On Daydreaming and sitting at tables

Truth-The pursuit of it, or whatever that means. I’m still transfixed by it, still deep in projects exploring truth, stories, and memory. So here I am again, musing over old memories and daydreaming about what it’s all really about- nothing new then?

Every Wednesday now, I sit down with the most magnificent group of women to make things. It’s a space for recollecting, talking, remembering—and of course, for daydreaming (or just me). Together, we try to trace the shape of things through objects and shared history. Like a group of novice detectives, we sift through photos, images, remembering garments and fashions or memories, hoping to catch something real—if only for a moment- like a silhouette.

Sometimes I wonder if my memories are even true—or just stories I’ve told myself for long enough that they’ve stuck. I have covered this in other blog posts. No need to go over that again.

Lately, I’ve been watching House with my daughter. It’s a medical drama on the surface, but it’s really about people and the stories they tell. Every episode starts with some kind of a complex medical problem—someone in pain, something not working. There’s always something hidden, something unspoken. And as they dig, the truth comes out in fragments.

It made me think; Some memories I hold tight, like smooth stones I’ve turned over for years. Others vanish, then come back with a smell, a sound, maybe through a boring chore and suddenly—boom—there it is.

There are photos and letters I avoid looking at. Like books I once loved but don’t want to reread in case they don’t match what I remember. I’d rather keep the version that lives in me. Leave well enough alone. Some things are just gone. And one day, my daughter will find what’s left of any photos or objects or letters and make her own sense of it.

Then there’s the sentimental stuff.
Things that belonged to someone else, or to another time—badges, jewellery, scribbled notes, love letters. bits of paper. Stuff I have kept. Precious in feeling. Things that held deep moments. People that mattered. It’s all incredibly sentimental. And yes, I have covered that in another blog too.

But, honestly, the more time I spend with these wonderful ladies, the more I think about my University friends. I know we all look back at the past but my University friends are still my closest in some ways. We knew each other before life got complicated—and while it was getting complicated. We grew up together. Those Bristol years in the late ’80s, falling into friendship, sometimes falling in love… full of risk, hope, future, dreaming. Full of feeling. I didn’t know how golden it was until long after. No-one ever does.

Art helps hold all of that.
It gives me space to sit with questions without needing answers. It lets memory settle. I don’t need to explain everything.

Some memories are quiet. The kind shared at kitchen tables or with a group of wonderful ladies on a Wednesday afternoon. Or in the silence between people who’ve known each other a long time. Or in daydreams—when you’re not quite in the present but not fully in the past either.

I’ve always been a huge daydreamer. I used to think that was a flaw.
Now I think it’s just how I move through the world. A rich inner life where things don’t need to be resolved so urgently or at all. Where I can hold moments, float ideas around in my head. It’s a bit of escape, but also a bit of hope and a moment to consider things.

And in my work—in the making, the talking, the slow process it involves and the dreaming that comes with creating alongside other people—I see a little bit of truth show up in the smallest ways. It might be in a planned interview or an unexpected moment or chat. In a memory someone shares of something unrelated, or in the object they choose to bring. Sometimes it’s in the story they tell and how they tell it—and sometimes, in what’s left unsaid.

Maybe that’s why I am an absolute unapologetic daydreamer as it has its uses.
To imagine how things could be stitched together differently- tracing little lost moments- where you can say “there, that thing, that moment. That. I chose that.