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October 5, 2009 Chris Cox

Want A Year

This evening I drove over to the picturesque village of Haslemere for dinner with my friend Ben. We’ve been chums since University and Ben has always helped me with my magic work. He took an interest in it when I first started at Uni and I’ve kinda roped him in ever since. He’s worked on all my shows with me, developing them, making magic happen, filming and editing videos, finding funnies, all that stuff. This year was the first year he didn’t come up to Edinburgh with me, but still was vital in the creation of the show.

As many people will have noticed today felt like the first day of autumn, it was cold, windy and foggy. On the drive to Ben’s I realised it was this time a year ago that I was on tour. Ben acting as the tour manager, me as the magical performing monkey that I am. It’s a cliche I know, but doesn’t time fly. In fact it was exactly a year ago today that we had the first night of the tour at The Hawth in Crawley, it was notable for the fact it was the only time on the whole tour that we kicked around the football I brought to kick around on tour, and my older sister Nik saw me perform for the first time. How things have changed since then.

I ponder upon how I’ve changed as a person in a year. I know I’ve grown as a performer, I know I was a much better performer at the end of that tour than at the start of it, I know I have to shave more than once a week now (but still not daily.. yes I’m a weird manchild type thing) but what else has changed. I look at how I’ve changed in the last few months more so than in the last year, I analyise the differences between me in the early Summer to how I am now, rather than the difference of 365 days, I think about what I I want.

I was listening to the (500) Days Of Summer soundtrack in the car and The Smiths Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want came on, a beautiful song… not as good as Ask, but up there. It made me think about what I want. Last year I wanted to do a UK tour. I did it, but now what? Do we ever know what we really want? Some say we don’t know what we had till we lost it, some say we never can get what we want, others say can I have extra chips, but they weren’t listening to the question. We often tend to think about the things we want rather than what we have, we focus on how getting something will cause change rather than enjoying things that are here, right in front of us. We spend hours thinking about what could have been, we are constantly either looking back or towards the future, to what might be and how we can make it so. We hope we get what we want, we think it’ll change us and make everything okay, but whose to say whether it will or won’t. The only thing I don’t think we do enough, or at least I don’t do enough is enjoy the here and now, to focus on what’s going on in front of our eyes, of what’s in our heads, our hearts and our souls right now. How we can make the most of what we have rather than living in a state of constant desire.

Back to The Smiths, they ask to get what they want this time. It’d be great if we always got what we wanted, there are things I’d love to get, but I know that life would be dull if you really got all you wanted, it’d be nowhere near as fun if you did just get what you want, because, in essence, searching for what we want, fighting for it, thinking about it, just simply wanting it, that’s what make life exciting, interesting and constantly surprising. That said. It’d be nice to get what I want, just this time.

Comments (2)

  1. Focusing on the now instead of the past (or the future) is such an excellent reminder. Being home (back in the US) after such a long and fantastic time in England, it’s very easy to feel sad that I’m no longer having the adventures I had. Better to take the love and fun and energy I got from all the people I met (including you!) and take it with me to move on and appreciate what I’ve learned and how happy I feel now. Thanks for that. 🙂

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