I was driving along this morning. The sun was shining, but the breeze was cool. I put on the electrical heating on the steering wheel and the seat. Ah an in car sauna on a summery day. This was all that was both good and bad about living in late capitalist tech. The polluting car, creating public squalor, whilst shrouding the driver in a temporary cocoon. Psychotherapists might call such an experience a "psychic retreat." Reality is too hard to bear, so we all need to retreat from time to time. That's why we have room service! That's why we can draw the curtains in the day. But for some people they can't emerge from such a psychic retreat. For some people post COVID it is hard to throw oneself back into the painful world where there are no heated seats or steering wheels!
I was reminded of this as the radio 4 presenter reported on runners in Scotland being attacked by buzzards. Clawed no less with great violence. That was more real. They are being advised to wear helmets when running outdoors! Momentarily, I was in awe of the tough runners of Scotland ! I imagined them running around with bits if their ears missing ! A talon shaped gap in the scalp ! What a contrast they formed with my heat saturated body encased in an aluminium carbuncle-coffin! At least they were dancing with the gods. They were living, painfully, in the real world. What legendary stories of heroic deeds they could share with their friends!
The attack buzzard made me think of the world's most perfect couple. Is it Beyonce and Jay z? No. I was thinking more along the lines of Nancy Sorrell and Jim Moir. It was love at first sight when they met over twenty years ago. What we would call a very powerful projection in our trade. But one that propelled the couple together and helped them create a family, and a fruitful artistic and professional union.
Often projections wear off, but in this case it appears to have stuck. He is still besotted with her and can't quite believe that she still hangs out with him. Her bright plumage and red lipstick play on her position as his siren, his artistic muse. Even though he has a benign brain tumour and is totally deaf in one ear he can miraculously hear everything she says. He is tuned into her. Has he swallowed a John Gottman manual ? Every time she makes a bid for his attention he responds in kind. He doesn't stonewall, act sarcastically or shoe contempt. He shows love and kindness and she shows energy, humour and curiousity.
Perhaps it's a business deal and he's just trying to get on TV and she wants to promote her make up range. Maybe they are a fabrication like Trump and Mrs Trump. Maybe. But I'd like to think not. They seem to exhibit what Mary Morgan calls the "couple state of mind". Guggenbuhl-Craig might say they help each other "individuate" and become more of who they really are.
In any case I would strongly recommend their new TV show Jim and Nancy Painting with Birds on Sky Arts. They travel around the country painting British birds, meeting bird focussed artists and catching up with friends. A wonderful scene is the conceptual artist Cornelia Parker making an architectural sculpture out of chips. The art work has an inbuilt obsolence as the sea gulls destroy the work chip by chip.
In another scene in they paint each other without sight of the paper. These blind portraits capture the subjective truth of the other. They truly see one another.
Look. I would really urge you to run without a helmet in Scotland and brave the buzzard filled skies. But if that is just to much reality to bear, make a cup of tea and settle into this soothing show. It's like a heated seat but better. A psychic retreat with fluttering, cavorting, ever changing birds.