I was there at my grandma’s house, and she could see me, she was in a good mood. She was imp-like and dancing round happily, happier than usual. She always treated me as an equal, as an adult or like her and for some reason she never seemed old. We ran around the garden, no – she told me to go and dig up the boxes from the garden. There were 2 wooden boxes, one was hers and the other was mine. 

I had almost entirely forgotten until that prompt. I have a vague recollection of mine; at the time I didn’t want it. Even though, things might be different now. It was buried in a box coffin, as was my grandmas.

We took the boxes into the living room to open them up. You could hear the fire was roaring and threw out an orange cast on our backs. 

Every so often we need to get them out, look at them, feel how cold they are, see their dollishness and change their clothes. We sat in front of the fire facing the windows onto the garden – the deep blue night grain shifted to a more familiar daylight grey fog fuzz, and that is all I remember.

In my work I go through various stages of being seen and not. The spectrum of this is impossibly profound. I’m never quite sure which Francesca Steele I am going to be perceived as. There’s the one only whispered about, Or the other, that “you can’t believe it’s her”. 

At points within these different stages of visibility, I ride an unexpected wave and whilst shopping or walking or asking a question in a lecture become totally invisible. I don’t know how I do it, but it happens I completely disappear. Even my voice becomes paralysed and can only squeak, but then thinks “maybe I shouldn’t be here either” and disappears more.

The only problem is if I become apparent, I’m so full of frustration or confusion, assertion and expression, I don’t know what to do. It’s too much and not controlled, it says odd things and turns the spotlight on itself. It talks nonstop nervously, goes to far, says too much, asks too many questions, says things that other people only think, then stops – And wishes it could sweetly scale down to a full stop and stay there at the end.

Increased physical strength is one of many consequences of bodybuilding, but the recipe itself works to break-down, build-up and create shape in muscle. A further intertwined consequence, found deepest within the muscle, is that bodybuilding provides an opportunity; the chance to refocus or ‘prompt’ to look inside. 

To roll my eyes inwards and pursue my personal mental landscape – my own maze, with only myself as witness. The outside might be sweating, pushing, contracting tissue. On the inside I calmly pick up and move obstacles effortlessly through dark muted and harmonious tones, repeated until I easily gain failure.

I stay long enough to momentarily forget, when re-delivered the comparison is stark. The swift and sweaty return stuns. 

…

Evolving questions: Practice involves trauma, when visible, it becomes excruciating. Is this a kind authentication? Could these shifts be easier? I’m drawn to things that make me feel vulnerable, that pull and push, shock or scare -or is that the remnant or afterglow I leave for myself? The process happens with all of the work; bodybuilding, performance, one-to-one and writing. 

Daniel Oliver’s Neurodiversity Writing Retreat to the prompt word of neurotypical.

Today I am feeling full of nerves, like my body is fizzing, like the stress is bubbling over – I can’t pinpoint the reason or where it is coming from in my body – the virus news or the fact I have pages and pages of marking to do & that my articulations are too long and hard work to make sense of. 

My head, my nasal passage, my navel, my back passage all inflamed and not thinking straight – I’d like to be less nervous or less gibberish – but waiting for the effervescing to leave or wear itself out. Whatever, my body has an agenda.

Which strand of non-typical does the iterations come from, I’m told I romanticise difficult issues and talk viscerally or visually – in art is that not a skill? Writing works best for me when it flows – today is barred from that ease. Constantly looking for something to put right or waiting to be put right, not quite in control, drunk without the alcohol, feeling fallout I can’t quite touch. High on unrooted nerves. 

Making the work because I felt I couldn’t articulate what I wanted to say or form sentences – or even engage an audible voice. Relying on facial expression or a poker face, to get into where the crowd was and then still not quite fitting. Literally having the opposite thought to the rest of the class and self-marginalising. 

Not being able to tell the difference between a word, a thought, a body or a being. All amplified as colour or an electric nerve pain, or both clouded and sharp.  Still trying to shift the right bit into focus, the bit I want you to see. Could it be something about learning to hide yourself and then becoming scared of your reflection.