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Identity.  It’s a distinctive patchwork of the things that define you.  The things you believe in, the people you love; the work you do, your interests and talents.  The building blocks you stack and use to place yourself in the world, and which enable you to find your tribe.  

A tribe doesn’t have to be large.  Unlike Facebook, it’s not a list of everyone you’ve ever met.  It’s the people you gravitate to for acceptance and comfort, for support, validation, and laughter.  There’s no better feeling than knowing you have found your people. 

Like DNA, each of us has a unique identity, a tangle of lived experience, growth, knowledge and choices.  There’s no-one quite like you.  No other person will have the same mix of ingredients, or walk the same path, or be loved or hurt in the same way.  You may believe scars are evidence of a life truly lived, but they are not always of a lesson learned.  Live, rinse, repeat.  Like never-ending homework.  It’s all too easy to fall back into your own familiar footprints. 

Should you expect wisdom as you go through life?  Should you expect to get through life without any scars?  No, and no, would be my response.  This world can be a boot camp experience, and these days it’s hard core.

Part of me likes the assumption that the gritty rough and tumble of life is character building.  However, given the choice between the easy path, and the walking-on-coals option, I’d choose the first.  (Or get some really thick soled boots.)  

If you’ve had your own mountain to climb lately, then you may relate to my current impatience.  Life lobbed a particularly disruptive hand grenade at me last year, and since then I’ve been racing to an unseen finishing line, wanting the fallout to be over.  It’s been ten months now, and I want to move on, to have things return to normal.  But wanting it and getting it are poles apart.  And like it or not, I have a new normal ahead of me because like any crisis, it has changed me.  Added another layer.  A scar.  Something I wish I could bury and forget.  

When you feel broken, it’s hard to remember your put-together self, let alone to imagine how you’ll ever be whole again.  For the last few months I’ve been in mourning, grieving the loss of a part of me which feels irreparably damaged.  It also relates to myself as a writer; that part of my identity.  Writing didn’t break me as such; no, because I delight in the process, falling down the rabbit hole and losing all sense of time.  I could live there, in that Wonderland. 

It was the aftermath; the struggle of marketing as a self-published writer, the difficulties of breaking through and being seen when you are a grain of sand on an immense beach.   Amazon is overflowing with the hopes of millions of other writers and their books.  Unless a book is carried to shore by a freak wave how else is an unknown writer ever to be discovered?  The publishing world is the most punishing of boot camps.  Perhaps I was lucky to get out alive. 

I had to take a break from writing and heal myself.  Perhaps that’s why I feel so lost (for words) in this void, because so much of my identity belongs to writing.  The way I think and see and record the world; the joy of words jumbling through my brain.  Who am I if I am not a writer? 

So I face a difficult choice.  The one thing I truly love hurt me the most.  Or rather, the love of it broke me.   I’m not sure of the wisdom of live, rinse, repeat in this instance.  Is this a lesson learned, or one to ignore? 

Perhaps it would be wise to walk away.  Or perhaps scars and brokenness level the playing field, and remind us to bask in the spotlight should it ever fall upon us. 

Scars carry their own stories.  Like words on a page they are the scribbled record of your life on skin.  Eventually they will be the fireside tales you’ll tell of your journey from there to here, your face glowing orange before the flames as you talk of how those moments changed you. 

That’s what I say to myself as I consider this changed version of myself.  There’s no one quite like me. 

Isn’t that the point? 

Everyone knows if they’re right or left handed. But do you know whether you’re right or left brained? Does it matter?

No, of course not. Although medical science attributes imagination, creativity and artistic pursuits to the right brain. (The left side is the responsible one, doing all the maths, and telling you not to buy that pair of shoes, no matter how hard the right side bargains for them.)

Personally, I like to think of my right brain as the free spirited,
inventive wild-child who likes to climb trees. It’s the source of all those
great (crazy) ideas which always seem to land at midnight; the bit of grey
matter which knits together those daydream moments of wisdom and enlightenment
and sees their true potential. For creatives, they are the moments of delicious
inspiration. It’s when characters are born, when the notes of a song rise into
being, when paint on a canvas evolves beyond a simple mix of colours. 

Perhaps it’s more relatable to say your grey matter is how you see the
world.  It’s your unique perspective, and the essence of you. As
individual as your fingerprint.

Ultimately, the privilege of having a human brain, language, and opposable
thumbs renders us capable of great things.  However a wild imagination may
come with other distractions, such as panoramic vision and surround-sound
hearing.  It can get overwhelming, being bombarded with so much detail.
There’s often an urgency to capture an idea when inspiration comes.  But
things can get manic. A project can become an obsession. 

Creatives talk about flow, and being in the zone – when an all-consuming
passion compresses hours into minutes.  Sometimes it’s difficult to find
an off-switch.  Life can get hectic. 

Mine developed into a humming awareness of everything. The thrumming,
constant idling of my restless brain; the complex inflection of birdsong; the
musical chatter of a crowded train.   As if I could hear each shift and sigh
of every living thing.  It never stopped.  Suddenly that slippery
creative slope had become so steep, and I was hurtling downwards.  At some
point you will hit the bottom. The crash-landing will be spectacular, with all
of the consequences. 

I’m better now.  I guess you could say it’s the price you pay…  I
mean, all of this thinking can burn up alot of energy, and sometimes my brain
just feels a bit too full.  

Frankly though, if my right brain fell into radio silence, I think I’d be
bereft.  I’ve grown used to its muttering – and I’d still rather live in a
noisy Technicolor world than the beige alternative.  In fact, despite its
intrusive nagging, I generally welcome the contributions from my right
hemisphere.  It’s always planning and scheming and making-up stories;
stomping around in the background.  A subliminal auto-pilot, steering me
into the wind.  And like that box of chocolates, you never know what
you’re gonna git. 

I do make the effort to calm my restless brain by taking it to the beach for
a skate, or down to the pool.  But while the rest of my body is swimming
laps, the right brained naughty child is poking me in the ribs with its latest
idea.  It has no respect for boundaries, and no concept of down time.   

At least I’m more aware of the need to step away from the page now; set some
boundaries.  I’ve learned a useful lesson; that the brain doesn’t always
stop to consider whether the body is keeping up.  Good to know.    

There’s so much focus on image these days and taking care of your body, that
it’s easy to forget you should sometimes take your brain for a walk in the
park.  Make it a cup of tea.  Put down that phone.  Chat with a
friend, face to face.

