looks up and smiles in slow motion. I hear Classic FM playing on the radio in the corner and exclaim, ‘I’m going to the Royal Concert Hall tonight! With a boy! To see Swan Lake!’ She looks me in the eye and her usual rhythm starts up again, a vocal repetition, ‘da da daaaa da, da da daaaaa da, da da daaaa da’. For some time we sing with her until her eyes shine and she says, ‘I met a nice boy! da da daaa da, da da daaa da, da da daaa da…’ I so want to hear more but the rhythm resumes. I gradually shift from mirroring her, to singing the theme of Swan Lake. I surprise myself that I can remember the tune and that I am mostly hitting the notes. Surprise turns to admiration, and I am full of my own voice. In my minds eye I am leaping across the stage in tragic abandon. She is watching me intently, no longer singing her own song, fully engaged. I am sure we are all transported into the same transcendent fantasy when suddenly she says firmly, ‘Stop it! Now isn’t the time!’ Chastised, I stop it.

A long silence. The Classic FM jingle.

​And then her body begins to melt, cell by cell. Micro-moments of surrender, each one a tiny death. Her eyes drift closed. We stay by her side for minutes, in awe. Her body is suspended in space, her head, hands and feet hover above the ground.
This impossible and perfect image stays in my mind for days, so uncanny, familiar, strange, beautiful. Today I looked up John Everett Millais painting of Ophelia. That’s exactly how she looked.

“To die, - To sleep, - To sleep! Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;” (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
​
Maybe she was dreaming of her nice boy. I hope so.

The talented and skilled partners accompanying me were Diane Thornton (Dr Wallop) and Zoe Darbyshire (Dr McFlea and Petal Elderflower). We are all able to do this work thanks to the small but mighty charity Hearts & Minds, based in Edinburgh.

*****
We are sitting on the rooftop and Igor is reflecting on being at the SriRamana Ashram, saying that it is a place filled with miracles. And as he says it, I see us, two human beings sitting side by side, directly in front of us, two songbirds balancing on a wire, all four of us watching the Sun rising over the distant horizon as the Earth spins on its axis. 

*****

The Patriarchy is in full force here and shows up all over the place. The Director of the hospital who summons us to a meeting and talks so quietly from the end of his comically enormous table that we all have to lean forwards to hear him. He never addresses me, or answers me even when I speak, even though I am the one with the information he needs. The waiters who always place the menu facing Igor and never ask me what I want to eat. Police, security guards, anyone in public positions of authority, are all men, most holding sticks and all wearing uniforms. There are never any bins or newspaper in the women's toilets, but always signs saying 'please wrap sanitary products in newspaper and throw in the bin'. The phallic temples. The photographed faces of men all over the city who have paid to have their faces on a billboard just so that their faces are on a billboard. It really wears you down after a while.

*****

Here, Cancer is still a dirty word. Children who have cancer are stigmatised, their families often don’t tell anyone they are ill. It’s even a taboo to touch a child who has cancer here, apparently. Mothers sit by their child’s beds, hearts filled with love and shame. The ward is still and silent and nobody lifts their phones to film when we enter.

After 15 about minutes of us being in the room almost everyone in the bed bay is spontaneously laughing and singing a ‘meow’ song together, including a teenage girl who can barely lift her head from the pillow.

Later I see a video of Trump and JD Vance showing the world what American diplomacy really looks like - has always looked like -  in front of the worlds media, threatening world war three, and I think about the mothers on that oncology ward and all that they hold and care for and the tenderness and shame they carry versus the pure shamelessness of men who hold power, and my heart….well my heart aches with wishing it were different.

****

A girl who had followed us and played with us all day yesterday was there again today. When I first saw her she was in her pyjamas, standing next to me and smiling. About ten minutes later I looked down and there she was again, wearing a turquoise sparkly princess dress, the same colour as my skirt. The miracle of this did not pass me by, and she giggled with delight.

*****
I walked around Arunachala barefoot.

‘Though Arunachala appears outwardly as a hill of mere insentient rock, the true devotee understands it to be the all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful Supreme Lord, who is guiding him both from within and without at every step and turn of life, leading him steadily and surely towards the goal of egolessness.’ David Godman

My feet are fire and broken glass within about 10 minutes of walking but somehow I don’t stop. Life with Endometriosis has taught me a lot about how to live alongside pain. Yes to the burning fire of my feet, yes to the warm sun on my back, yes to the air in my lungs, yes to the light shimmering on this silver street decoration, yes to this sweet calf with legs growing from her shoulder blades, yes to this ache and yes to the exquisite, complicated, messy abundance of life that fills every moment. I am pulled around the circumference of the mountain by the river of souls who have walked this path for thousands of years before me, by the force of the mountain itself.

