The New Leaf - The New Year 2022; A different creature with an ear for water
Hi, and welcome to an unofficial instalment of The New Leaf, on the occasion of the New Year – the ultimate new leaf.
The Gaps (Frances Leviston, 2007)
And then they revealed that solids were not solid
That a wall was not solid
That it consisted of molecules fixed and vibrating
Some distance apart, as did the flesh
That solidity was really the likelihood
Of stuff not falling
Between two chairs, down the gaps
And that walking through the wall was not impossible
That it could be like
Slipping between pine trunks into a forest
Which had looked from the road impermeable
But was where something lived
And that one could peer back from the gloom towards the light
A different creature
With tender eyes, with an ear for water
Happy new year everyone, and congratulations for making it through! 2021 has been A RIDE. It was the year when we realised that solid things were not solid, because the world didn't work the way we thought it worked and the things we thought were certain were absolutely not. In 2021, a lot of things fell down the gaps. I love that Frances Leviston poem – I've interpreted it in several ways over the years, depending on what was going on, but as its core it's about realising that something you've relied upon (a belief, your body, a relationship, our public support systems, a basic understanding of what life is) isn't actually what you thought, at all. Having this realisation turns you, if you will, into that "different creature with an ear for water" – it changes you.
2021 kicked off with a whimper as we spent five months in lockdown, a sentence that doesn't even begin to explain what that was like – the numbness of it has meant we've already started to forget. I walked across the park and down to the river most days to stave off madness, some days being zen about it, other days raging. In those ragged days of month four I had to soothe myself like a child: "This *will* end, it won't always be like this."
Then vaccines happened and life came back. We went to the pub, we went to restaurants, we went on planes and experienced the world again. It was beautiful and I was thrilled about it, but I felt unsettled. I kept saying that lockdown had made us all a bit funny, like we'd forgot how to be people together, and I'd laugh but deep down knowing it was true. There was something thornier there, something that would need to be dealt with. I felt increasingly stunned by the expectation to just go back to normal, because nothing felt normal anymore and the thought that we could just ... move on, seemed laughable. Like the gaps weren't right there, clear as day?
I took a month off this summer, desperate for some space. With that, the overwhelm subsided but I still found I couldn't go back to the way things had been. Too much has changed – I have changed too much. At first this feeling of dismantling scared me but it doesn't anymore – I don't know what's coming but I've accepted it will look different and I'm working on it. Maybe some day I'll even write again.
In the middle of all of this, something wonderful happened. I started roaming the ponds, lidos, lakes, reservoirs, seas and rivers of London and beyond. I honestly don't know what prompted this, it just felt like the thing to do. Then as the weather grew colder I kept going, because I could feel something happening. I'd push off into the increasingly cold water as it smarted against my skin, and after a minute the pain would give way to a kind of euphoria. As I kept swimming my mind emptied, as I existed only in my body and I could both completely control what was happening and also, not at all. I think most people get to a place like this at some point – you pick up a hobby or activity that you get seriously into, usually involving nature or your body, or both – whatever is left standing when everything gets stripped away. It's as good a place to start as any, I think. I mean, at a certain point, you have to try and save yourself.
Happy new year, everybody. Get your boosters, get some rest and find some joy – it will be there when you look for it x
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