Say Goodbye

Not long after I started to explore my artistic tendencies I came across a movie on television called Me and You and Everyone We Know. Shockingly beautiful is the way I like to describe it.

It's a movie about connections. The main characters, described on IMDB as “A lonely shoe salesman and an eccentric performance artist” who “struggle to connect in this unique take on contemporary life”, actually have depth and are well portrayed by Miranda July and John Hawkes.

But this film isn't solely about these two characters; the supporting stories are just as fascinating.

Beware though, we travel through some uncomfortable territory here. Parallel tales include a small child engaging in an adult world, and the sexual awareness of teens. When IMDB says “contemporary life” they mean the gritty, technologically shiny and often emotionally bereft 21st century, where rules and social norms are challenged constantly.

Every uncomfortable situation is tempered by the tender treatment of director and lead actor, Miranda July. It's controversial and confronting, but hugely enjoyable, and poignant.

I immediately ordered a copy of the DVD from Amazon, and wanted to know what else the fabulous Ms July had produced. That's how I discovered Learning to Love You More.

I spotted the book on Amazon and the description talked about a website that acted as collective arts hub. Upon find the website I discovered that assignments were set by a group of artists, Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher among them, and anyone was free to complete the assignments and submit the results on the website. In fact, everyone was free to submit an assignment if they wished to.

Since it's inception, many of the submissions have been exhibited in the UK, Europe and the US, and a good number appear in the book. Submissions have poured in from all over the world. Some are beautiful, some are naïve, some are puzzling. All of them are interesting.

In the years since I found the website I have submitted a couple of reports, and kept some of my favourites in mind when helping my children with their homework assignments, or being creative myself.

I did have one submission rejected on the grounds that it did not meet the rules of the assignment. The tension between being free to create something, and being constrained by very specific perimeters puts you in a forced creative space where you produce something that, perhaps is not be exactly how it would be if you had full creative control, but is actually the best you could do under the circumstances and the exercise has forced you to come up with contingencies.

It's quite liberating to accept that you can create within confines. In fact we do it all the time.

Learning to Love You More stopped taking assignment submissions on 1 May 2009. Submissions can still be seen on the website, & the assignments are still posted for anyone to complete.

The 70th and final assignment posted was Say Goodbye. Here it is:

“Sometimes it's hard to say goodbye. It just feels easier to keep holding on. But in the long run it's usually a good idea to let go, it's the daring thing to do. It allows room for new things, for transformation. And maybe the goodbye isn't even forever, but you can't know until you really say goodbye and mean it. In some cases, goodbye is really the end, and good riddance! For this assignment, say goodbye to all the things you need to let go of: bad habits, dead people, alive people, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, self-destructive feelings and behaviors, jobs, projects, re-occuring thoughts, etc.
  
Write it as a simple list:
  
Goodbye Bill.
  
Goodbye wetting the bed.
  
Good bye interrupting people when they are talking.
  
etc.
  
It can be as long or as short as you like. And, most importantly, take a moment with each one to really say goodbye. This isn't a catalogue of your fears and faults, this is a ceremony to bid them farewell. Please don't send us HELLOS, only goodbyes.”

The assignment was posted in early 2009 along with a notice that Learning to Love You More would no longer be taking submissions. Since then I've been thinking about the assignment. Not obsessively and not all the time, but it has been hovering in my mind for more than two years, just quietly musing in the background. Whenever something changed in my life or someone left I'd wonder “Is this it? Is this what I'm saying goodbye to?”

On my continuing journey of self-exploration I have often wondered about the choices I have made and want to make, whether my opinions still fit or need revising. I think about and my attitude, activities and relationships. “Would it be best to say goodbye to any of these,” I often wonder.

Since 2009 I have said goodbye, many times to lots of things. But none of them felt right for this project.

But tonight, Friday 12th November at around 8.30pm, I had a breakthrough.

I know how to Say Goodbye.