From someone who’s had their Icarus moment, may I make a suggestion? 
Please be careful.  It’s hot up there. 

Even things with wings must come back down to earth to sleep and feed.  

Writing a book can be a bit like colouring-in.

It’s rarely linear.  You dip in and out of it.  And you’re frequently staring at an empty space, trying to visualise the finished article.

When you’re working on a long project, over several months, there are many times of doubt and disillusionment.  Some days, the colour schemes you’d planned for your wonderful story seem tired and dull.  You just can’t find the right shade of anything, and the entire palette seems lacking. 

These are the days when you want to burn all colours, and set fire to your desk.   Perhaps, you tell yourself, you should start again.  Or perhaps you should never have started, and used your time to do something more altruistic, like planting trees.

So, how best to tackle the behemoth of all projects – the One Big Thing which may consume the best part of a couple of years, and a large chunk (all) of your precious social life?

Well, perhaps writing a book is more like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

You begin by finding the straight edges. Then, as soon as the outer border is in place, you can work your way steadily inwards, from the outside. You have a rough idea of the picture you’re trying to create, but the process of putting it all together can be a bit random. You might work on one corner for a while, and next time flip to another part of the puzzle entirely.

In the beginning, you shift between love and hate.  Between delight and despair.  The initial outer framework which had looked so solid and encouraging, when you’d laid it all out on your table, now looks like a rather limited, empty square.  Today, you can’t imagine how all these pieces will fit inside it. 

Tomorrow, you’re certain you don’t have enough pieces to fill such an enormous box.

Like any puzzle, you realise there are infinite possibilities with the process of putting it all together.  You can do it in any order you like.  But for the whole thing to make sense, each piece does have its rightful place in the end.   And there can be no holes when you’ve finished.

Having committed to the task, it’s sometimes daunting trying to see beyond all the gaps, trying to focus on the bigger picture – the one you had in mind when you had the initial vision. How will all of this come together, and will you have the stamina, and belief, to see it through to the end?

Every day that you show-up to tease this imagined world onto the page, you fall in-and-out of love with the picture, with the story, and all of its colours. You laugh, and sigh, and chew at your fingers, and make endless cups of tea. You pace, you agonise, you feel transported to another place. You think perhaps there really are moments of creative genius here after all.

Writing begins with a first draft.  An outline. Getting down the basics of an idea, and then jumping aboard to see where the journey takes you. Building on a theme, changing direction, creating new characters. Being continually surprised by the power of the imagination, by the sleight-of-hand of the subconscious mind, acting as an enabler.

The subsequent process of editing and proof reading is about weeding-out the flaws.  Distilling your product and retaining only the best. Polishing your words until they shine.

Hopefully, the result of all of this labour is a fabulous story which will capture the imagination of bibliophiles everywhere. Otherwise, what have you been doing for the last couple of years?

Writing a book tends to consume most of your waking hours. It’s always percolating at the back of your mind. Yes, even in the most inconvenient moments. Often when you don’t have a pen.

It’s rather like having a tumultuous affair. Being hounded by a selfish lover, demanding all of your attention. An intrusive voice waking you every morning with all of its urgent needs and ideas.  The constant murmur in your ear as you try to fall asleep. 

It will exhaust you.  It will wring you out.  It will bring angst and joy and tears.

But in the end, it will be worth it.  When you sit back and look at this thing you have pulled together by sheer determination, perseverance and pure invention there can be no greater sense of achievement.

And nothing will stop you from doing it all over again.

August, 2052.

We are the few who remain untouched. Virus free, and never infected. They call us the Pure Bloods.

No-one knows why we’ve been spared from the sickness, and the impairment it causes. Whether it was by chance or design. But since the day they realised a cure would elude us, we have been revered and protected.

There has been no medicine for this pestilence, only avoidance and preservation. The search for a vaccination continues, and after so many years of waiting all the Pures are reaching the end of their lives. We are the elders within the dwindling population, and I worry that the cure may never come to save the ones who remain. I believe there’s still enough time for a miracle. But we need it soon.

We are the last of all of the Pure Bloods, and the future lies with us. As an uncorrupted archetype, we have lived the longest. Long enough to grow old, unlike so many others; but our numbers are diminishing. Deep within our DNA we must carry the solution, and when we are gone they may not have another chance to find it. Time is running out for us, and for all of humanity. We must stay alive to save them all, and hope they can find the answers.

If they fail, I implore you to keep on trying after we’ve gone in the hope that you can do better. You, for whom I leave my story, because I am the last of my kind. Someone will need to know we were here.

I may be an old woman, yet my mind is clear; and I remember everything. Even the things I think they would rather I forget.

Every year the skies get quieter, except for the birds each morning. It’s only the drones and helicopters I notice overhead, their criss-crossing patrols, their endless checks and surveillance of us. Or the garbage trucks on the road, and the daily slow-moving hum of the street cleaning wagons with their ritual of washing and disinfection. Surely by now the virus is impervious to all of these chemicals?

Four score and seven. That’s how I like to think of my years on this earth. It makes me feel younger if I don’t think about how many decades have passed since that terrible year. The Arising. It was 2020. And we were entering a new world.

It was the culmination of everything we had done in the past, and all of the things we had failed to do. A beginning of sorts, but really the start of a slow decline as we fell, like a landslide, into our future.

It happened so much faster than anyone could have expected.

Li Wenliang was our Obi-Wan.  Of course, you may not know what I mean by that. You won’t have seen the big screens or the concert stadiums; the gatherings we had before The Arising. The collective roar of so many voices in one place. It seems a lifetime ago; and for you I suppose it is. Our movies were filled with idealistic and romantic notions. Stories of a different future; one in which we voyaged into the distant galaxies with Jedi warriors, not languished in the arms of our suffocating blue planet.

So, yes, Li Wenliang was our Obi-Wan, the prophet who tried to warn us all; the Doctor who worked at the Wuhan Central Hospital in China. He was castigated for disturbing the social order, and for making false comments when he began to spread the word about a virus he had never seen before. It was rampaging through the population; a contagion which could not be stopped. He died shortly after it all began, at the age of 34, but his name is engraved in legend.   He is the first of the Disappeared. The official first. A name which is not forgotten, though there are doubtless many faceless numbers who preceded him. All gone. And silenced. Like Li Wenliang. I know people who remember him, who lived through that first outbreak, and who are still alive to speak his truth.

The ones who met him, they are the most hunted. Dedicated to preserving the facts, they are fiercely protected by an army of believers who seek justice for all mankind. Still hopeful that one day it will be served. That those responsible will be punished for their crimes against humanity.

When the wearing of masks became law, the social isolation became far worse. A faceless community. Not even a smile could be shared. With only eyes unveiled, even the men began to adorn their faces, enhancing their brows with colour, making the most of their hair. Mask designs became a statement, either to draw attention or to blend-in. A message to wear on your face instead of an expression. Some also wore a photo ID on their collar, in order to retain a sense of self, to reveal their identity and to show who they were underneath the mask. People seemed desperate to connect. Deprived of any form of closeness, intimacy or touch, the eyes were all we had left. You never saw a person wearing sunglasses anymore.

We all believed the masks hid the many sadnesses they caused. But no-one collected data for this, or tried to quantify something which couldn’t be seen.

The recurring segregations and bans were a temporary measure in the beginning, to halt the proliferation of the infection clusters. But three decades later, I think they implement them to see if they can still get a foothold; a slight downturn in the transmissions. After so much time, everyone knows it’s pointless, and I suspect it’s about ticking boxes.   To make it look like The Federation is doing something. As if they have any sort of control out there.

We always hoped someone would bear witness to the existence of the laboratory at ground zero, and prove it was where the propagations had occurred. We needed someone brave enough to be an informer. To offer their testimonial during the hearings. Many believed there was such a place, but said it was only for observation and study. Others thought it was the site of a mishandled test, where fatal flaws or a safety breach had taken place. Compromised infection-control, that sort of thing. Some denied there was ever such a place.

Many countries called for an international investigation, while there was still time to gather any evidence on the ground, but all the travel bans meant any sort of forensic examination was out of the question, and it became a squandered opportunity.  The search for clues was deferred for so long that the entire location had been wiped clean by the time the enquiry began. Once a crime scene has been contaminated, or the case grows cold, the hope of prosecution grows ever distant. The search for proof just became another unanswered question.

So was it man-made or a freak of nature? Even my opinions changed from black to white over the years. Either way, the infection which descended upon us in 2020 settled onto our lives like a radioactive contaminant. Unseen, and polluting everything.

Communication beyond your borough is not encouraged anymore. Each region is preserved like an enclave, and no-one should be straying too far outside the community boundaries.   To be precise, it isn’t policed, but it is discouraged. The Federation’s stance is that it spreads dissatisfaction; the potential to see what others have, and you may not.

We lack many things, living in such isolation, but few of these deficiencies relate to material comforts. Ask anyone. What we miss is connection, and the warmth of others. All of us are starved of touch.

Despite the distances between us, there is no lack of information; but its veracity can’t be guaranteed when it comes from so many different sources. Details are embellished, fabricated, and omitted. The truth is skewed. Fake news. That’s what they used to call it in my day. It was The American Narcissist who coined the phrase. Yet he was the biggest liar of them all. Especially to his own people. I heard they made a monument in Washington – not to remember him, but to mark the millions who died on his watch. I like to use that phrase, On His Watch. You probably know nothing of that either; all of the sitcoms, the dramas, and the crime shows we used to follow. You may think television is a waste of time, but we always had room for leisure in our easy and comfortable lives; and there were entire networks available to waste our precious days.

We had never really known any hardships or depredations. Not like those before us, who had known true adversity. The suffering of war and anguish of battle, the pain of being removed from home and family, across the oceans, with little more than letters to keep their hope alive. Months of fear and loss during all the stolen years of their lives. We had never been subjugated like that, or tested to the limit of our endurance. Which is why we felt the restrictions to our freedom so keenly, and found it difficult to comply.   It’s why we struggled to wait patiently in our homes; safe, but lonely, in our beds when the contagion came.  Our distress was the loss of our innocence. And the forfeit of our liberty.

The damage to our DNA, the way the virus was expressed in our genes with such subtlety, was largely overlooked in the beginning, during the containment. So much panic and disruption. But we had the wrong priorities. Our fear was misplaced, focussing on the economy and lost trade. Material losses, rather than the microscopic injury which was simmering away underneath the skin. The structural changes to blood vessels, the impairment and scarring of the lungs and heart. Pneumonia and organ failure. The subtle ravages of injury at a cellular level. It took some time for all the systemic damage to become apparent, and to understand how it would affect us in the long term, but as we focussed on keeping the social order it was wreaking irreparable damage. The clock was ticking.

By the third year we had splintered into four distinct groups: The Complacent, The Disbelievers, The Extremers and The Compliant. Only the latter two survived into the longer term.  The Extremers were always the most fanatical, the zealous ones who not only stayed within the boundaries, but who also reinterpreted the laws and made them more extreme. The doomsday preppers were amongst their numbers, but mostly they were a mix of the fearful, the paranoid and the rule keepers. They began as a splinter group of The Compliant, but wore their abstinence like a badge of honour. Their writings were about self-preservation from the outset; a dangerous cult of intransigents founded on mis-information, myth and fake news. Unnecessary to go that far, but it fed their belief they’d be saved, as indeed they were. And like all gangs they wear their badges with misplaced pride.

I have no complaints about our life on the reserve. We are well cared-for in the estate, and we have the constant patrols beyond the perimeters to keep us safe. Sometimes the sound of an armoured vehicle rumbling-by outside our residence sounds so much like an aircraft that those who remember look up to the skies with hope. Seeking the soft, white vapour trail of a jet.

But it’s rare to see a passenger plane now. Those days are long gone. Only the elders remember crossing the continents from above, high in the cloud, on a parabola above the earth. It has been a long time since I saw the world from the air, but I too was a traveller once, crossing borders, vast oceans and distant countries. We were not bound to the place of our birth back then. Have I already mentioned I came from somewhere else?

Yes, I am a citizen of another place and time. A tourist and a voyager who was allowed to make this place my home. We had passports then, to pass through the ports of our choosing, with only an advance request or a visa. We were free to go where we pleased if we had the money and time.

I am blessed to be a Pure Blood; I am truly one of the lucky ones. Included in the register at The Arising, herded together with all the other Pures, despite my lack of fecundity. Even then I was well-past breeding age. But there were so few of us, they decided to keep us all. They could use us for other purposes. Analyse and examine us. Draw our precious blood.

