I have a quote pinned on the wall above my desk because it resonated so strongly when I read it:
“(…) that’s something that I thought about when I left. How we’re always encouraged – expected – to focus ourselves, our energies, our creativity, so it can be explained neatly. To be moving forward in an obvious way. But isn’t the reality more like mushrooms somehow? Aren’t our creative endeavours more like constellations than a portfolio? Aren’t we just messy organisms with sparks going off in all directions? That’s how I feel most of the time.”
This is from the newsletter of Emma-Lee Moss, who you might know as Emmy the Great, a musician, composer, singer and songwriter who grew up in Hong Kong and who is half-and-half* like me. She’s friends with the eclectic Dan Schreiber of numerous podcasts fame (No Such Thing As A Fish, The Cryptid Factor, We Can Be Weirdos). I heard her on episode 57 of the Weirdos podcast and checked out her work, which I really like.
* “Half-and-half” is my shorthand** for my identity as a person with mixed heritage, a French (white) father and a (Singapore) Chinese mother, who’s grown up in France and lives in the UK. There aren’t many people with this specific combination of half-and-half in public life (media, arts, TV, etc) so it’s always nice when I encounter one. Other than Emma-Lee Moss, I can think of James Wong (the botanist and horticulturalist) and Phil Wang (the comedian) and… that’s about it. Representation matters, y’all.
** I think the expression is extra funny because in south east Wales where I live, you can order “half and half” in an Indian restaurant to go with your curry. It’s half rice half chips, best of both, for people who can’t choose one over the other. It works because half rice (Chinese) half chips (European), see?
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ANYWAY.Footnotes aside, as I add more pages to this website I worry a bit that a traditional marketing person would tell me that my message is getting diluted and confusing, or something. I started with just facilitation, training and consultancy. Then I added reflective practice. Then conflict and dialogue. And now I’m drafting a page about grief work. (Where will it end? It probably won’t.) While I may have a brainwave and completely restructure everything at some point, for now my “services” (as it were) pages are multiplying. There is a common thread of relational practice, but it manifests in different forms.
A small part of me is trying to decide if that’s a good thing or not, but I actually don’t think there can be a value judgement attached, it just is. It is all the things I do, all the things I love doing, all the things I am good at doing. (Suck it, Inner Marketer.) I expect one or another of my constellation of endeavours will resonate differently with different people – so no one pigeon hole for me. Many pigeon holes, please and thank you kindly.
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash