back to normal but not really normal

I was in the co-op buying snacks for a blissful afternoon on the beach, when my dearest friend asked me 'what would you think if you saw yourself now, six months ago?'.  I question this a lot. How normal signs of 'keep your distance' or wearing a mask or queuing outside a shop have become. How quickly we've adapted. 

I am in the penultimate hour of a very long coach journey, something that seems to have become a seminal feature of my summers. Unfortunately, this one is not preceding a flight to somewhere hot, but instead to a twenty first, with friends I haven't seen since March. 

I've spent this journey working, napping, reading, and eating a soggy pitta that just did not satisfy my evening hunger. I also got lost in the depths of my blog, circa. March, reading the intricacies of lockdown life. I can't stop thinking about how terrifying and horrible it was, and have had numerous conversations about a quasi-trauma I experience when thinking back to it all. My experience wasn't bad, and of course was not unusual, but the anxiety and the claustrophobia feels almost more intense and almost more unbearable in hindsight. 

It's resulted in a lot of reflection, about life now, life five months ago and life a year ago. And I suppose, in response to Evie's musing, my life feels more similar to how it manifested in 2019 than it did in May. Likely, in the midst of a pandemic, that is not a good thing. But, it also feels somewhat safe and reassuring and relieving to have got lost in this semblance of normal. To have forgotten what it was like to be stuck inside, not able to even see my friends for a walk. 

In so many of my posts I wrote about how I longed for a pub and a walk and to see a face other than my mum's, and now I have all these things and have absorbed them until I am exhausted with over-stimulation, I've almost forgotten we couldn't have them.

It's such a strange and liminal space and world, right now. It's all so normal and also so abnormal. That sitting on this coach with a mask, and relentless hand sanitising is assumed as a rite of travel. That life goes on despite two trillion pounds public debt. That the infection rate rises, and still we eat out to help out and travel further and meet up more. But also that my life is busy, that I go outside, and have plans and that so many of the things I said I missed, I can finally evoke in some form or another. 

I suppose I want to write this to remember, that on a dark day in April, when I thought I had throat cancer but really was just reacting to the stress, I would have never have dreamed I'd be on this coach to see my friends, or that Libby would be coming to stay, or that I'd be able to drink cider on the beach and go out for meals and work in a cafe. 

But also how quickly I slip back into taking these things as a given, and for granted, and not recognising how profoundly blissful it is to have them back.

being outside

Much about the last 5 months has been dark, empty and endless. But there has been light and opportunity and time that wouldn't have other wise come about. 

One pleasure I have indulged more than ever is the beauty of being outside, in the warm sun, on the beach, on a hill or just sitting in the cloudy grey in a park. I've discovered a new found adoration for simply being outside, in nature, in the fresh air. When you're time outside is so severely curtailed and when all other possibilities are no longer viable, there is something so freeing about being able to simply walk on a field or read in the garden. 

At every opportunity, I have held my breath and jumped into the depths of a cold and probably somewhat dirty river and swum until I could no longer feel my legs. I've swam in the Exeter canal, in the north sea at sunset, in Port Meadow, and in a valley after a breakfast cooked on a fire. 

I've enjoyed having skin smelling of wood smoke and clothes marked with mud and grass stains, or disappearing on my bike to walk amongst white flowers in an abandoned field. Sandy meals and drinks consumed in a park, as though we were replicating the summers of our teenage years. I've even found odd pleasure in the necessity of hedge weeing that arose out of lockdown. Its all been magically freeing and fresh.

 

And now, as summer rolls into the languorous days of August, I am finding beauty in picking blackberries to cook and eat with mountains of granola, and in picking the veg my dad has tirelessly tended to. Last night, I made an entire meal from harvested foods and it was hugely satisfying and nourishing, despite doing nothing to contribute to the growing of any of it. 

So, although our opportunities and experiences have been clipped and summer did not consist of the baked mediterranean paths and sparkling seas we may have dreamed of, the focus has been adjusted. Just the green spaces around me have a new found worth and beauty, and its been a delight to embrace them come rain or shine. 

longing for art

I am longing to see some art. I don't think I realised, prior to corona, just how much I love galleries, and how peaceful I find room after room of sometimes beautiful, but mostly mediocre paintings. Embarrassingly, I used to rubbish history of art as 'pointless' and vacuous, and now not only do I find myself doing a dissertation on early Islamic art but also frequently dream of sitting in a tutorial in the Ashmolean discussing paintings. I guess I've realised its a lot more than just pretty pictures, and has immense cultural and historic value. 

Recently, I've felt a real affinity with some of my favourites, and can't stop thinking about their spot hidden away waiting just for me to stop and stare. This Constable, of clouds, in a backroom in the Ashmolean which I can never direct myself to, but which I always seem to fall upon. Monet's Antibes in the Courtald, magically warm and rich in soft pinks and turquoises. I think you can find good art anywhere, these just happen to be a few whose delicacy play in my mind. 

Over lockdown, I found a lot of good art online, much of which was shared by my friend Sophie. It felt such an escape to still be able to explore new works and see some of my favourites, even when I was locked inside. 

Some highlights include (above):

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 'Buste de Femme Nue', Claude Monet 'Marine', Edvard Munch 'Standing Nude', Konen Uehara 'Hatō zu', Lucian Freud 'Man's Head (Self Portrait I)', Paul Cézanne 'Les Grandes Baigneuses'

I suppose there is some sort of theme: blues and greens, soft female forms, a lot of sea. And that Lucian Freud. I cannot stop thinking about that self-portrait. 

I also listened to Simon Schama's 'The Great Gallery Tours' which, if you can reconcile yourself to the posh stuffiness that often (in my opinion unnecessarily (because so much good art is free)) comes with art critics, is so lovely. He virtually visits 4 of his favourite galleries (I've only listened to the Courtald one) and describes three of the paintings. It feels just like you're in the gallery with him, and I would very much recommend for a gentle half hour relax. And as soon as I can, I am making a trip to the National solely for this Artemisia exhibition. After sending magazine cut outs to my best friend during lockdown, we've decided we need to go and see it as soon as it opens. 

Much of this is formal, 'traditional' art, But really, art can mean anything. For all its flaws, and all the times I have frantically deleted the app from my homescreen, Instagram is the perfect place to share and diversify creative works. Having just scrolled through my saved, I realised so much of it is art and brings creativity and colour and inspiration virtually. 

Some accounts I'd recommend following are:

@amber_sidegallery (a gorgeous independent photography gallery in Newcastle – Forever Amber's most iconic series was of poverty in the city, but since they have done so much; one of pictures across Syria during the conflict was just breath taking – I can't wait to take myself on a date here soon)

@vangoghmuseum

@museelouvre

@charlotte.ager

@ashmoleanmuseum

@robertoferri_official (a modern baroque-esque artist; obsessed)

@metmusuem

Ars gratia artis – mutatis mutandis (on fb, such a beautiful and diverse selection and it has really exposed me to some gorgeous new stuff!)

And finally, this. Which I think about almost on a daily basis. God, what i'd do for an americano, a croissant, some art and a nap. 

What have you been missing most? And any arty recs please send 'em my way xo

a whole lotta love

A little drunk, and a little lost in the sadness that comes with the end of a fuckin' brilliant few weeks that felt they would never end. 

Originally intended to be a week in Devon with my family, I ended up seeing almost all my best friends in some of my favourite, and new delightful, places. 

I feel sad and teary but so deeply happy and blessed. In a delirious exhaustion on the train from London (?) to Newcastle, I sent a message to a friend saying:

'I just had such a nice realisation that I have the kindest and best people in my life, and what have I done to deserve such goodness'. 

Sometimes I wonder if everyone is as blessed to have as good friends. And I mean really fucking good. The kind that let you cry drunk on the phone whilst they are on holiday with their girlfriend. The kind that swim in a canal with you even though it is raining, or read with you, or laugh so deeply you can't breathe from the stomach pain. The kind who I don't feel I ever have enough time with, who I think of a million things to say in too little time. The kind that, god, just make you feel so full and alive and yourself, and that you just want to hug when you are walking in silence because the love you feel is too much. 

As you can tell, I am delirious from both a lack of sleep and a blur of chaotic beauty, and drunk from too much sangria and good times. I also have 'sure on this shining night' playing because for some reason being in York minster made me need to listen to choral music. See what I mean? Friends that let you be yourself. 

I am adamant this is the best summer ever. I think because of the unexpected beauty of it all. How amazing it feels to be in the presence of my friends and drink their warmth, after months of Zoom. And the freedom, to float around the country and stay in random rooms in empty tenuously known student flats, pretending I don't have a whole dissertation to write and a whole paper to research. Oh, Oxford. 

Delightful highlights include: seeing my best friends for the first time in months and drinking wine, swimming at Exmouth in the sun, eating scones at the top of a hill, reading in bed with a coffee in hand, planning an expected trip to Oxford and the hilarity (and I mean hilarity) that came with it, swimming in Port Meadow, traipsing around bookshops with my bffs, eating tapas with Libby and pretending to replicate the Spanish trip we never got to book. I think I may have been on twenty trains, spent hundreds of pounds and used more hand sanitiser than I thought possible, but man my heart is full. 

