I’m finding Ed Atkins' new book Flower clever and cheeky and also way too rich for my liking. Is it true Fitzcarraldo wrap their series of non-fiction books in white paper that picks up dirt like a rubber at the bottom of a school bag so they can only be sold and sold and never, ever returned? This Atkins book is like reading someone’s decade-long Twitter timeline, except all the thoughts have been printed off, line breaks deleted, some punctuation gone too, coagulated nicely into a very insistent monologue. It’s a text made up of observations about vaping and decorating and the material limits of the body. I don’t want to return the book. That’s not what I’m getting at. I just have it in front of me now and even though it’s only been two weeks, I can see the material limits of Fitzcarraldo. This thing is turning into the recycled-paper version of itself; like it might give up being a book if I were to do a little spit on it.

Now, I don’t normally write about things before I’ve gotten to the end of them but I will probably be a fan of this Flower book eventually. I have been a fan of Ed Atkins’ work ever since I was an art student. (He is, in part, to blame for my entire life. Between his CGI characters mouthing off and singing about things I couldn’t understand at a Serpentine solo show back in 2014, and a Heather Phillipson exhibition two years later at Whitechapel Gallery full of stacks of poetry printed on A4 paper that you were allowed to slip into your pocket, I think, I learnt artists could also be writers, and I stopped making art altogether to do this instead). It’s going to take a long time before I actually finish this latest book of his because I’m only reading a few lines every now and again. I’m the one making it timeline-like because if I read it as is it’s too full on. I can feel myself being backed into the corner of a smoking area and I vowed years ago to never take part in conversations with men I couldn’t instantly bail on.

So I probably read another inch of the book at around the same frequency I wash my hair. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Because it’s so drawn out, the contents have a habit of sticking in my head. Last week, after I had squeezed the life out of another John Freida bottle, I got to a bit where Ed Atkins writes about music. He says, ‘I realize the feeling a piece of music teases by listening to it over and over. I get closer with each listen to a point of mistaken identity. This is different than thinking music is about me this is mutual. Music wants its heart found and mine too, in turn, for it. I weep with music because I am the same as it, and where it goes I mourn and envy as if I could, too.’ I enjoyed his musings even though I didn’t fully know what he was going on about. And then a few days later, I sort of thought that maybe I did know what he was going on about when I found myself unexpectedly in a crowd of hearts and music and envy at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.

I wasn’t supposed to go because it was sold out, and also I didn’t actually know it was happening. I guess it’s like not being able to see the curvature of the Earth when you’re just standing on a road. Back whenever they announced the festival, it was a big thing over there that didn’t exist because I was living in a smaller world. Long Covid went all out for our four year anniversary. Big things didn’t exist. I didn’t know this major operation would be coming to a park so close to my house that I’d be hanging washing in the yard on Friday night listening to the Biffy Clyro man twanging in the airspace between an overcast blanket-y sky and the tops of Liverpool houses. I shouldn’t have hung the washing outside that night. The North West is in drought but that man singing in the clouds finally made it rain like a good old Scottish god.

It is funny that I ended up going. I’d waited like Polly Pocket for 13 months for a prescription from my cardiologist for some last chance saloon medication called Midodrine that I wasn’t even sure would help. But then it did work, and since April I’ve been practising standing up for longer than ten minutes, and then longer than twenty, and then half hour, and then one time a whole 45 minutes; and I’ve been washing my hair in the shower much to John Frieda’s relief; and I’ve been hanging out clothes to dry and then bringing them back inside when they get rained on and it’s no big deal because, look, I can sort of move again. I’ve been going to physio. I’ve been feeling less sick. I’ve been asking Instagram if anyone has an in to this BBC festival I’ve only just found out about, and Instagram said yes, hello, I’m the headliner’s manager, I am a fan of your work, let me see what I can do.

I showed my Access Card on the way in and got a yellow wristband that gave me access to the raised platform for people who use wheelchairs or just need to sit down for a bit like I do. And so, I heard Biffy Clyro in the sky on Friday night, but by Saturday afternoon I was pissing in a portaloo. Ed Atkins’ book comes back into it now, because I was just on my own the whole time having conversations with myself in my head. He’d said ‘I realize the feeling a piece of music teases by listening to it over and over. I get closer with each listen to a point of mistaken identity.’ The music I didn’t know, I felt nothing for and was no one to it. But listening to the Blossoms’ mophead in his clean leather flares, I thought that it’s good to see musicians live before ever listening to studio albums. Might be the right order, because then you know if they are telling the truth or not. Blossoms man was true. And I suppose, if you trust the musician’s identity, it’s probably much easier to let go of your own, like having a designated driver for drink or drugs or cultural awakenings.