I laugh with joy, with peace, with gratitude and at that moment, my mind grasps onto this feeling and my body bursts back into pain, my mind flourishes with it’s banal running commentary - judgements, comparisons, wishing it were different, wishing it would never change. I breathe. I say hello again to the pain, I say hello to the joy, I surrender again and again and again to Arunachala, to presence, to all of it.

And I think - this is life, isn’t it? Constant pain, and constant joy, and none of it is me.

*****

We are at the entrance to the hospital, waiting for our auto. It is hot so we sit on the pavement in the shade, a little behind the security booth. As is often our way, after a few moments we start to sing a little song to pass the time - a percussive, joyful rhythm. I can see the security guard in front of us smiling, and he taps his wooden stick along to the beat.

A week later I am there as Maybee, and Robin is playing his harmonica. I am dancing, and I risk reaching out my hand to this guard. There are maybe 30 people watching. He takes it with his free hand and while I can see he wants to dance, is stilted and uncertain. Someone gestures to the stick in his other hand and he hesitates between worlds and then looks me in the eye and suddenly is holding both my hands and spinning me around. The stick has been abandoned and his eyes are shining.

*****

We’ve been clowning for maybe an hour outside the hospital and now we are back at the entrance, a small crowd of children and their parents surrounding us. Our focus is still on the small square of paper that has been the source of our play for the last thirty minutes. It is clear that no one child can keep this scrap of paper - that has been the subject of an epic opera. The best case scenario might be that one of us takes it, but even that doesn’t feel right. The paper is passing between the children, who are doing everything in their power to keep the game alive. Suddenly Robin and a small boy grab it at the same time, and the scrap is split into two. I take my chance and take one piece and tear it again. Now there are tiny hands tearing and tearing and tearing and the paper is confetti and it belongs to all of us and none of us, and Robin and Maybee turn and dance back into the hospital, waving as we go.

*****

Today we finally stroked the mangy local dog who nobody touches. We both agreed that if we die of Rabies it would be worth it and not at all embarrassing.

*****

Mister Robin had finally committed the ultimate betrayal and ditched me for another partner - a teen boy who had been following us, warming up to us all morning. I had overcome my shock and sadness, and was now bubbling with anger. As I stepped out into the corridor at one and of the bed bay, Robin and the boy stepped out at the other end. It was clear that a street fight was on the cards. The boy stepped into the middle of the corridor. I stepped in opposite him. He pulled back his shoulders, and so did I. His eyes narrowed, my eyes narrowed. We stepped closer, and closer until we were centimetres apart, eye to eye and I saw a steely and real anger in his eyes and was..so impressed by his strength that I smiled slightly and he smiled slightly and we melted until we were smiling broadly at one another and he took my hand and lead me back to Robin and joined our hands together.

*****

Igor teases me that I keep filming shadows. I just can’t resist the quietness of them. The simplicity. The refuge.

****

After watching The Office for 2 straight days while eating watermelon, papaya, and crispy spicy snacks, I dreamt that I was cradling Steve Carrell in my arms as he wept.

*****

I danced with a nurse in the bed bay today. She was timid at first, but something shifted in her after the first time I span her around her eyes welled up over her mask. I noticed a thought cross her face and a moment of tension in her hands and instead of stopping as I thought she was going to, in that moment she surrendered to some inner desire to live out in the open, and our hearts span and span together, and the patients on the ward clapped and cheered.

*****

In airport security there aren’t any signs about what you have to take out of your bag. By the time I went through the scanner, I had used 6 different trays for different objects and had 4 different guards take their pleasure in telling me something else I had to do. I wished I had been clowning then. But instead I was tired and pissed off and said ‘oh for fucks sake’ loudly under my breath and then felt bad.

*****

I remember in the first weeks and months of clowning in Barcelona seeing the male clowns perform improvised circle shows for hundreds of people and feeling my heart heaving with envy. Not so much about the crowds, but at their flow and skill and the way they created wonder out of nothing and transformed the space completely. I wanted so badly to be them. I tried clowning on my own in the street a few times and it wasn’t safe at all. 23 year old me would have been so amazed and happy to see me clowning on the hospital grounds this week. There was such a big crowd. It was effortless and joyful. We reflected afterwards that everyone else did the clowning for us.

*****

Things that are different: In the public hospital here, the children don’t wear ID wrist bands, and nobody has notes at the end of their beds, and the beds aren’t numbered, and there aren’t names written anywhere. And there are no machines or beeps. There are no individual rooms. The sheets are blue or purple, not white. The food smells delicious. There are no televisions, no cartoons on the walls. Doors that need to be closed are locked with padlocks. The windows have bars on them and the guards carry sticks that they sometimes run along the metal of the cots to get attention.