And now, we focus. On work, on eating, on myself. I'm scared these can't go hand in hand, that Oxford is just not compatible with a healthy mindset (no matter how deeply I love it) and that some form of recovery, whatever that transpires to mean, may be too hard or too scary. But here we are, it's going to happen because I want to continue loving and thriving and breathing the intense happiness these beautiful people impart. 

(wow, that was a lot - the sangria hit me harder than I thought)

love xo (and listen to sure on this shining night before you sleep <3)

twenty one

This train journey, my third in as many weeks, was supposed to be spent researching early Islamic art in Transjordan, but instead here we are writing. The avoidance I am practicing in relation to my dissertation sure needs to be addressed soon, especially after, on the 16th June, my supervisor said we should 'speak in a month' to 'assess progress'. Of course, progress is limited, but really I've just been trying to soak up as much sleep and laughter and permissible adventure as possible and make up for some of the privileges we have been denied as of late. So I think maybe, in corona times, that is a reasonable excuse. 

Twenty-one feels big and 'adult', neither of which are characteristics I attribute to myself. I'd really like to stay twenty forever, but I think I perhaps say that every year. 

Either way, it materialised into a magical day of sea swimming and cardamom buns and a haircut (that I now dislike) and phone calls and a lot of Prosecco and laughter with some old friends. I felt very happy and very loved and very lucky, feelings that haven't really been in abundance in the last few months. I got some beautiful gifts, notably a yellow 90s racing bike, a paloma wool shirt, and some velcro vejas which I bestowed upon myself, and whilst in some ways it was not the twenty-first I imagined, it was beautiful. 

There are some big things I want to learn at this seminal (?) age and, as I currently have a lot of time to think and reflect and some long convoluted journeys abundant in empty time, I thought I would document them, perhaps for some accountability. 

Break my jealousy streak. Florence Given taught me that my feelings towards others are simply a projection of my insecurities. And jealousy is a big one. I want to learn to share people and to not get angry when they spend time with other people. Trust your friendship and trust their agency.

And I suppose along the same vein, have faith in your relationships. I'd like to eliminate the excessive time spent with dear friends worrying whether they like me, and instead focussing on the time spent with them. 

Learn intuition – with food, with rest, with direction. Probably seek some help for the former.

Have confidence in my worth and don't depend upon external validation to realise this.

Speak up rather than shy away.

Be more critical in my approach. Don't accept as gospel everything I read, even if it is by someone I admire, and have the confidence to challenge it. 

Don't fuckin' freak out about the future or the intense and unwelcome reminder of other people's plans. I think third year is going to be perhaps a little grim for this, as the gossip about next steps and internships and grad jobs amongst inherently driven and ambitious people takes over. Breathe, ignore. 

Challenge my guilt complex, and learn to be. 

Finish my degree (yikes) but don't waste time thinking about the end. 

Thus, a few key things I want to learn. I suppose really all I want is a little more freedom and a little less control, but I think lessons from this pandemic will perhaps aid such a development. Twenty one will in some ways be a big year, but I don't really like to think about it too much. I just want to finish my degree, and not much else. I have plans for after but am a mighty firm believer in taking it slow. So I am envisaging another year out to live a little without 2 essays a week, before embarking on a masters in a subject which probably sounds vacuous, but for which I have fallen deeply in love. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, I need to finish my preliminary degree first. 

I hope you're all well and safe and wearing your masks! I've got an exciting week or two of celebrations and friends I haven't seen in a while and days in Devon, so I feel lucky and more normal than I have in months. 

vicarious summer

Living vicariously through the delicate faded hues of these photos to emulate some form of the summer I dreamed of. 

Evocative of the serenity empty days propose but never totally fulfil, the morning sun I want to lie in with a cup of black coffee, the sea I want to swim in and the salty skin drying in the heat, open windows onto shouts of street vendors and that smell of warm petrol air that only exists in mediterranean cities. 

Each day I create a fantasy that revolves around these improbable hopes, in a time before corona when the world felt deceptively ordered. I've got lost looking at Eurostar tickets and making calendars marking all the movements of my friends in some attempt to create plans that I know should really be left alone. It's a perplexing dichotomy, between shattering statistics and graphs and death tolls, slurs of 'R' related jargon and calls for economic foundations to soften the already pernicious blow, and mindless, reckless drunkness in beer gardens and crowded rooms, a discourse moving on as though it is already tired of this ceaseless pandemic. Somehow, I feel 'all men are liars' really epitomises the world right now. 

