An extract from PINCH ME

I am swimming. It is very late, or perhaps early in the morning.
Time is irrelevant. Out and out I swim into the softened landscape,
with the dark sky the same temperature as the water and the water
the same temperature as me. I might be flying, for all I can tell.
All is velvet and all is alone, the ocean beneath me mirroring the
impossible depth of the night sky. And all I know in this moment
is that this moment is now. With such an astounding and rare
certainty I am – for just one instant – present, real and right here.
The water delineates and expounds me.

***

Intimate, impassioned and full of humour, PINCH ME follows art historian Francesca Ramsay’s far-reaching journey in search of answers to one of life’s most complex and essential questions: What does it mean to feel real? Tackling this ancient subject through a contemporary lens, PINCH ME is a raw, lyrical reflection on finding connection with oneself, one another and the modern world. Ramsay investigates what it is to experience reality, the reasons so many of us are feeling the lack of it today, and crucially, how we might be able to get it back.