As global resources have dwindled in recent years there has been talk, again, of a cull; the exclusion of those in their twilight years, like myself. But the laws are there to protect us, and even at the age of 87 they dare not touch me. It is an age I thought I’d never see.

We are much studied. Visited often. Our white vestments are like a uniform or habit; a religion of sorts, I suppose. We are the saved, but also the saviours. We hold the past in our DNA, but it’s hoped we might hold the building blocks of the future too, if only they could crack our code. It makes me feel useful. A thing to be decrypted and decoded. But in my heart I wonder if the future holds a place for humankind. Such self-aggrandising notions that we’ve always held, inflating our importance, believing ourselves to be the caretakers of the world. A job in which we’ve failed.

The Pures have a special dispensation for food, although my Guide finds it strange that I still take pleasure from eating. All the younger ones prefer to drink their potions and take their pill instead. My antediluvian customs seem quite primitive in their eyes. But I like to have a meal when I can. The sulphurous smell of an egg, the freshness of a sliced cucumber, the crisp crust of a bread roll. I’m sorry, I forget you may never taste these things. But they remind me of the old days, when we used to dine in restaurants and share a supper with our friends.

I feel the disapproval of the young ones, even though they say nothing. Each generation looks down on the one that went before, and picks – like crows – on the carcass of their elders’ mistakes; forgetting it is the gift of hindsight which can afford them such wisdom. We thought it was the right way to feed a hungry world. I can see now how we could have done it better.

These days the soil refuses to co-operate, withholding its nutrients from the few crops we try to plant. Food is scarce. I do not take for granted the concessions they have made for us. While others do without, we are allowed an evening meal. It is a finite privilege, and when you are old you take your pleasures where you can.

The winters are fierce despite our southern latitude, and every year they say it may be our last as resources and provisions dwindle. For those without power (and heat) it means another wave of deaths. The majority of us are philosophical. Fewer mouths to feed. A chance to stave-off the inevitable for a little longer.

The world is yet to shrug us off, although it will not give up trying. We are the annoying itch it cannot reach, the parasite it tries to starve. Earthquakes, lava-spewing volcanoes, tidal waves and excessive rains. The cycle of drought and flood and fire in which we are parched and drowned and burned. Yet we grimly hold our course: the self-appointed Gods who cannot countenance their own death, even as they self-destruct. Who must not lose their throne, but who have already lost their grip.

I can’t be the only one who looks to a world without us. To a time when it has long outgrown us, when we are buried deep in the sediment, in eons yet to pass. Carbon dated, like the dinosaurs.

Nature worries at the wounds we’ve left upon the earth’s surface, grassing over all the streets and reclaiming what we’d cleared. New ecosystems taking residence in our cities, and repopulating our oceans, given we no longer roam or foul them with our litter.

Many of us had never heard of Wuhan before The Arising, but I have often reflected on those first few weeks, and how it all began. In my heart I believe the animals set this all in motion. They were not to blame, they were simply fighting back. Changing the food chain forever. Taking action and ending our abuse of power. I mean, look at where the virus was able to thrive so easily, in the abattoirs and animal markets. The contagion shut them down, it ended the mass farming, and halted the clearing of the forests. The animals had taken a stance.

I am told they have reclaimed the prairies in The Americas, running free, where the grass is lush again. They grow bolder. Even the birds sing louder, knowing there is something wrong in the empty cities and deserted streets. I hear in many countries the animals will soon outnumber the people. Survival of the fittest; so it must be true, we are not amongst the strongest anymore.

Over time we have become a satellite of demarcated, closed societies. A long time ago we called them postcodes – when we had a postal service, and daily deliveries to every household. Before they stopped supplying all the paper.

As a girl, I remember waiting for that special envelope in the mail. The young ones now know nothing of waiting, with everything received in real time. So many digital messages, and nothing for them to keep.

I think there used to be an elegance to the sharing of correspondence. The choice of paper and the quality of the ink. The familiarity of the handwriting. A batch of love letters tied with a ribbon. I still have a few.   Oh, how I miss the sight of a lover’s script on the page, the words of tenderness and yearning from a young man’s heart. You may smile at an old woman’s memories, but I wish you could know those things.

In our societies now there are no human rights. Only applications and petitions. Beseech or apply, that is your only right. For the most part there’s a status quo. Largely because most of the dissenters are gone – dead or missing. We may never know for sure what happened to them, except that they are no longer with us.

The years pass. Our winters seem colder and more damp each year. But perhaps that’s because I’m old. The summers are always drier and more unforgiving; the climate punishing us for our careless past. None of us did enough. Many of us did nothing.

I hope the young ones see a piece of history when they look at me, and not just the body of an old woman. Because there are so many who have come to see me with their tests and needles, looking for a cure. When I am gone my memories will be like an unread book; and so I tell each of them who come to visit, hoping they will survive for long enough to keep my stories safe.

I stopped them cutting my hair many years ago, which my Guide thinks is an increasing labour every morning. But I enjoy the ritual of grooming and braiding, the warmth across my skull when I venture to the outside.

You will be surprised by this; that we should still go out. That they will let us. I may be old but I am agile, and I have always been healthy. I can walk as far as you can see, and I go further when they are not looking my way.

Most of them will never see us outside, in the places where we take the sun; where our Guides carefully mete-out our privileges and document our graceful slide into senility. I have been confined to the estate for so many years that it is a home, of sorts; mingling only with the other Pures, and at the whim of all the latest scientific trials.

We are the test subjects for each wave of researchers and experts who bring a fresh perspective with their new ideas. The eagerness with which they come, and the light of hope I see in their eyes makes me feel young again. It gives me faith. It makes me believe it isn’t over.

Of course, our safety is their future. They are careful with us, the precious cargo of another era. We may be the last few who die in our sleep and not from the sly destruction of this insidious disease. It is not lurking in the air. The virus needs its own estate in which to live. So there is no danger in the outdoors, only from the people who are in it.

By the time you read this it may all be over, but for now we can only watch as they abstain; while they wait in the solitude, and keep their dreams to themselves. I have earned my unmasked life. I am a Pure Blood, the last of my kind. I may hold the future in my hands, or take it with me to the grave.

If they have failed, then it is up to you.

