Lives in Brighton
Age 56
Writer, performer, steward gallery explainerAt work at Royal Pavilion, Brighton
On the stairs at home with her black cat
What I find positive is that I’m not on any particular career trajectory. I’ve got a wealth of experience and have embraced the fact that I’m a failed actress. The acting gave me a great foundation for so many other things. I was able to write, enjoy and re- visit all of those wonderful artists I’d had to rush through exploring.The other turning you make in your life is the realisation that sometimes when challenging things happen something great comes out of it. It’s bit like the lotus flower that’s on murky waters but produces this beautiful flower.
I did feel a bit invisible and I couldn’t fall back on my looks or my sexuality any more, but I can now actually talk to anybody . That’s really freeing. If I don’t feel like I look that good it doesn’t really matter, because nobody’s going to notice me anyway You tend to let your expectations go. I really love older women, but it’s important to have all different aged people in your life, but particularly older women that you like. If I see a woman looking uncomfortable, I will speak for myself, whereas I didn’t have that before. It’s lovely when I recognise an anxiety in someone that I’ve had before. I can tell them it doesn’t matter
I do a lot of talking at work because I’m meeting and greeting visitors who come in, and part of my job is to enhance. I like doing that, but sometimes when I come back and there’s people coming round and I know that I will be doing a lot more talking, I have to go silent. I really do have to withdraw. I need to feel rested. I was always a really energetic person who could party all night, and still get up the next day. Now, I do need to be like a cliché of an oil painting that needs to be restored in a darkened room.
I like watching mind-numbing T.V. I like being in the kitchen as well, it’s like an artist’s studio. I like finding the herbs that are in the garden. If you put sage in a tea bag, it’s quite good for hot flushes, apparently. I like nettle tea and also mugwort - you can have quite lucid dreams when you’ve had that.
I still believe in love, it transcends everything. I’ve learnt to trust my spirituality now. I’m not angry about anybody else’s beliefs, that’s their thing. If it comes from love, there’s a chance. Sometimes that’s difficult, you have to make difficult decisions. I’m having that with my son at the moment and I have to just leave it. That’s hard, because I feel I know what’s good for him. I believe that people are on their own journeys. Sometimes I just have to withdraw because it’s not for me to influence that, it’s their choice.