To branch

To reach, to grow, to break. To be alone. But also to belong, to hold, to partake. To be strong.

Distancing: Day 79

I've stayed away from the news as much as I can, and escaped through books and films from the past, where people can hug and punch and travel however they like. This has led to a form of inner peace, a bubble of me and mine and now, where I can concentrate on my writing,...

Distancing: Day 71

The political scandal has people from left, right and centre agreeing all over Twitter. I have a week off from the day job. I was meant to go to Hungary but instead I have a private writing retreat at home. The to do list is made, and is a mix of writing related and life...

Distancing: Day 69

A family of sparrows have nested in the drainpipe above my bedroom window. I see mum and dad flying to and fro it all day everyday. I can’t see the nest or the chicks, but I hear them. As soon as the parents return the cute and desperate chorus of the hungry arise. They’re my...

Distancing: Day 67

Since lockdown started, I’ve made sure to call my dad every Friday during my morning walk. It’s now the social highlight of my week. We have never found it difficult to talk, my dad and I, but we have at times found it difficult to agree and sometimes extremely difficult to get on. After a...

Distancing: Day 66

There is so much little life flying around. It's nearly 8pm, still light, still warm, still battery in the old machine. A neighbour is showing her vegetable garden to a friend on her phone. The Italian family are on the other side chatting. And all around, between, above us,  there are gnats, fruit flies and...

Distancing: Day 61

61 days. 23 hours a day spent at home. My motivation for cleaning, DYI, life admin and other household jobs is minimal. My motivation for escape is gargantuan. I've finished reading Blå by Maja Lunde, and am now watching The Last Dance on Netflix. It brings me back to the Saturday mornings of my childhood...

Distancing: Day 54

Suddenly work words appear out of nowhere. A product, a portal, a process will come into my mind and take up space, blocking out other words, my words, like blue, that I want to use for writing. I try to empty myself of work words by reading, sunbathing, falling asleep in the middle of the...

Distancing: Day 52

Was I born too late? The world was already on an irreversible trajectory of doom – of illness, destruction and death – when I was born. Perhaps I’m the last of my kind. My generation were told that the world belonged to us; we were the ones who were allowed to work with anything, study...

Distancing: Day 49

Today I got an email at work congratulating us all for having successfully kept the business running from our homes for six weeks. At the weekend we did the most lockdowny thing of lockdown: one of my housemates cut all our hair. It was very successful; we all look the same but different and the...

Distancing: Day 37

"To write truly is to speak from the depths of the maternal womb." Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment (2002)   A writer in her thirties is left by her husband, and descends into a kind of reality and identity shifting madness, where she accidentally locks herself, her children and their dog into their Turin...