 

Humans can do alot of things, like juggling whilst walking a balance beam. But we are also blessed with a particular skill.  Speech.

Our brain and vocal chords have allowed us to develop the most complex and diverse methods of expression, setting us apart from all other living beings.  We’ve developed a global diversity of languages, using our words to connect, share, and demonstrate our understanding of one another. We’re storytellers, and story writers.  Singers and songwriters.  Language is such a precious gift in the ways it can bring us together and inspire us.

Whether it’s visual or auditory – written, spoken or signed language – it’s all about communication.  However you look at it, we all have a voice.

It’s also about connection, something which has been on my mind lately; the idea of six degrees of separation, and how it can be proved diagrammatically when you dig just below the surface.

So why do things seemed so skewed towards disconnection sometimes?  I’m sure there’s an endless blur of missed opportunities every day.

In a time not so very long ago, in a galaxy, well, right about here actually, we were all very busy.  We rushed around complaining about how terribly busy we were, how we hardly had time to scratch ourselves, how we’d give anything to catch a break.  To just have a lie-in once in a while, or a night-off from the calendar of events.

Yet even in our leisure time we were scheduling our activities.  Dashing off to that yoga class for tips on how to relax, diarising and dissecting our waking hours into sub-sections of timetables in order to get everything done.  Because unless you lived life right up to the edges, you were not being efficient.  You were just wasting time.  Being lazy.  Missing out.

Busyness has quite a few drawbacks, one of which is feeling tired.  Stress also comes to mind, and who could honestly say they lived a stress-free life in the BC (Before Covid) era?  Instead of pausing to sniff the wattle, we didn’t even notice it had come into bloom.

Okay, so a few people had already started to get dewy eyed about slow-living, about dropping out and growing their own vegetables.  More time at home, and less on the commute.  Fewer obligations.  I’m certainly in that category.  But for the most part we were all competing to see how much we could crush into a 24 hour period, and trying to keep up with the David Joneses.

To be honest, the whole thing had been giving me the Jimmy Britts for more than a while.  Rushing along the travelator of life, being propelled through our days at breakneck pace, facing-off the evolving menu of advertising (get rid of that old thing, and get one of these), dashing for the bus, missing the train, juggling timetables; desperate for that one sunrise when we could let ourselves off the hook and maybe, just maybe, have that Sunday morning lie-in.

So within all of that, it’s no wonder we found it difficult to stand still for long enough to get any sort of connection with our fellow hoomans.

In retrospect, it seems obvious that we needed to break the cycle, and to develop some new habits.  It’s just that the solution presented itself on such a Titanic scale, and with the same catastrophic absence of warning.  It arrived as an all-encompassing global pandemic, the total breakdown of society, a large serve of economic meltdown, a sledgehammer of fiscal insecurity and a directive for everyone to be sent to their room.  But thankfully no iceberg.

It got our attention, and what a way to do it.  Everyone hit pause simultaneously, and not by choice.

All this for something so small you can only see it with a microscope.  Who could’ve known the slash-and-burn effects as it circumnavigated the globe?  And it sure can travel fast.  Now that’s what I call Going Viral.

Back to the present, and here we all are, sequestered in our homes, spending more time with our pets, finally getting that bike out of the shed, and finding that every day is like Sunday.  (Which is exactly what those dour nineties northern soul-masters, The Smiths, once sang about, to the tune of jangly guitars.)  My point being that for the foreseeable future we have a whole stack of endless Sundays lying in wait for us at home, so it’s time we started to find our voices, and use them well.

In Melbourne, on a mild and sunny winter’s day on the 9th of July, we all downed-tools and closed our doors again; at least for the next six weeks.  D-day had arrived.  Day one of another total lockdown.  Waiting for the second wave to come crashing down upon us, and not a single surfboard in sight.

The stranglehold on our freedom will surely begin to tighten as we return to our burrows, just as the chasm in our connectivity widens with the resumption of isolation and social distancing.  Right back where we started.  Daunting, yes, especially when you thought you were within inches of the finishing line.  Yet for some reason I felt steeped in optimism as I walked the quiet streets yesterday; imbued with a lightness that belied the negativity of the news.  Perhaps it was the sunshine?

We all have an inherent need to connect and belong.  Having been deprived of our usual social interactions, the one thing we’re all craving is conversation.  Passing the time of day with a dog walker, chatting to the people who scan your groceries, getting to know your neighbours.

In our little community of apartments I know some of the residents by sight, and a few of us chat when we cross paths.  But in recent weeks we’ve had conversations and found commonalities.  We’ve laughed and sympathised, been stunned by the six degrees of separation, and opened up our worlds to new possibilities.  There are some amazing people living on my doorstep, if only we’d started talking sooner.

We all have a story, so go out and share yours.  Initiate conversations, ask someone how they’re feeling, connect with some of the people who previously passed fleetingly through your busy BC life.  Use the opportunity.  Use your voice.

I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

I went for a skate at the beach this morning.  Something which usually gives me a lift; but it felt joyless.

Nothing to do with the weather.  It’s perfect out there today – blue skies and sunshine, very little wind.  Ideal conditions for a cruisey roll along the foreshore.

Nothing to do with the extra foot traffic on the coastal paths either.  It’s to be expected in this New World, when people are compelled to stay inside and pursue an indoor life, and can only get out to exercise or to make forays to the shops for food.  Fair enough.

Beach skating is something I’ve done for more than twenty years, following the bike paths along the coastline, feeling every muscle working, taking in the briny air and enjoying the sense of freedom you get when you have wheels instead of feet.

However, the paths are shared by walkers, cyclists, and in my case, skaters.  Shared being the operative word.

What I saw this morning did not give me pause to admire my fellow humans.  And somehow that seemed even more disappointing today.  Probably due to the collective pain we are all feeling at the moment as we deal with the many losses in our lives.  Of all the times in recent history this is the most important time to be kind and considerate.  To look out for other people.  To be, in effect, your Best Self.

What I saw filled me with dismay.  I felt sad and disillusioned; and angry.

To be honest I’ve felt angry for weeks now.  Ever since this whole virus fiasco began. Having to stand-by while whole countries close-for-business in steady succession across the globe.  I didn’t sign-up for this.  None of us did.  But that’s not today’s story.  That one will need unravelling some other time.

We should be trying to make each other feel good right now.

