Our Directive: Celebrating the Everyday

We want to find out about how people celebrate the everyday. We have devised a few categories that involve elements of everyday. You can focus on one topic, or pick and choose any of the elements as you feel. Be creative! You don’t have to write a standard diary (although this is fine!). This could be a poem, drawing, or some docu-poetry.

 

 Docu-poetry: poetry that combines non-literary texts. For example poems could contain fragments of newspaper articles, biographies, blogs or archives. This could convey your interpretation of the original documents, or create an original response. You might like to cut out and stick sections, or arrange them on the page and take a photograph. 

 

Laughter

What is something that makes you laugh no matter how many times you encounter it? It doesn’t matter when this was, it could be yesterday or ten years ago. Think about who you were with, did they also find it funny? What were your surroundings, did they make the situation funnier, or was it funny because it was an ‘inappropriate’ setting to be laughing? Can you describe the joke word for word or was it more a general feeling or ‘you had to be there’ situation? Are there particular people you can’t help but laugh when you’re around?

 

Neighbours and friends

Think about how you share your everyday with others, it may be someone you bump into most days, like a neighbour or shopkeeper. Tell us about your longest friendship, or your grandparents. What is a memory that stands out to you? How has your perception of friendship over time changed? You may like to think about what effect the pandemic has had on your perception of your relationships? Do you like making new friends, staying close to old ones or are you a lone wolf? You could describe your best friend, the person you feel closest to or someone you would like to be close to (real, imaginary, fictional or even a celebrity). 

 

Where I live

Is where you live different from where you grew up? What are similarities and differences between where you live now and somewhere you have lived before? Is the environment different, warmer or colder, more urban? Have the people who surround you day-to-day changed? How would you describe ‘home’? Is it a physical place or more of a feeling? Is there someone that feels like ‘home’? You could explore the idea of ‘what makes a house a home’ or an ‘ideal’ home. 
 

Celebrations

How do you celebrate the everyday? Is there a specific thing that you feel like you celebrate everyday? Do any of your daily rituals celebrate something? Do you have any family traditions?

Tell us about the last party, wedding, or funeral you went to. Describe the minor details- the people you interacted with, the music played, the food, the setting.  What were you feeling? How close were you to the people there? 

 What would your ideal party be?- Where would you have it? Who would you invite? What music would you play? What would you choose to celebrate if given the choice?

 

Dreams

You could describe your dream from last night, or the most recent dream you remember. Perhaps you have a favourite ever dream, or something you often daydream about. If your dreams are difficult for you to remember you could try to draw any visual memories, or describe the feeling the dream gave you. Were there any significant features of the dream that stand out, or any that you can’t quite grasp? Do you have any recurring dreams? Have you ever looked up the meanings or significance of specific dreams?