Written by Juliet Colyer, Trainee Music Leader supporting the Creative Encounters artist team
Connection. We all crave it. A shared look, a touch of our hands, a joining of sounds. In this space I feel humbled again and again. With each week that passes I have a new level of respect and awe for the people who live and work here and I realise I am privileged to share time with the wisdom that is in these walls.
This deep connection comes and goes. It can be fleeting or drawn out, verbal or not. A roll of till receipt becomes a vehicle for one of the most beautiful moments of group connection so far: the end is passed around, threaded through chairs, around arms, into fingers, around the spike of my cello. And then, after individuals have drawn on, fiddled with and investigated, it is almost as if it is suddenly discovered by the group as a whole. All other sound dies, all eyes come to rest on the thin ring of white joining us together. The circle is connected and we are one. It makes the most brilliant noises – a kind of tiny rustling music envelops us for a minute.
And then it is gone – the focus breaks, as does the paper. The groups’ attention re-forms into smaller pockets and other music, other movement, other making starts. But it is still with us – even now almost a week on I can recapture that feeling when I am still, and remember those people with whom I connected for a moment.