Yet I saw a lot of bad behaviour out there on this glorious day.  Dangerous speeds – most of that being from cyclists.  Lack of attention.  Poor judgement.  Selfishness.  To say nothing of the ignorance of the inexperienced – the Sunday Riders – novices who blunder along on bikes which clearly have been gathering dust in the shed for the last few years.

I escaped injury several times today, and only due to my experience and quick actions:

Firstly when a man overtook me on a bike then immediately stopped right in front of me. It’s difficult to do a short stop on skates, even with a brake.  He was totally unaware of the accident he nearly caused.  Lucky I’m so nimble.

Then when I was faced with an approaching cyclist so hell-bent on overtaking that he thought nothing of moving into my lane – for a direct head-on – which I had to swerve to avoid.  He didn’t stop, or care.

And most significantly when I saw an oblivious dog walker (wearing headphones) at the bottom of a steep curve suddenly change direction – dog to the right, man to the left, leash stretched taut between them.  No-where for me to go.   (I have never screamed so loudly at someone to MOVE LEFT, or sworn so profusely.)

Maybe they’ve forgotten that the rules for the path are the same as for the road.  Stay on the left.  Be vigilant about your surroundings at all times.  Look and listen, and in particular, look behind you before pulling out or making a sudden move.  If it isn’t safe to overtake (ie: if there isn’t enough space) then DON’T.  Wait for a moment.

Would you drive head-on at approaching traffic? Then don’t do it on the bike path.

Here’s a free cycling tip too: if you are a competent (fast) rider, then you can always ride on the road.  Walkers and skaters don’t have that option.  There’re hardly any cars out there at the moment in the New World, so if you’re going to hurtle past parents cycling with young children, carve-up dog walkers or anyone else who might dare to curb your speed then just move to the road.

Also, if you’ve never put on a pair of rollerblades, then think for a minute about how a skater gets propulsion. And don’t get aggressive behind a skater who is going uphill on a narrow path because their boot might go over the line sometimes.  It takes about 3 seconds for you to overtake them on a bike.  It isn’t much of a hardship to give them a little more passing room for those few moments of your life.  Be gracious.  We are all sharing the same resource.

So, it would be more accurate to say that the joy was drained out of my skate today by the actions of a few bad apples.  The direct consequence of their self-interest, indifference and general disregard for others.  Make no mistake these are the queue jumpers and the toilet roll hoarders, the same rapacious Me-First brigade that would trample over you to hoover-up the last box of long-life milk.

And don’t get me started on the facemasks.  I saw so many people wasting valuable resources whilst out cycling under the beautiful autumn sunshine.  And for what?  I work in health, and I can assure you the virus isn’t hovering in the open air above you, waiting to pounce.  You don’t need a mask for cycling, nor do you need one for driving a car, with or without the windows open.

I came home feeling so down-hearted.  And the reason I’d gone out in the first place had been to lift my spirits.  Back to square one.

It helps to focus my mind on all the other people who do care, who are looking after us all and keeping our communities ticking along.  The refuse collectors, the supermarket workers and food suppliers, the public transport drivers, the volunteers, cooks and coffee makers.  And most of all our beautiful, compassionate nurses and medical personnel.  God bless and protect you all.  You have heart enough for all of us.

On my fridge I always keep a couple of quotes to remind me that the most difficult times are usually only temporary.  One of them is by Martin Luther King:

‘We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.’

Your true self is the person you are when no-one is watching.  When this is all over, you might want to reflect on whether you’ve been your Best Self.  Will you be proud of how you’ve conducted yourself?

We can do better.  We can all do better.

 

When was the last time you sat quietly with your thoughts?

By that I mean no television or internet, none of the multifarious (exponentially expanding) mobile phone gizmos, no headphones; not even any music.  No scrolling through endless pictures about other people’s lives and pets, or all of their holidays and the fabulous desserts which they simply have to photograph.  Just eat them and stop gloating, I say, while I nibble on my ‘Nice’ biscuit.

(Pronounced ‘niece’, and apparently invented in Victorian times, they were a favourite biscuit of Her Maj, Queen Victoria. But however quintessentially British they may be, they’re boring. The kiss of death to tastebuds everywhere. Unless you dip them in chocolate.)

I’m not against the vast and hilarious animal content online, and its healing, belly-laugh inducing boost to our collective mental health.  Pets of the world, you definitely make life worth living.  Without a doubt.  Even before all this global pandemonium you were cheering us up as we ‘worked from home’ (in our pyjamas), sitting on our laptops with all your insinuated auto erotic gymnastics, legs over shoulders and all that jazz, performing the sort of deep cleaning which seems entirely out of place on a keyboard. No-one needs to watch that level of intimacy and pseudo-exploration of carnal pleasures while we’re trying to finish a report.

Cats everywhere, I’m talking to you.  We reserve the right to ignore you.  Go and self-pleasure somewhere else.  We don’t need to see it; and sure, we all wish we were that flexible.  Don’t rub it in.

So, let’s get back to being with our thoughts.  Stone-cold sober, awake, and with no mind altering substances, prescription or recreational.  No place to be, no eyes on the clock, just some open-ended Me-Time.  And as it happens, not so difficult in this current climate of self-isolation and non-essential chocolate biscuits.

Quite a bit of navel gazing going down at the moment I’d imagine.

Why not see where your mind saunters-off-to when given free-rein.  The path it takes while you’re sitting comfortably.  Just a clear head and You, and whatever drops into your frontal cortex, that sub-cranial mental gym in which we can exercise our imagination.

Just beneath the skull there’s a mass of neurons which is wholly unique to yourself.  The Encyclopaedia of You.  Imagine that.  And here’s your chance to tap into it, that huge storage unit of ideas, amongst the things you might have offloaded for a while, and kind of forgotten about.  That mass of cabling you shoved into one of the high cupboards of your mind.  The incredible colours which you rarely use now.  All of it like the untapped potential of an overflowing shed.

What will you make?

This is the year everyone will want to forget.  Ground zero.  No amount of toilet roll is likely to help you with the inevitable shitstorm bearing down on us.

Now we have BCV and ACV.  Before, and after, coronavirus.  Nothing has touched us like this for the last 100 years.  Sports and social events cancelled.  Venues closed.  Our daily lives funnelled into a sort of voluntary incarceration.

Beamed-up out of our busy lives, we’re suddenly being offered all this Time.  Something we didn’t seek, a gift we can’t return.  No-one knows enough about the ‘after’ yet, or how long it’ll last, but there’s plenty we can do while we wait.

