Ep20 Discombobulation and Mind Clarity - Ruthie Oldershaw

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Luke 00:00:05  Welcome to another episode of Impro Pod. My guest today is Ruth, the older Shaw.

Ruthie  00:00:10  Hi. So I'm good friends with Saskia. Luke's little sister, who was on the podcast. We went to school together and I live just down the road in South Brent, Devon girl.

Luke 00:00:25  So I'm going to play you a piece of music, and I want you to tell me anything that makes you think of. So that's any sort of emotion. Feelings, thoughts, ideas could be as abstract or as specific as you like.

Ruthie  00:01:52  Wow. It's beautiful. I did a lot of ballet when I was younger and I did a lot of dancing. Every time I listen to music, I made up dancers in my head, so I find it quite difficult. I'm listening to music, not just imagine dancers and choreographies in my mind with that one. When I first close my eyes, I was on a beach, but it was quite an abstract beach and the sun was rising but spinning at the same time. And then I think my mind is a little bit chaotic.

Ruthie  00:02:20  So then it just went into lots of people spinning.

Luke 00:02:23  So tell me about the abstract beach. What do you mean?

Ruthie  00:02:26  So almost like someone had painted it. The sun was if you were to draw a sun like the yellow circle with triangular rays just and spinning around the kids painting, when I imagine people dancing, it's more people interacting. I'm not good at dancing, but I love spinning around and having fun with friends and dancing that. But in my mind it's very fluid.

Luke 00:02:54  So you are for telling me some sort of story?

Ruthie  00:02:56  Yeah. A story that comes to mind is when I got really lost on Dartmoor. When you're growing up and the feeling of getting lost is such a visceral thing, isn't it? I love how Dartmoor. It feels like you can go up there and be like a guest in Dartmoor space, but it's its own presence, isn't it? Really beautiful? Strong presence. I got really into running just after Covid, when I'd been working lots, and I didn't have any running shoes at that point.

Ruthie  00:03:25  I just had normal vans and I just left the house with no real plan and just ran. When I found that with running, it could just completely clear my mind. Such an amazing feeling. One day I took my dog Lyra and my sister's dog, Jensen for a run up on Dartmoor. I'd run up to the dam. It was autumn time, the evenings drawing in. Much earlier. I saw this path and I thought, oh, it looks a little trail run. I'll. I'll go down there and started running down, and I was listening to a storybook and having a great time, and it was probably forest, and I didn't have my phone on me, and I had ran off the track and suddenly I had no idea where I was. And I was getting dark, started getting quite cold, and then I couldn't find my way back. And I ended up down at the bottom in a bog, and there were lights at the end of the field, and I just kept on thinking, oh, if I just carry on going forward, I'll get there.

Ruthie  00:04:29  It's almost like Dartmoor plays tricks on you, I think. You think you're going in the right direction. But then I would be like, I'm actually getting further away. Yeah, it was quite a memorable night. We got very wet in the bog. It got completely dark. It was a couple of hours until I did find my way back, and I sort of actually trespass, I think. But I made it back.

Luke 00:04:53  All right. So I'm going to break your story down into sections. First of all you've got this sense of stress, anxiety. You've come back from work in Covid times where you were working at the hospital and then the running, the determination there. And then there's this sense of, oh, that doesn't look quite right. I'm not quite sure the descent of being lost. And then at the end, the realization once you've got lost. So that's the narrative points that I'm going to work on. So how did that reflect on your story?

Ruthie  00:07:47  I could feel a lot of the Anxiety.

Ruthie  00:07:51  Stress in the music. You know, when you're describing yourself being stressed, you don't zone in too much. But then the music, it's impossible not to really zone in because it's.

Luke 00:08:01  Because it's quite discordant in that it's a sense of, oh, it's not right.

Ruthie  00:08:06  Yeah. It made me want to get up and run.

Luke 00:08:07  And then when you were running before you got lost, I was thinking about Chariots of Fire. Not with the classic theme, the stuff that's underneath that kind of grounding. So staying on one note kind of tone. And then I started using, I think it's triplets trying to get into the rhythm of the running, what that kind of sounds like on the piano and then gradually distorted the harmony a bit. And then the lost theme came. Yeah.

Ruthie  00:08:38  Yeah. And there was also the sense of amazement at our world and at Dartmoor and nature. It was a really misty, not nice weather. Like I'd rather stay inside.

Luke 00:08:50  Because you didn't mention that in the story, but I was imagining that when I was playing it.

Luke 00:09:00  So you have to tell me another story then?

Ruthie  00:09:02  Yeah, okay. When I was investing in the summers, I was still working as a student midwife, so I had to stay in Northampton. I moved into this student accommodation that was right by the hospital, and I was living in a room on one of the top floors, and it was one of those rooms with the, job cards. So it kind of locks automatically. And I left in the room and I went out to go and have a shower, and I didn't remember to bring my towel with me. And then I realised that I had now locked myself out of my bedroom and was in. Didn't have anything to wear. So I remember I picked up the bathmat and also maybe this would be a good cover. And I thought, that's not going to work. I use the toilet roll and like wrapped and made myself literally a bodysuit of toilet roll. And then I had to walk down all of the stairs and go down to the security and explain the situation that I've accidentally locked myself out of my bedroom and I don't have a towel, so that's why I'm currently just wearing toilet roll.

Luke 00:10:16  Do you do that like mummify yourself? Yeah. Wow.

