The 100 Days final event, part of the London Word Festival, happened almost a week ago, but I’m still recovering. Not from the strain of the ‘upping, but from the 100-day sized hole it’s left in my life.
The final event itself was pretty good – an excellent line up of comedians in the makeshift front room, with an audience space of couches and carpets. And a beautifully done up museum of projects in the back room behind the bar. The crowd was a good two hundred plus, split between project participants and regular mortals who hadn’t endured the hundred day ordeal.
There was less celebration than I wanted, and more unpolished performance than I was expecting. Performance which was by turns, confessional, whimsical, hilarious, off-kilter, and poignant.
I met a few of my fellow hundred dayers, in and around the 100 Day Museum. And I found the show itself to be engaging and funny. But I dearly missed the celebratory whooping and high-fiving that I had imagined would be part of the completion of this project.
As the evening wore on I realized, I was missing was some closure. In the symbolic sense, but also the literal one: I hadn’t done my final hundred press-ups.
I saved them for that evening on the understanding there would be some sort of group finale, but it became clear there was going to be no big group photo-op, no massage circle, no conga line, no shouting to the sky.
So during the final act of the show I snuck into the 100 Days Museum – which was empty save for one person.
And I took my jacket off, dropped down onto the cement floor, amid the projects and a single stranger, and did 50 press ups.
All at once. With no break.
A personal best.
Then I did 30.
Then I did 20.
By this time a few more people had wandered into the back, perhaps like myself, seeking some closure.
One of them, Lizzie Poulton, gave me the piece of lego pictured above. It is a piece of lego art from Daniel Weir, based on my project. I said my goodbyes.
Then I cycled home, feeling like the project had finally come full circle.
I can now focus myself on my next project, a solo show for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