How about making it a year to remember by taking the isolation and running with it?

Away from the noise of the world and all of our usual routines, we can take a moment. Listen to the silence.  Use the time wisely.

I regularly hear people say, I can’t remember when I last read a book.  Or, I don’t read books.  Or I don’t have time to read.  Phrases which all make my heart ache a little.

How many other things do we consign to the pile of abandoned pursuits and forgotten dreams?

So I’ll ask again, when was the last time you sat quietly with your thoughts?  You know, BYO brain.  No frills.  No fancy tablecloth or anything.  Feeling the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, listening to the breathing world.  Being amazed at the star filled night, and the warm blush of a rising sun.  Not feeling the need to capture it for your Facebook page.  Just loving it, in that moment, right up to the edges.

In fact what are you doing reading this? Go and create.  See what floats to you out of the blue.

Use that brain well.  Every sulcus and gyrus, every lobe and pole.  Let it rove.  Take down the walls and fences.  Solve problems.  Make music.  Create stuff.

Innovation.  Invention.  Imagination.

And You.

That’s when the magic happens.

For the last few months the second book has been taking up all of my writing time, but I hope to have a ‘teaser’ for you soon, with details of what to expect.

I’ll keep it all linked to Facebook, and let you know a timeframe when I’ve done the edit.

It has been so much fun writing fiction this time.  I hope you’ll enjoy the story as much as I’ve enjoyed creating the weird and wonderful characters.

More soon.

 

You notice the gulls first, careening through the air.

Seabirds arcing on updrafts. Their constant, shrill commentary carrying on the wind.  The sheer size of them.  So much larger than any other gulls I’ve seen.  Our brochures warn of their ‘dangerous’ 3 inch beaks, and caution tourists not to feed them.  I don’t feel threatened.  Until I squint at the sky above me, and think of Hitchcock.

I have other thoughts, about dodging all that guano falling from such great height.  Maybe I should be wearing a hat.

Whitby, North Yorkshire.  Seaside town, fishing port.  Raided by Vikings.  Visited by smugglers and press gangs.  Famous for its Fish and Chips.

We’re staying in Ruswarp – a one pub, one church village – in the elegant Ruswarp Hall, just outside the sprawl of Whitby town and harbour.  Our Jacobean lodgings, built in 1603, are said to have a resident ghost.  Hopefully not the chain-dragging, wailing type, who frequents the wee-small-hours.  I’d like to get some sleep this week.

It’s six miles into Whitby if you drive, following the roads into the port.  Or there’s a narrow stony track beside the train line, overhung with nettles and brambles, passing by fields, and crossing open pasture.  The sign indicates it’s a one mile walk.  A better option.  We set off on foot from the beautiful old station building.

Turquoise sky and afternoon sunshine warm our backs.  And all the while, the wheeling birds.  Their excited calling overhead.

‘More, more!’ they promise, as we pick our way over the loose gravel and stones, their voices guiding and encouraging, their airborne bodies privy to the view that as yet, we cannot see.

A steam train huffs past, inches from our passage, all puff and bluster and churning air; from another time, when life moved more slowly, and there was more silence in which to think and dream.  It somehow befits the pace of our footfall into town, and our choice to walk instead of drive.  This path must once have been the way to church on Sunday, the way to Whitby for provisions, the ladies lifting their skirts carefully, baskets over one arm.  I’m glad to be walking, enjoying the anticipation of rounding the final curve in the track, and having that first sight of the town.

I let myself feel the timelessness here, the history underfoot.  Back to an era when Ruswarp Hall had been a larger estate, when the houses that now line the street opposite the entrance were set aside as stables.  I imagine the ripe smell of dung and oiled leather, the metal clink of a shaken harness, the dull thump of a hoof inside.  And always, the birds, bringing the sea inland.

‘Come! Come now!’ they urge from above.

We’re passing under the high red brick bridge, the old railway viaduct, its 13 arches towering above and beyond us.  Impossibly wide.  The River Esk is on our right now, tidal, the water out, birds picking through the exposed muddy banks; our path curving left and then right.  The ever increasing excitement of the gulls.  A greater number joining the chorus, to chide and hurry us.

‘See, see, see!’ they trill, in a sound that resonates from my childhood.  Seaside holidays, English summers.  Buckets and spades, and sandy fingers.  Cold seas, and goosefleshed skin.

Then we do see.  The first views of the harbour.  A mosaic of colourful boats cramming the water, the red tiled rooftops of houses shouldered together on steep cliffs.  And at the skyline, the ruins of The Abbey like a broken jaw, yawning at the open sea below.  The town’s oldest and most recognisable landmark.

Surely the best mile I’ve ever walked.  The most perfect backdrop.  Heather covered moors on one side, and open ocean on the other.  We’re looking right at the North Sea now.  This is the ‘Dinosaur Coast’ – and 35 miles of fossil heaven.

Over the harbour walls, children cluster with hovering parents, long strings dropped into the water far below, crab buckets at their feet.  A symbiosis, of sorts.  For the children, the excitement of the catch.  For the molluscs, a free meal, in exchange for a short period of discomfort.

The long-suffering crabs trade their cool muddy homes to share an overcrowded plastic bucket for the day, filled with sun-warmed water.  Then follows the indignity of brief flight – being flung back down to their watery homes at sundown for a repeat performance in the morning.  New strings, new children.  Every day they take the bait.  Perhaps they never learn.  Perhaps it’s an easier existence than foraging the dark depths for an unknown menu.

Our guiding birds take off for the open sea, to whirl and crest the updrafts.  It must be an amazing feeling, to be so free and unhurried.

Over the next few days we walk the cobbled streets, descending steep inclines into fishing villages, and narrow alleyways between twee cottages perched on cliffsides.

Dinosaur footprints are visible on the beach in Whitby.  Fossils abound between the coastal fishing village of Staithes in the north, to Robin Hood’s Bay further south.  The shops are brimming with them.  Coiled shells of ammonites, preserved from the Jurassic era.  Fern and leaf prints.  There’s even a dolphin sized Ichthyosaur on display at the museum: 180 million years old, and the length of a small car.  It makes me feel small, and insignificant, and very, very young.

Displays of black stoned jewellery fill the local shops, but jet is just another trick of time.  It might look and feel like stone, but it’s actually the fossilised wood of the araucaria tree.