In all honesty, I vacillate between the two. I know the seriousness, feel blindsided, condemn the slow response and too-rapid relaxation. But I am also bored, dream of the summer I selfishly convinced myself I 'deserved', as if my privilege could somehow ward off the virus. I've grieved for a life I left behind, which was so good I perhaps know it wasn't real and couldn't last, and sometimes convince myself that tomorrow I will awake and this will have been an apocalyptic, cold-sweated dream forged to remind me to live a little harder. But, echoing something I think Alain de Botton said, why did I think we could avoid this? That we had overcome nature, and could never succumb to its innate powers. 

Instead, this is the world and the times we are living in. Adapting to the lessons it is teaching us and hopefully listening to the calls for human softness on the natural kingdom. I don't think an existence in this hopeful summer is wrong or futile. It gives me promise for the future, makes me evaluate the things of importance, perhaps create a bucket list for post-corona days. 

I'll try and recreate the warmth and serenity of these pictures, somehow. In my morning coffee under my duvet, in walks in the damp drizzle that still feel somehow releasing, in smaller adventures that appease the hunger for newness. I've rearranged my room, stuck anything remotely orange or peach up on my walls and have taken to sleeping exclusively with the window open. I've found some excitement in bought coffees, the hour of cereal eating and book reading that I savour each morning, and the excessive number of silver rings I have collected.

Trying not to think of what the summer of my twenties should look like, you know?

(sources of pics: all found here)

one hundred days

The 100 day milestone of 'rona lockdown sure did hit hard. I cried and napped almost exclusively for two days straight, something I haven't done in a while. 

Last week was euphoric. I wrote in my notes whilst sitting on the train that it felt blissful and delightfully exciting. 

it feels like there is so much to look forward to, and nothing to dread. I suppose I hope it can never get as bad or as strict or as lonely or as scary as it was

(side note: i rlly hate the new blogger, and can no longer work out how to make pics good quality - any tips??)

I sort of wish I'd documented the feelings a little better but I managed to see some of my favourite faces, get drunk multiple times, and visit the place most dearest to my heart. Beautiful highlights include lying in the sun of Hyde Park with my best friend, drinking cider, laughing, marvelling in total awe at finally seeing each other. The sunny botanic gardens and feeling a warmth and freedom. Sitting under a tree in the rain, and then in Radcliffe Square drinking gin in the golden silence, and nearly missing yet another train. Crying to another friend at the overwhelming emotions of it all. 

Yesterday, I lay on my floor surrounded by my miscellaneous belongings and paper and copious books and just cried and cried. I felt so much. I think the last fourteen weeks finally sort of sunk in, what I had missed, how much I adore my friends and how much it hurt that I couldn't spend blissful summer months with them. Visiting Oxford was magical and felt like home but walking into my locked room, left as a total still of the before corona times, felt alien and outdated. I sort of struggle to remember that that life belonged to me. 

I also think it sort of hit home that the elated trajectory I had idealised last week of endless progression just isn't true and life isn't going to revert, no matter how much I sanitise my hands or dream of it disappearing. 

So 'rona is bringing some odd feelings this week. I am feeling uneasy about turning twenty-one, am lost in an odd self-contempt and worthlessness, and I have a lot of thoughts I need to process about endings and beginnings and what it all means. This summer, really, is mostly just work. I have a lot to get through and focus on, and I suppose a pandemic is the best time to do it. I've got a dissertation to research (and apparently 'start writing' by the end of summer to 'front load'), and a plethora of pre-reading to tackle for next term. It is terrifying that this will be my last paper and my last 8 weeks of essays written in 4 days and 400 years of history learned in 2. I need to figure out what might come *next*, and try not to get caught up in the 'not-doing-enough' rhetoric. My degree is enough, surviving a pandemic is enough, and accepting the emotional exhaustion is enough. But it's hard to feel that when everyone around you seems to be succeeding and creating and exploring. I'm dreaming of summer plans that oscillate between illegal and improbable, and exciting and spontaneous. I am trying to exist in the thrill of promise and possibility, and not living beyond next the next seven days, even if I can't stop thinking of Paris. 

Today, I am making bagels, trying to avoid the headache induced by too many hours on my phone, walking my usual route and trying to make progress with Reading Lolita in Tehran. There also remains a mountain of shit to put away, washing to do and hoarded items to part with. 

Has the centenary of corona brought any odd feelings for y'all?

some reading and listening

Long time, no see. 

