Ceòl Aig Baile

Karine Polwart in today’s edition of her email newsletter:

My home, like some of yours too, I’m sure, has become a place of industry these past two months. I’m a writer, so my kitchen has long been a working environment (and I don’t just mean the dishes and the laundry). But my home has never before been a place of performance, a place into which strangers are invited to peer. To be frank, it requires a whole lot more hoovering and tidying than I can ordinarily be bothered with. And then there’s the need for careful curation. I mean, how clever and idiosyncratic are my books? How manky is that carpet? Where am I going to stash all these non-minimalist piles of guff out of camera view? And how is anyone else, distantly appraising my home, supposed to know that so much of the stuff in this or that shot, represents memories, kindnesses, gifts and losses, rather than any innate aesthetic sensibility I’d want to stake my identity on?

Ocht, who cares, really, given what’s upon us? It’s vanity. Still, it’s oddly unsettling on an intimate, personal level.

We’ve gone through a similar version of the same thing this week: Oliver’s workers have been supporting him based out of our house rather than from Stars for Life, which is turned our home from being a private hideout into a more public workspace. Meaning that I need to be more attentive about dishes left on the table, socks left on the floor, and toilets left without fresh hand towels. To say nothing of losing a place to escape when the exegencies of work become too much.

Not quite the same as opening our home to YouTube, but a change nonetheless.