FOR three months I’ve been living in a bubble – not literally, not a soapy one, not in bubble gum. It’s not a bubble that I see before me, sensible to feeling or to sight, but rather it’s a bubble of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the tour oppressed brain (10 points for spotting what I did there).
Indeed this psychological, metaphorical bubble formed around me as soon as I set foot in Tobermory 11 weeks ago, and has encased me all throughout the rehearsal and tour of Mull Theatre’s Macbeth, which ends tonight at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews.
From within my bubble, the outside world looks blurred and distant. Even the squeals, crunches and crashes of global markets barely penetrate – I might as well be floating in space. My cares in the world beyond the bubble have faded from view, or at least fallen out of focus, and all my attention has been on the play, the cast, the latest gig, our next meal, crosswords, DVDs, books, pubs, and whatever else falls within my limited sphere.
I have been watching TV and reading newspapers, not without interest, but with the detached perspective of somebody reading fiction, or observing some distant planet.
Bubbles like these often happen on theatre tours, especially when they take you to wee, remote places like Lochcarron, Tobermory, Portree, Resolis, Gairloch. In these places – especially on the islands - it is easy to forget that the rest of the world exists.
Time slows down; everything looks, sounds and feels different. The space and air around you is vast; the landscape beautiful. Naturally, my mind focuses differently, and unless you happen to be in the play, the car, or pub with me, you might as well be on some distant planet.
Playing central belt venues last week and St Andrews this week has brought us closer to Earth again, and provided vital decompression from two months in the Highlands and islands. But when the lights go down on tonight’s final show, my little MacBubble, which once flew high up in the clouds, will finally burst and I’ll be back in the world again tomorrow . . . or Monday – Tuesday at the latest.
I’ve loved this tour, and my MacBubble existence, but it will be quite good to snap out of it and tune into the rest of my life again. I have so much catching up to do with family, friends, colleagues, bills, exercise, housework, missed birthday apologies (so sorry Nichola, Anne, Susan – shame on me!) – If I was organised enough to have a post- tour to-do list, it would be endless.
After what has felt like a long holiday away from it all, I look forward to taking more of an active interest in world events, and feeling something, anything but numbness about the crunch, or apathy about the fate of our prime minister, or mere nausea at the prospect of a Tory government.
It will also be good to switch my brain on to new projects, and new plays – with which I’ll be working extensively in the coming weeks. It has been an absolute joy working on Macbeth, and with the company, whom I’ll miss horribly after the show ends tonight.
Regular readers will be familiar with Sarah the Witch, my mischievous sidekick and fellow MacBubble dweller, who is not just about to re-enter the world, but will be disappearing to the other side of it for a long witchy holiday. So it will be strange not to have her hubbling and bubbling about – casting spells, losing stuff, cackling loudly, cracking jokes, losing stuff, asking for the time, losing stuff, and occasionally finding it again, riding on her broom (did I mention that she loses stuff? – I’ve never known the like).
I’ll be witchless, sidekick-less and without the daily challenge of looking for lost keys, cards, money, you name it – which makes me kind of sad.
But new challenges (not involving lost property) await, besides all the catching up I’ll have to do next week. I’m looking forward to getting back to normality, but intimidated by this endless to-do list I’ve yet to write. Mainly I’m just worried that I’ve forgotten how to function outside the MacBubble. Will I remember how to structure my own day, cook my own food, use the gym (which I need to do desperately)? Will my friends still be speaking to me after months of neglect?
How do I make up for forgetting all those birthdays, especially my sister’s? (again, so sorry Nichola) Will my niece and nephews recognise me?
Will I recognise me? Am I going to stress about the credit crunch (a very burst bubble indeed), or the fate of Gordon Brown, or the rise of the Conservatives, or the US elections? Will I slip into old patterns of behaviour, pre-MacBubble, or will I start afresh?
Where one bubble bursts, others can form, so maybe I’ll just slip into some other kind of bubble. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and needn’t blur out the rest of the world entirely to the point where normal life seems like a distant planet.
Sometimes it’s thrilling to be absorbed and focused in on something, like a work project, or a sporting challenge, or some vocation, passion, hobby, book, whatever.
These bubbles form a prism through which to view the world – often with better clarity. Some bubbles can pull the world into focus rather than blurring it out.
Arguably we are always in one bubble or another. Perhaps bubbles are just different perspectives. Perhaps we exist in groups of bubbles, all at the same time, encompassing work, relationships, family, and so on. Being in bubbles need not necessarily disconnect us from the rest of the world. These bubbles may all share the same cosmic bath, or the same galactic glass of champagne.
One thing’s for sure, when my MacBubble bursts, sad as I’ll be, I’ll definitely be reaching for the bubbly.