It's been a lot, these past few weeks. A lot for all of us in so many different ways and to so many different degrees. But it's been an important shift in discourse and privilege checking and awareness. In 'obsessed with I May Destroy You', Sophie Duker refers to the bc* world as 'the before times', before 'the world disintegrated' and I loved this description. But the disintegration is in so many ways important. It'd be interesting to consider whether there was a correlation between activism nd corona – maybe privileged white people (like me) feel they have more time to understand, study, research, are more open to other people's stories, recognise that their liberties have been curtailed perhaps for the first time ever, and perhaps reflect upon this. Of course, dialogue relating to race, discrimination, inequality etc has been going on forever, but maybe corona offered the spark to get white people to sit up and listen. But maybe it's all just a chronological coincidence. 

Either way, I've thought a lot, read a lot, listened a lot in these past few weeks. 

Some really good stuff, of varying degrees of educational zeal, entertainment, culture and generally black voices in spaces where they don't exclusively talk about race (not because this isn't so important but because sometimes feel the mainstream media only thinks it necessary to involve people of colour when its about race) include:

Pose (for the Latino/African-American LGBTQ+ scene in '80s New York - both heartbreaking and heart warming in equal measure), I May Destroy You (for a raw, hilarious, cutting exposition of being a woman, being a woman of colour, being a millennial, culture of consent, micro-aggressions, just what the real world is actually like (there are so many scenes that are just not in usual TV but which happen everyday (and show how fake tv usually is – which isn't always a bad thing of course) – e.g. when she is in the toilet w/ her friend and puts a pad in with no reference to her period), Obsessed with I May Destroy You (BBC Sounds podcast, a funny review of the show and its reflection of the experiences of black women in Britain – also she has some sick guests, and along with the actual show it feels like the BBC is finally waking up from its prude watershed conservatism a bit??), Growing up with Galdem podcast (for safe, real conversations about childhood through a diary entry/letter/text message from their younger selves – there's also an episode w/ Michaela Cole which I need to listen to asap). 

In terms of more academic tings I've read a lot about race in feminism, which has made me realise a lot and think a lot. Piercing the White Silence by Terese Jonsson, as well as Reni Eddo-Lodge's chapter on feminism for current issues in the feminist movement. Hazel Carby's 1982 article 'White Women Listen!' is a very important read for white feminists, and was crucial to the '80s Black feminist movement. All three are easy reads. And finally, I am half way through Reading Lolita in Tehran which, whilst perhaps different in its topics, is still crucial and shocking but so rich and full. It takes me an hour just to read a few pages because every word feels like a gift, and sometimes  I have to just put it down and think about their trauma and their ceaseless search for escapism.

In terms of stuff I want (but haven't yet had time) to watch/read/listen to:

Watch 13th, and alongside that read Angela Davis – both Women, Race and Class, and Are Prisons Obsolete? And I want to read the rest of bell hooks Ain't I a Woman. Some of my good friends have set up an online feminist theory reading group (called Theory4Thotz, open to all (not exclusive to Oxford at all – find it on fb and insta) that discusses some of the major feminist texts. They've chatted about Adrienne Rich's Compulsory Heterosexuality, Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Womanism, Black Feminism and Beyond by Patricia Hill Collins and bell hooks' Feminist Theory from Margin to Centre, alongside others. I've got quite a lot to catch up on but boy am I excited to get more into it now term is done. For some reason I am really enjoying reading academia just for the sake of it. 

I've also watched and listened and read a lot of other (good) but less informative stuff – see: Wimbledon (the film), How to Fail w/ Daisy Edgar Jones, Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, Portico Quartet Knee Deep in the North Sea for working music. 

In other news, term finished yesterday. It concluded with a coursework practice, whereby I had to write 3 essays in 3 days. Grim. But I am mighty proud of myself of surviving a term at home. I actually have *plans* this week, and am seeing (almost) all my favourite people in a variety of convoluted ways. I remember this time last year writing in my diary that I was the happiest I had ever been. Right now, as I sit outside in the sun with nothing to do and nowhere to be, except to drink in the park with my friends tonight like we are 16 again, I sort of feel the same, but in a very different way. I guess I can finally see the corona light and the thought of seeing my best friend tomorrow (admittedly after a train journey with a mask and a lot of hand sanitiser) after fourteen weeks, and beautiful Oxford in the sun on Saturday, makes me so excited I might wee myself. 

Man, it sure has been a lot!

Please send podcast recs and reading recs, and come to the reading group because its an hour and half of the most enlightening and safe discussions w/ two of the cleverest gals I know.

Oh, and it's nice to be back!

*before corona, obvs