Framing

Sliding Doors

There is this song, Sliding Doors.

I think it is about the missed moments in life. The chance meetings that could have been.

On the London Underground, I suppose.

It reminded me of the big, f**k-off, frame we had on the stage for Amadeus. In the program notes, he wrote the nicest thing about me. Whenever I was sad, I would sit, cross-legged in my bedroom.

I would re-open the box file. Purple, fraying a bit from the weight.

I would read it, again and again.

Why didn’t I become a theatre director? I love framing things.

Look, I'm framing things now.

She used to always make us stop by any doorway that looked interesting. She said it was for the portfolio. I didn’t really understand, but if it meant that the walk lasted longer, and we didn’t have to part - I abided.

Now I’m stopping her, a different her. We are wandering aimlessly in the streets, I love the doorways. Colonial architecture meets decrepit modernity.

The ‘Latin School’ - a doorway in space alone. Was it part of something else once, or is it just there purpose built. A frame that we can use, with no purpose apart from framing our experience.

Framing is comforting, it gives a sense of control. We can have comfort in feeling like we understand the full picture. Doors are particularly special because they frame liminality. They can offer opportunity or constriction - but that is our choice.

I frame relationships, I frame conversations, I frame memories, I frame ‘my experience’, I frame my life, and I frame me. It is perhaps the greatest asset that we have. Our ability to frame our narrative. Tell our story the way that we want it to be seen.

I’m not very good at it.

Often I walk people past the sketches, the unworked canvases on their way to the perfectly positioned framed masterpiece on the wall.

The illusion and the control is lost.

However, when you realize that everyone else is framing too - then like an archivist or a researcher you want to find the unfinished sketches, the pieces that were left out the frame.

The sliding doors that just pulled shut.

That is where true character lies.

Those are the interesting pieces as they make the gilt-framed masterpiece, proudly sitting above the mantelpiece, visceral.