Things that are the same: People feel anxious and sad and bored and angry and confused. People love their children and want them to be well and happy. People are tired and overwhelmed. People blame themselves for their children being sick. People love music. People are obsessed with their phones. People love people walking into things and getting things wrong when they are really trying to get them right. People love to be seen and heard and valued. People love people.


*****

Sometimes you meet someone and you know your life is changed for the better just by the fact of knowing that they are in the world. To say that I am inspired by Gitanjali Govindrajan doesn’t nearly do it justice. I am awestruck by what she has managed to achieve in the last ten years, and her unremitting dedication to Inclusion. She is generous, dynamic and authentic to the core.

She has invited us to visit the Snehadhara Foundation's Direct Care Space to play. 

‘The Direct Care space of Snehadhara is our realm of caring, advocacy and inclusion practice. Respecting every child’s unique needs, our programmes are carefully designed to enhance their abilities and meet their therapeutic goals. Our aim is to address the social and independent goals of the children to meet their aspirations for life, vocation and livelihood along with nurturing a sense of social inclusion with arts’

Compared to the endless levels of bureaucracy and patriarchy that we have been faced with when talking to hospitals, this is a balm. 

We arrive for breakfast with the young people and staff, join them for assembly, and then have half an hour or so to explore the space and get ready. The gentle rustle of palm leaves and the fact that this is all I can hear is so soothing. My mind begins to empty into presence.

The space we are to play in is a circle, with a thigh-high wall around it. Everyone is sitting inside, except for one teenage boy with severe autism who is curled up enjoying the warmth of a sun trap. Occasionally staff encourage him to join but he evades them like a cat.

We march around the circle's perimeter with a joyful harmonica, giving time for everyone to see us from a distance and for us to feel their response. When the time comes to enter, we are stuck. The wall is too high. Impossible task. Straight away, a boy, age 14 or so takes Igor’s hand and pulls him over the threshold, a huge smile bursting across his face. For a brief moment, I am on the outside, looking in, and I see this boy and Igor looking into one another’s eyes. I realise I have never seen Igor’s face look so open, so simple, so sweetly radiant as in this moment. A totally reciprocal exchange. No giver, no receiver. Pure, joyful connection. 

I yelp ‘HELP!’ And grab the limelight.

Our play oscillates between finding individual connections with staff and young people and creating games or music that hold the whole space together. One girl giggles gleefully when Igor mimes going down in a lift. A boy is fascinated and giggles at his squeaking hand. The staff are delighted by Igor's ridiculous game of hide and seek. Our original saviour takes on his role with gusto, coming to our rescue over and over again with humour, grace and playfulness.

On our way out of the circle, we pause in the sun spot where the boy is rhythmically shifting from his heels to his toes in a squat position. Side by side, we begin to mirror these rhythmic movements. With each rock to and fro it is as if we gently drift into his universe and the voices and laughter around us slip away. A few moments later, our arrival is greeted with a glimpse of a smile. Permission to stay. Now he takes a tiny pebble between his fingers. Igor finds another pebble and passes it to me. I take it and swap it for the tiny one and the pebbles begin to weave silent complicity and connection between the three of us. I feel the thrilled, as if I've discovered a secret code.

Later, once we had changed and were eating our lunch at the table, this boy, who until our sun trap moment had avoided us all morning, came and sat with us. And there we were, eating parathas, three friends together.

In the car on the way back into the city I chatted with Gintajli about our visit, reflecting on the space she has created, on inclusion in general. I was saying how much fun we had with this boy who had saved our skin so many times and she told me how he had come to be at the centre. He comes from a socio-economically deprived family who couldn’t cope with his size and his autism, so they tied him to the window frame by his wrist. 

Then she told me that a couple of months ago she had taken a group from the centre to a local train station for a field trip and officials and staff had refused them access.

‘What do you mean, refused entry? It’s a public space!’ I blurt

‘They said it would ruin the sanctity of the space' she replied calmly, 'I made a big noise about it - a video that went viral. You know, in our last space, in the city, local people would throw stones through our windows, so we moved here, to the outskirts where we have space and peace’

I look out of the car window and my heart and mind do what is becoming a familiar wrestle. My supervisor said it would be this way, ‘you are going to love it. And you are going to hate it’. My mind is furious and despairing at the ignorance and injustice and fear that drives humans to act in such abjectly cruel ways. My heart: Bursting with gratitude for Gitanjali and her vision and tenacity. I look over and see her quiet radiance and feel at its core a boundless love - radical, powerful and unstoppable.