A few words about the place
Writing always begins in several places, in layers. I could list many starting points that led to this present play, and they would all be accurate and relevant. But I am going to share one beginning, one instance of lived experience that, further down the line, influenced the writing of sky every day.
In June 2014, my partner and I rented a cottage for a week in an outer archipelago. The island itself was fantastic, but it became immediately obvious it was not for humans. Our arrival coincided with the nesting season and we were there only for a week. After us, there would be new guests and new guests after them. Intruders. Disturbance. Never had I felt my presence, my body, to be such a concrete threat and disturbance as it was on that island. We genuinely did not belong there. The island is the birds’, and I am sorry that we were yet another threat to them – and a wholly unnecessary one at that.
One of the beginnings of writing was an attempt to directly address that experience. It quickly ground to a halt because there was nothing to ask or negotiate. We, as humans, do not belong on these kinds of islands. Our job is to leave the birds be, to give way, to move aside. But if we do find ourselves there, the use of space must be subject to a fair and thorough negotiation. We have to consider the needs of species other than our own.
This beach, where the play has found its rightful place, is subject to more active negotiations. The seagulls are there only for the fish, not to settle down. The humans are there to holiday in familiar surroundings; in a destination that is almost identical to all other beach resorts. They are not there to stay either. Both species' time on the beach is temporary.
The flocks of humans and the flocks of gulls are surprisingly similar in their activities. Right now, life is bountiful, easy, playful, and ordinary. Preening, oiling, feeding, and sometimes regurgitating the excess. On this beach and in these rooms, I was able to ask the question that guided the writing: What is the right distance?
Pipsa Lonka
