A life in threads

#maywriteabit day three

Intro: I am really excited to be part of the #maywriteabit project. I am committing to write 30 minutes a day for the month of May. I have decided to approach this by timing myself and hitting the publish button at the end of it. Unedited! I will then read through tomorrow morning, see if anything interests me enough to pick up a thread, or I will start again. It will be as much about the writing process as the content. And I am excited and terrified in equal measures. Are you in?

I have been thinking about the geography of the days during lockdown. Until a year ago I had a job that would often take me from my home in Gateshead to London. I would get out of bed and imagine a thread attached to my mattress. The thread would stretch with me on the walk to the Metro, speed down the East Coast mainline, wind through tunnels on the Tube, look up at Big Ben with me when I emerged, and then sit with me in the grandest of buildings in Parliament St. And at the end of the day we would do the journey in reverse and it would slowly wind itself back in until I was back in my bed at night. Despite its long stretch there was a certain repeating rhythm to it, even a meditation, and I think I miss it.

Once we opened the cafe the thread got very messy and tangled, stretching easily from bed to bus to cafe but then it would tie around and around itself from sink to hobs to shop to till back to hob to fridge to sink to knives to kettle to hug (remember that word) favourite customers. It would occasionally sit while I drank green tea and cake in a rival cafe (shh that’s a secret) but mostly it spun like crazy around a 20ft square metre footprint until returning home at night. The tempo was wild and my heartbeat rises just thinking about it.

The evenings were equally busy trying to find time to feed my son before accounts or book group or Sangha night or Green Party work. My husband with me at work and then slotted in somewhere between the gaps.

Now the thread moves much more slowly, unfolding with me to find my glasses and my phone, staying in bed to catch up with the News then to the kettle, the garden, the sofa and the desk. It has a much slower rhythm accompanied by birdsong, and allows me to read the clouds and witness the dance of the trees. Listening carefully for footsteps around the house and identifying the loved one about to come and find me.

I have always imagined my retirement with a wild tempo, replacing paid work with voluntary and political activitsm. But this lockdown has given me the opportunity to experience another possibility. That I can slow down and find joy within a very few steps from my bed!

I hope I remember this.