There are buds on the tree outside my window. Bright, bright green. That kind of acidic green. Sour apples. New shoots. The ‘April showers’ saying has been very accurate this month. Sunshine while the rain smatters your car windscreen. Hail one moment, clear skies the next. Clouds that roll in like an attack, unleash, retreat. These last few days have been glorious, though. A taste of summer days to come.
I’ve been in a creative rut. I’ve been, if I’m honest, exhausted. I’ve felt unable to sit with the blank page because it requires of me an energy and an honesty I haven’t felt I’ve had these last couple of months. It’s why this newsletter took an accidental hiatus. I faced some rejection regarding a big grant I was very hopeful to get at the end of February and found myself floundering a little, uncertain of what direction the year would go in now. And I still don’t know, if I’m being honest. The unknown feels tougher than normal, feels more constrictive and scary.
But in the meantime, the trees are blossoming. The nights are lengthening. The ground is cracking open to reveal new growth, little yellow flowers popping out above and below, and I am, once again, finding my feet.
Something about spring has me reflecting a lot on who I was. I think maybe I do that when I’m feeling a little purposeless, a little useless. A little what-am-I-doing-trying-to-be-a-writer. I find myself flopping into territory that is harmful, self-pitying. Indulging in what-ifs, in disappointment.
I think, occasionally, this is magnified by being surrounded by people who seem to have their plans a little more figured out. By a partner who is doing his thing, his wonderful chef thing - work that he loves, so much so that even when it’s exhausting and stressful, it’s soul-feeding.
So, I find myself revisiting a list of things that makes my soul sing of late. Friends. Nature. Reading. Simple things that fulfil me. Baking chocolate chip cookies. Knitting a new hat. Sipping coffee by the window.
At the start of this year I went on a hike with two of my oldest friends, the people who’ve known me since I was five - and impressively, we’ve all managed to stay friends, made the effort to see each other yearly. At the top of the hills the wind was so strong we all fell over, the unpredictable power of it sending us toppling, the land below spreading out in waves, no one around, clouds moving faster than cars across the sky. When the wind truly catches your breath it takes with it a small piece of you, carries you vastly, opens you up.
I find myself anticipating summer nervously now. Expectations are high amidst the unknowns, best-made plans laid all around me in shambles whilst I try to magic up new ones. My creative slump rises higher to stare pityingly down at me. I can’t figure out what to write anymore. My book floats in the ether, awaiting a return to me to edit it, to strip it apart and put it back together, to kill-my-darlings. New ideas feel fleeting. I try to return to my notes, images I’ve written.
Chubby bare feet swinging from the edge of the seat.
Collections of shoes piled up by the front door.
Crumbs on the floor.
A wheelbarrow of wood.
A tray of cooled cookies.
Dead daffodils.
Wet socks.
Looking for inspiration between the folds of my memories, between the threads of my life, between the pages of books. Statistics. Comments. Jokes.
Watching people like they might hold the key to something that I can’t quite find myself, don’t quite know. Reopening old stories I’ve written. Envious of the artists who seem to produce work no matter what, whose words look so delicious on the page, whose ideas are so fully formed.
I’m itching for warmer days. I’ve been cold-water swimming. Ish. More so recently. Very quickly dipping in and swimming around in the hopes the water will answer me before getting out as fast as possible and back home for a hot shower. My hands are quite literally reaching out for summer, begging her to come sooner, to make the days longer, the water warmer.
The sea relieves me. I feel all at once alive when I’m swimming in it. Yesterday, the sun appeared and for a moment the earth felt warmer, and I answers it’s warmth by going for a dip with friends. I found myself breathing so freely. This is what it’s all about, I said. And I meant it. When everything feels so uncertain and I wonder if I am completely crazy living out here, making this ‘writer thing’ happen so far from a city, so far from everything I’ve normally known. When I don’t know what I’m doing, I swim. And I remember that life is full of uncertainty. For so much of my life every day brought with it monotony and I’m grateful to be living so uniquely.
To be trying.
It’s my birthday tomorrow (or today, when you’re reading this). I find birthdays so strange. I remember some better than others. My 21st in the height of lockdown. My 18th at boarding school in the States - I couldn’t legally drink and found it so funny at the time. I’ll be working tomorrow and it’ll be a day much like any other. I miss when birthdays felt like achievements. When each year felt so huge, when friends would come over, when birthdays involved games like pass-the-parcel and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
But some things haven’t changed. I always found it scary, growing up. I still do.
It might be why I like to avoid my own birthday a little bit, keep it a little quieter. I find I reflect a little too much. I worry about what I didn’t achieve. Where I thought I’d be. What I thought I’d have done. This birthday feels somewhat big, but I suppose I’m learning to let life work with me, not let it run over me. I suppose, I’m learning to be. A lesson I think I’ll keep learning for a long time yet.
TO READ: I’ve started to re-read How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas - one of my favourite writers - and I’ve been reminded of how beautiful a novel it is. An exploration of grief through the eyes of a young boy observing his family, and a story of what it is to be the person who ‘notices things’.
TO WATCH: Truly incredible storytelling, this show has shaken me. Be warned, it’s a hard watch at times, with a traumatic and challenging storyline, so certainly not for everyone. This incredible series is making waves and I won’t be the first person - nor the last - to recommend this. A one-man theatre show based on a personal true story turned Netflix hit, this series is incredible. It’s not a typical stalker story. It’s not a typical story at all. There’s no black and white to it. There’s certainly a lot of grey.
Spring-y. Sunny. Good things to come out of the mire.
Thank you for your patience with this one. For giving me space and time away from the page. And, for once again, letting me share my mind with you. For indulging me and my brain and the way it wanders and circles and yo-yos. Here’s to facing the uncertainty, day by day. Minute by minute.
Thank you, as always.
I love your posts so much-been following since the start and every time they are just so immersive!