CAMI went to an organ concert at Selwyn and, for the first time, my body felt quiet
Linseigh Green spent much of her Master’s at the Institute of Continuing Education in lockdown, but that was the least of her challenges.
Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here
Barbra Streisand
I love the message of this song: that when you feel sad and want to stay buried deep underground in the soil, you should come up like a plant because it’s lovely up here, it’s safe above ground. I started my Master’s in Creative Writing at Cambridge in 2019, and it quickly moved to Zoom because of Covid. The following couple of years had many challenges: my aunt, who I had been caring for, passed away; my parent was diagnosed with cancer; and my uncle died suddenly. I began passing out and then I was hospitalised with paralysis on the right side of my body. I was in so much pain I wanted to rip off my skin. Later, I would be diagnosed with a functional neurological disorder that was probably related to the necrotising enterocolitis I’d survived as a baby, but at the time I didn’t know what was going on and I hid in my room. Strangely, the only thing I could work on was radio plays, which I had got into during lockdown – I couldn’t read anything except scripts, or speak except my lines.
The Beauty is
Adam Guettel and Kello O' Hara
In the musical The Light in the Piazza there’s a girl called Clara, and she has a disability of some kind. The way she thinks is different to others – she has a simple, inquisitive fascination, her own beautifully unique wavelength. A friend introduced me to one of the songs, The Beauty Is; she wanted me to sing it to her, and I started to understand my neurodivergence. Cambridge is full of gorgeous, nerdy people, like an island of misfit toys. It would be quite usual for us to be at a party discussing simulation theory and the JSTOR database. It wasn’t weird, it was just how it was. My brain floats sometimes, I retreat into myself and people can react strangely to it. But I began to see it as a gentle coping mechanism – just my own way, and that it could be fine.
Out There
Tom Hulce and Tony Jay
Hiding in my Cambridge bedroom in May 2021, I watched a lot of Disney films. The Hunchback is a human, but society projects ‘monster’ onto him. When your body does so many crazy things it becomes a foreign object, to be poked and prodded by doctors, and I started to relate to the Hunchback. I had always been able to ensure my disability blended in until Cambridge, but developing the neurological disorder and having to walk with a stick changed that. Instead, I learned you can be smart but still need help. My supervisor, Midge Gillies, made me prioritise my health, and Monique at the Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre made me go for a walk every day and take a picture of something beautiful. Having my brain shut down while at Cambridge could have been humiliating, but instead it shaped my philosophy. It helped me realise I could be an actor – and is the reason I do all the things I do now.
Organ symphony No.1 in D minor
Louis Vierne
During that period when I was in so much pain, I went to an organ concert at Selwyn and, for the first time, my body felt quiet. It started a bit of an obsession with organs! In July 2021, I went to Canterbury Cathedral and this piece was played again. Again, I felt quiet and peace in my body, like the heavens were raining on my head. Two years later, haunted by the song, I wrote to Canterbury Cathedral with the date and time, and they wrote back and told me its name.
Linseigh Green is a writer, actor, singer, producer, rare disease activist and winner of Disability Champion at the Black British Theatre Awards 2024. She completed her studies at the Institute of Continuing Education in 2022.
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