#293: The Glowing Words
Same words, different meanings
An autumn evening. Cold. Wet. A familiar dark city centre. A walk home. And then, on a wall you have glanced at countless times, these words, in neon lights:
ONLY YOU
CAN WRITE
THE NEXT PAGE
For the tenth anniversary of Lumiere (Durham’s festival of light), these words glowed from the side of the city’s library. As you might expect from the wall of a building devoted to the written word, this light installation originally inspired me to think about my writing. I thought, as I trudged up the hill home, about how I have always wanted to write, and how I am lucky to have a dream that requires merely pen and paper to achieve. Writing materials in hand, only I can write the next page.
But Durham is small, and so I have revisited these words since. And as words often do, their meaning shifted with the context of my existing thoughts. I’ve been thinking a lot about how, up until graduation, my life was pretty much planned out. One source of education after another. And my friends my own age all followed a similar route.
Now, post-graduation, we’ve splintered. We’re spread across the country, studying and working, travelling and living. Some of us have partners, while some of us live alone. Some of us want to buy a house soon, while some of us are renting student accommodation. It becomes easy to compare yourself, to think unhelpful thoughts like, “Why am I the only one who will not become a doctor?” or “Why am I happy to sit at home when everyone is travelling?” In reality, my life choices have nothing to do with those I compare myself to. Only I can write the next page.
Then, as the context surrounding these words shifted again, I learnt a new meaning for them. I discovered that they were created through workshops with women at HMP Low Newton. I learnt, from Kate Harvey, one of the festival’s organisers, that the words were meant
“to come from people looking for hope in their life, but can also act as a source of inspiration to people walking past.”
Suddenly my banal and privileged previous interpretations seemed insignificant. My previous readings of these words were washed away. Instead, I admired the fact that art is for everyone, even those in the most difficult circumstances.
And yet, given that this light installation will be a permanent feature in Durham, this object’s meaning will ebb and flow around the many people that meander past. For some, it will inspire only a cursory glance and little thought. For others, an epiphany may strike. Words, after all, are open for us all to read as we wish. And I look forward to thinking and feeling different things each time I wander past these glowing letters.
