To reach, to grow, to break. To be alone. But also to belong, to hold, to partake. To be strong.
Thursday 04 March 2021. Morning
Last night I watched a BBC documentary about the Stonehenge, and a recent discovery that the bluestones that originated from southern Wales had originally stood in their own stone circle closer to the original quarry. The tv team followed the archaeologists for years, as they dug and tested the soil of several possible sites, until... Continue Reading →
Friday 26 February 2021. Evening
The mornings are lighter, the evenings are longer. The load might be the same, but I'm getting stronger. I've returned to the river. It's the earliest I've ever started my regular swims in the year. It's cold of course, but refreshing in a way that will start to dispel as spring brings warmth and summer.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 16 February 2021. Evening
For Valentine's, my sister made me a profile on her new Disney+ account. In the 48 hours since then, I've watched the live action version of Lady and the Tramp four times. Plus a few of my favourite bits in bed before going to sleep. It's not like I'm addicted or anything, I swear I... Continue Reading →
Thursday purpose
Frozen February sunrise, Cambridge, 2021 photo by Jessica Zarins I'm getting seriously sick of lockdown. And I really shouldn't have espresso with post-dinner profiteroles when it's not at a restaurant that I have to leave and can walk off before I try and sleep. After a few weeks of good sleep the old ghosts reappeared... Continue Reading →
Monday 08 February 2021. Evening
At an open writing group meeting a week and a half ago there was a discussion around setting achievable goals and realistic boundaries. Being by nature a dreamer, I can find this difficult. But not doing it can be devastating. Worker, writer, warrior; healthy and happy. I want to be them all. I want to... Continue Reading →
Tuesday 2/Wednesday 3 February 2021. Night
I wake from a dream with my heart pounding so loudly I think I'll wake the neighbours. I'd dreamt about the house where I grew up, in Katrineholm, Sweden. I was preparing for work, my current work from home, like so many others. But a boy kept appearing outside, a young teenager; the age I... Continue Reading →
Monday 25 January 2021. Morning
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, 25 January 2021. Photo by Jessica Zarins It’s light in Cambridge at seven thirty in the morning now. Today is a particularly good day to experience it; crisp, cold and clear you notice every photon making its way through the universe. The grass, the mud, the stone and the asphalt are... Continue Reading →
One person’s comfort is another one’s fear
Monday 18 January 2021. Blue Monday. Soon there will be an inauguration, and 6.1% of the UK population have received the first dose of the vaccine. Minute by minute, the days are getting longer. But at 7am, when I go for my walk after failing to sleep for more than a few hours, it's still... Continue Reading →
Thursday 14 January 2021. Pheasants
Halfway through the first twelfth of the year. Grey and wet, in the ground and in the air, in case we forget. A Moomintroll-like melancholy seeps its way through the house, infecting us all, like a slow, local pandemic that takes root wherever there's life. We build obstacle courses and give ourselves war paint in... Continue Reading →
Sunday 10 January 2021. Afternoon
Trying to stave off the sense of hopelessness. Trying to think of gratitude and opportunity and possibility. A friend sent me a queue calculator of when I could be expected to get the vaccine. Since I'm luck enough to be young, not have any underlying conditions and don't work in frontline care, I probably won't... Continue Reading →