Not all the history here is measured in millenniums.  Some of it only goes back a few centuries.

Two hundred years ago Whitby was a place that resonated with the chiselling and hammering of shipbuilding.  Whaling vessels, and coal transporting colliers were built in Fishburn’s Shipyard.   All four ships used by Captain James Cook in his voyages around the globe were built in Whitby.  In fact the young James Cook began his working life as a shop assistant in the grocery store at Staithes.  Perhaps the sight of the ocean every day stirred his imagination, and fueled his desire to explore the open seas?

When Bram Stoker visited in 1890, his imagination was stirred in a different way.  The sight of the Gothic Abbey and its angular ruins on the skyline inspired his next novel.  Thanks to him, we all have Dracula, and vampires, and the acquired dread of open windows after dusk.  I was a child who grew up with Vincent Price’s chilling laugh, and a regular diet of Hammer House of Horror on a Saturday night.  So try telling me I won’t wake with Christopher Lee in a cape at the end of my bed if I keep the casement open.

I have memories of an entire childhood spent sweltering behind closed bedroom windows in the summer.  It didn’t help that we had bat-filled woodlands at the back of our house.  Or that the occasional one blundered into the window-frame with a thud in the dead of night.  So much for bats having excellent echolocation in the dark.  I didn’t go so far as hanging garlic over my pillow, but I always kept the sheet well up, over my head, protecting my bare neck from those canine fangs.

Whitby reminds me of the English seaside towns of my childhood.  The unfurling pier, and slapping sea breezes.  Long eared donkeys on the sand, saddled up and ready to ride.  Fudge shops, and sticks of candy rock – more flavours than Harry Potter could ever choose.  The windows of jewellery stores filled with jet, its glistening black the colour of crows’ eyes.  Favoured by the eternally mourning Queen Victoria after Albert’s death.

We walk meandering coastal paths, cobbled streets, and the breath stealing 199 steps up to the Abbey.  We listen to the strident calls of circling seabirds, and manage to avoid becoming target practice for any of the gulls.

Our first night in Ruswarp Hall, we had tractors roaring up and down the steep road outside until 11pm.   Try and sleep through that if you can.  Some sort of harvest deadline.  Urgent farming.  Who’d have thought?  After that I sleep soundly.

But I never see the ghost.  Or hear any clanging of chains.  I don’t see a single bat either, or any vampires.  Shame really.  I could’ve added chiroptophobia  and sanguivoriphobia to my existing fear of open windows.

Paradoxically, on the one night I’d planned to have fish and chips, the Ruswarp pub had run out of fish.   In a fishing town.  You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Such a missed opportunity, and perhaps one of the many reasons I’ll have to go back.

**

 

It’s possible you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed.

If, like me, you care about the environment and the future of our little blue planet, you might even be losing a bit of sleep these days.

The on-going information about pollution, mass extinctions, and the accumulating tonnes of plastic strangling our oceans weighs heavily on my mind.  I’m keen to do something about it; any of it.  But what?

Long before our plastic nightmare, my father used to take pots and pans to the local Chinese takeaway in our village.  He likes to think he started the takeaway industry; transporting his curry from restaurant to stovetop in his own pans, ready for reheating at home.  No containers, no waste, and definitely no plastic in this equation.

My maternal grandma used to use the old, curdled milk to make scones.  Why throw it away when it’s still good for something else?  My mum said grandma was a dab hand at making scones, and hers were always fluffy, soft and light as air.

So, here comes the age old question.  When it comes to taking a stance in our throwaway generation, can the actions of one person really make any difference?  One small deed seems so insignificant when you consider the magnitude and global scale of the issues. You are just a grain of sand. A blip on the radar.  As you face the seemingly impossible task, will your fear paralyse you into inaction?

Before you answer that, let me tell you a story.

A couple of years ago, someone in our apartment block left old gardening pots for the garbage collection.  One of them held a twig of something, sprouting just one small, hopeful leaf.  I wasn’t sure what it was.  Perhaps a citrus bush?  Lemon?  It was still alive. It hadn’t given up.

Determination.  Life.  Possibility.  The sight of it moved me.  A living thing left out with the rubbish.

I rescued it from the bins.  Put it in the sun, on my balcony.  I watered it, and I waited to see if one leaf was enough for it to survive.  Over time, it began to grow.  One twig became two, other leaves came.  After a while it even tried to blossom and bear fruit.  I put it in a larger pot.  Miniature green lemons appeared, like tiny buds on its thin stems.  But a corner balcony receives the city’s fickle wind gusts from every side, and the fruit buds were blown off before they could ever develop.  A pot on a concrete balcony is really no life for a citrus tree.

It was alive, but the chance of it thriving seemed tenuous.  I noticed it had started to develop leaf damage, some sort of insect infestation which began to kill its foliage.  It battled on, but it was struggling. What else could I do?

I asked a friend if she could take it.  She had a garden, and it would at least have the chance to grow in the ground, to put down roots in healthy soil.  Perhaps it would rally then.  We transported it to her house by car, where her husband could treat the infestation, and where it stayed in its pot, awaiting its fate.

Time.  Weather.  The will to survive.  All of them played their part.  It continued to grow.

They decided to take it to their beach house, where they planted it on the sloping land of their rear garden, overlooking the sea.  Regular reports indicated it was doing well.  I was so thankful to my friends, for persevering, for giving it a chance.

Visiting their beach house last year, and standing on their ocean view verandah, I saw a leafy green bush in their garden, well established, and heavy with fruit.  It was flourishing.

“That’s yours,” they told me. “But it’s actually a lime tree.”

We picked some of the fruit, and sliced the juicy limes for our drinks in the afternoon. They were the best limes I’d ever tasted, allowing for a certain emotional bias.

I often think of that beautiful tree, stirred by sea winds blowing straight up, off the surface of the ocean.  It’s a simple joy, knowing that it’s alive.

Imagine now if you could rescue something.  Save someone.  Grow something.  One small deed.  Almost invisible to all but you.  Then imagine all your friends doing the same. Everyone in your street.  Multiply that deed across your suburb.

So I’ll ask you again.  How can you improve your little corner of the world?  What do you want to preserve?  What is your passion?  Who can you galvanise to help you?

Nothing is too small to be saved.  Even if it only has one leaf.