Ruthie  00:10:19  But it worked effectively. It was actually fine. He was really sweet. He. I think he was trying not to laugh. He definitely did have a little giggle. He lent me a jacket to wear. And yeah, he was really nice. And it was just funny. It was okay. I learned the lesson. Yeah. I didn't shower before. Okay. No, no, I. I really liked that. I thought it was good in my head. It's very light hearted, but I don't know if it's because I've turned it that way in my head. Whereas at the time I probably was a bit freaked out. It wasn't a negative moment. Maybe I wasn't positive. I'm often getting myself into embarrassing or sticky situations, funny situations.

Luke 00:12:30  So to be more like.

Ruthie  00:12:51  Yeah, that was it. That was definitely cool.

Luke 00:12:54  Okay. For the others, maybe I was addressing it to you.

Ruthie  00:12:56  Seriously, that little bit you did then reminded me a bit of the snow man.

Ruthie  00:13:01  The dancing theme sounded a bit. You know what I mean?

Luke 00:13:04  I can't, I can picture the song.

Ruthie  00:13:06  Where they all go out and then they're all having, like, a ceilidh.

Luke 00:13:15  What's your relationship to improvisation?

Ruthie  00:13:18  I have absolutely no musical talent at all, but I've done a lot of improvising through dance. Not for years now, but I think it's still in me to want to do it.

Luke 00:13:30  When you first learned to dance. Do you remember anything about that?

Ruthie  00:13:34  I just remember being at school, not being able to concentrate any kind of movement. And my mind clears a bit and with dancing, I'd notice my mind would clear. And time moves differently. And I guess people talk about the flow states and stuff. If I'm still. My mind is busy but frozen. Yeah.

Luke 00:13:52  So if I was to improvise to going into this flow state.

Ruthie  00:13:56  So starting with my usual state now my mind's like, and then going into the chilled state. Yeah, I liked the beginning bit. It was good business, but it fell almost a bit sad.

Ruthie  00:15:12  It's busy, but it's not a bad busy. It's more happy, chaotic.

Luke 00:15:17  I was trying to go for happy chaotic, but I didn't think I quite managed it.

Speaker 3 00:15:46  Let's get.

Luke 00:15:47  I'm making something that it's a bit incoherent, but it's got this happy quality to it.

Ruthie  00:15:58  A night shift is an emotional roller coaster for me, because I get so anxious about night shifts so that before I go to work, it's a bit of anxiety. It's just a normal day because the night shifts are very busy on the maternity ward and they're about 4 a.m. energy levels really drop, and then after night shift, I have this. It's a bit like a toddler. I'm so sad. So sad. When I first started doing them, I'd cry after every night shift and then having a moment of like, I'm just really tired.

Luke 00:16:29  I think when there's a lot going on, your brain suppresses the tiredness, you know, and you're in a hospital, which I imagine is really bright lights. Yeah yeah yeah.

Ruthie  00:16:38  Can't really be chilled sleepy vibes on them.

Ruthie  00:16:40  Turn to I guess you're so used to all night forcing yourself to stay awake I struggled to sleep a night after night. But my favorite word that I started using after doing nights and days and being all over the place, which is a horrible, I think, impossible to play, is discombobulated. Isn't that cool? Wet when it just feels bits of you a bit all over the place when you walk and you're like, oh, I think I left a little bit of my brain there and you're kind of like, I'm not sure if it's daytime or nighttime or what my name is.

Luke 00:17:17  Your sense of reality has been distorted.

Ruthie  00:17:19  Yeah.

Luke 00:17:21  It distorted, but not in a in a sinister way.

Ruthie  00:17:24  Yeah.

Luke 00:17:26  And I can imagine hospitals that there's constant stuff going on, people and emotions and people getting upset about things.

Ruthie  00:17:33  At times don't really mean anything because Night shifts just as busy as days. It's a 24 hour thing, which I think it's a weird day. Yeah.

Luke 00:17:42  So I'm going to play soundtrack to the Discombobulation and.

Ruthie  00:17:46  Okay, cool.

Luke 00:17:47  Read the latest hit. The chaos, the running around. It's nighttime. You're having to do stuff constantly or experiencing a lot of different things. And then this odd tiredness it crash. Yeah. Okay.

Ruthie  00:18:02  Energy crash. That was so good. There was a real moment of the crash. Yeah. I kept trying to carry on when you're so tired. could feel that.

Luke 00:19:52  Might have quite fragmented experience into the tiredness that. Yeah. Would be at the end of the shift. Yeah.

Ruthie  00:20:00  No, that was cool. I really like that.

Luke 00:20:02  What do you think you got out of this podcast?

Ruthie  00:20:04  Firstly, it was just really cool hearing everything translated into music. Music is really important, isn't it? You feel it in your skin. I think it also made me reflect on thinking about my mind being really busy, and the difference with the when I am moving, and.

Luke 00:20:22  Probably quite beneficial to be aware of that you gain a sense of self-awareness by saying, oh look, I'm chaotic today.

Luke 00:20:31  Okay? Let's go. And then working out ways to create this sense of space.

Ruthie  00:20:36  Because always I'm trying to make everything lighthearted and fun. And then that in music is so one thing. But it made me think that actually I don't have to be super fan all the time. You know, it made me want to connect more to that, because if you think of it as in music, yeah, you wouldn't want to just listen to like really chaotic, loud, happy sounds all the time.

Luke 00:21:00  Yeah. And I think that you don't have to explain it because it's music. Yeah. And so you can say quite a lot of stuff, which might be really hard to talk about just by being emotive and playing in a certain way. Yeah. It's just amazing really, because you don't have to process it in an intellectual way. I don't anyway. Some people might. It explains itself. You don't have to explain it. Well, thanks very much for being on the podcast.

Ruthie  00:21:24  Thank you. I had a lovely time.

Luke 00:21:27  Join us next week for another episode of Impro Pod. Thanks for listening.