It’s that time of year again. Recharged after a Summer holiday, I always love coming back to London, to walk on Hampstead Heath and sense the tiniest chill in the air - that sharpness of a new season, announcing change. I suddenly have an endless energy for dreadful projects that I haven’t been able to muster all year: the bathroom has a leak, the carpets need to be cleaned and the old folders in the box next to my desk are gathering dust. How did I leave it there untouched for so long?
With the post Summer clean-up comes a need for tidying the mind. Will next year be the year I finish my memoir? Can I find the energy to delve into the Arts Council website, to see if the classes I have been leading voluntarily – using art to improve mental health and wellbeing – would be eligible for funding? When did I last send out a blog to my loyal subscribers – you? Well, at least that last one is hereby resolved.
In the midst of this frenzy, I nearly forgot that some time ago I signed up for a taster session with an organisation called ‘She Leads Change’. The conditions at home are not ideal. The carpet cleaner is in the living room, and he is almost two hours late, thereby missing my carefully planned slot when our sensitive guard dog is out with the dogwalker. So I am stuck in the tv room with a dog anxiously monitoring the street, ready for bursts of excessive barking. Well at least there’s the ‘mute’ button. And come to think of it, I might as well use the ‘video off’ button too and eat my lunch. Haven’t we become so efficient since the miraculous appearance of Zoom?
‘Welcome everyone!’ the facilitator says, greeting five black screens and one human being,
‘We are a small group and the session is going to be quite interactive, so I would appreciate it if you turned on your cameras.’ Alas, no lunch.
Having all said what brought us to the sessions, we are asked to do an exercise: in pairs, we should talk for three minutes each about what it means for us to be a leader. But just at the moment I find myself in a break-out room with a young girl zooming in from Australia (who left briefly to change from her pyjamas, so was probably expecting an impersonal webinar just like me), my son rocks up outside with to ask if he and his friends can hang in the tv room for a while. Or at least that’s what I think he asked – I can’t hear very well over the dog barking and the humming of the carpet cleaning machine.
‘No! I’m in a meeting and there is nowhere else to sit!’ I shout. My son retreats looking rather surprised; maybe he has forgotten that when his mother is at home, she works sometimes too. I admit, it’s hard to tell when I am in cut-off shorts with hair turned grey from all that swimming in the sea.
Back in the breakout room, the facilitator has taken the Australian girl’s place.
‘Breathe,’ she says kindly, seeing my frazzled state right through the screen. Did I ever manage to put that Zoom filter on?
After I apologise she repeats the question. What does it mean for you to be a leader?
’Hmmm, I work freelance, so I don’t really lead people as such. I lead myself, in a way.’ The facilitator nods patiently. The other party is supposed to listen without reacting. I babble on.
’Being a leader is about having a clear purpose and communicating that to the people I am trying to reach. It’s about not always reacting to opportunities but creating them.’ I straighten my shoulders.
‘Actually, what I really need is to claim the space and time for myself.’
A room of my own, I want to add, but that sounds a little bit too basic and not at all leader-like. I am relieved to be ejected from the break-out room the moment my daughter storms in.
‘Mum, the door is wide open! Anyone can just walk in!’
‘Well hello to you too, sweetie. How was your sleepover?’
‘Why haven’t they finished my carpet yet? I need to do my make-up and there’s a chair on my bed. ‘
I sigh and sit back behind my desk. The meeting is almost over and everyone is asked to say what struck us from the three-minutes talk of our partner.
‘The word that stuck with me from Sabine is “focus’’, the facilitator says.
So here’s my focus for you. Here’s to a new season, and here’s to change. Not the micro-changes of a new website or a new blog-style, but the long-lasting ones – making the world a better place to live, however small the changes are that we can individually make. Art can do this, I truly believe that. And I hope to convey that in everything I do, whether it is writing about artists I feel have something relevant to say, introducing new people to art, teaching future art historians in schools, or giving well-seasoned collectors an interesting angle that challenges and surprises them.
I hope you will stick with me on this adventure. And maybe, as your new project for the new season, you will book that birthday tour or that company outing or that enrichment session in your classroom.
I would love to be your guide.