But the reason for my last-minute scramble to get into the park once I realised I had the health was that Wolf Alice were playing. They must be the band I’ve listened to most since Covid ate my nervous system, a band I thought I would never see live because of that nervous system having been eaten so I’d made do watching live performances on YouTube, and their visual album for the 2021 release Blue Weekend. A long rehearsal for fandom. I have listened to them enough that it’s beyond teasing the feelings out of their music at this point, and more like I’m convinced they have been whispering the answers directly to me through my headphones; as though I am so familiar with the songs that I just objectively know something impossible, some meaning that might not even be there to know. I don’t get this delusional with exhibitions, books, video games or films by the way. Music, specifically, just undoes all the logic inside my big round head.

Maybe that’s why Ed Atkins started to make more sense once I was at the festival. Sometimes I need other people to point things out before I can finally see them, or believe them enough to agree they’re probably right. He’d written, ‘This is different than thinking music is about me this is mutual. Music wants its heart found and mine too, in turn, for it.’ I was sitting on that raised platform giddy inside because every time I go outside without that death-feeling in my chest it’s like I’m hosting a surprise party for myself. But as Wolf Alice’s set drew nearer, I started to feel too far away from them to get to their heart, or to give them mine. No one was around to stop me, not even myself. So I got up and walked over wet pizza boxes making a path across drought-yellow grass. I got as close as I could to the stage and plonked my body on the ground. Polly Pocket swooping low between toy soldiers.

Those 40 minutes made me feel so much bigger. I was so close I could see the speakers shaking. I screamed the lyrics like a feral kid. And yeah, I could see them on the stage in front of me but I kept looking over at the screen to my left where the band were blown up, high contrast, IMAX heroes. I’d been in the small world so long. Is this what you’ve all been doing while I was gone? Like Ed Atkins writes in Flowers, ‘I weep with music because I am the same as it, and where it goes I mourn and envy as if I could, too.’ I didn’t cry like I thought I might. But when the camera hovered over Ellie Roswell throwing her hair back over a wind machine so that she became a possessed superhero in white latex, all I could think was how much I wanted to scream on a stage instead of in a crowd. Did I want to learn how to play the guitar? The one she played was blood red.

I wished I could FaceTime my cardiologist and show him where I was. I was so happy to be getting rained on. There was a point a few years ago after I’d spent six months housebound when I made it into the garden, felt rain on bare arms, and I jumped because it tickled so much; I’d forgotten that could happen. I was happy when Wolf Alice’s set finished and the girl in front of me said, ‘Again.’ I was happy later watching Sam Fender’s audience blur under confetti, firework smoke and nightfall. It was nice seeing kids picking up rubbish. There was a queue for ice cream before bed. I passed silhouettes of tired people sitting under trees on my way out, and when I tried to tell the taxi driver that yes, I’d had a good time, I couldn’t because my voice had gone. I’d forgotten that could happen as well.

I came back the next day wishing I was a lead singer instead of a writer who used to want to be an artist all those years ago. That Sunday, I sat at the edge of a circus tent and listened to Joy Crookes sing like I’d never heard anyone sing live before — that way I knew she was telling the truth. Joy’s guitar was black and cream. I got samosas, a can of Fanta. The rain found its way back into the schedule while I watched Liverpool band Courting who took the piss, but artistically (the same way Ed Atkins is sort of taking the piss with this book). (I’ve listened to their album every day since). Back on the raised platform to catch my breath, I watched the girl from Wet Leg flex her biceps; her guitar was covered in stickers. And by the time HAIM came out, I had wet legs. HAIM big sister Este poured a bottle of water over her head in solidarity. The three girls had four guitars between them.

I don’t really want to be a lead singer. It is probably just the passing envy Ed was talking about. Or knowing you like art even more after you learn how to paint a bit and realise it’s actually very hard; my boyfriend tried to teach me a chord shape after I arrived home talking about all the girls with guitars, and it was a bit like the time I had a lesson in Mandarin and couldn’t coax my body into the right shape. I immediately gave up my career as a musician which is good because I like writing, and I found HAIM on iPlayer so I could show him what I’d just seen. Halfway through, the camera looked over its shoulder at the crowd and I jumped because I could recognise myself in the bubble bath of heads. I know now that: I realize the feeling a piece of writing teases by reading it over and over. I get closer with each read to a point of mistaken identity. This is different than thinking writing is about me this is mutual. Writing wants its heart found and mine too, in turn, for it.

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