Exiliado: No Hands

I’ve never had a dog until now. Well, we’ve had him since January, but I was waiting on a Green Card and only saw him in moments, between flying across the Atlantic every 6 weeks. Now I get to walk him every day.

It struck me only while writing this, how tiring it sounds to be at work, a job that was intense and demanding of my time and emotions and body, and what I did every holiday instead of rest, which was wake up at 5am and get a taxi to work with my suitcase, then take another taxi at the end of the workday to a train station and go and jump on a plane for an 8 hour flight. Then do the same thing in reverse one or two weeks later.

I say this because for the past two months I haven’t had to do that. And lurking in the back of my mind have been feelings of guilt and unease at what felt like not doing very much. It’s been a complex feeling to get through, almost like I’m having to deprogramme my body, then my mind, and finally my soul. I’ve had moments of waking up in the middle of the night thinking I’d missed a work deadline. I’ve had feelings when going to bed of nerves trapped in the pit of my stomach. Moments of feeling like I’m being lazy, like time is passing by and I’m doing nothing with it. What an awful feeling.

I’ve found it hard to settle on any one thing. Reading has been difficult. I have started a Masters course in Creative Writing and focusing on that, leaning into it and enjoying it fully has also been difficult. These feelings, when confronted and interrogated fade, but I think it will take time. What are they, if not feeling that your self-worth is inextricably linked to making money and being productive?

Back to the dog. He’s a Fox Red Labrador and his name is Cornbread. We’ve developed a rythym where I walk him at intervals in the day. I like the different times of day for different reasons. In the morning, it’s nice to go down to the Capitol, especially if the weather is good. It makes me feel energetic. I listen to music on my headphones and let him romp around in the grass. In the evening, we walk around the neighbourhood. I can see families settled in at home, watching television or eating dinner. People pass by and smile at me, they say hello, or stop to pat Cornbread on the head.

I especially like the afternoon walks. I’ve noticed if we walk around at around 2pm, there’s a particular stillness. People are at work. Children are in school. There aren’t many cars driving around. Autumn weather looked to be settling in a couple of weeks ago, but this week we have reverted back to a late summer. The leaves are falling and turning all those deep shades of orange and bronze. There’s a coolness in the air. But the sky is bright and blue and the sun is still high and it feels warm in shorts and a t-shirt.

I had a moment, while Cornbread nosed around at the base of a tree. I felt the warmth of the sun on my head. I looked up to the light and closed my eyes and it was a moment of such deep, still joy. I realised it was a moment of peace. I thought about all it had taken to get to this moment. All those morning of trudging through the grim, grey of central London on my way to work until God knows what time. Of coming home to an empty house and overcast sky.

They say it’s not happiness people need. They pursue it, because they think they need the constant high of it. There’s so much of that in the world, the misguided desperation for one more hit. But peace, peace is maybe a boring concept to many. To be in that moment, looking up at the sky with eyes closed and the warmth of the sun on your face and know that deep, rooted sense of peace.

I’ve thought a lot about the expectations other people bring to my work. I think a lot of peace, a lot of joy has been taken out of it. It wasn’t so long ago I remember myself sat at the living room table on an evening, writing out something because the thought of it was in my head. Working at it at my own pace. Sending it away with some hope. Tempering rejection. Sending it somewhere else. Finding a quiet sort of success that felt so good. Some validation. But also that my stories were out in the world and people read them and found something in them, enough to let me know. That’s the bit I liked. That whole process.

I’ve been thinking a lot about work. My reluctance to work. What I get out of writing. How to get back to that joy. And what it means for me, to be working in those deep, private obsessions. And I feel a spark of excitement again. Less fear, less weight of expectation at sitting at the desk and just working on something without a care for the possibility of who will see it, where it will go, what it will mean in terms of an interview or an opportunity to work with someone else. You can give so much time and energy outside of your work to someone else, and just end up as fodder, so far removed from your original act of creation it doesn’t even feel like the same thing anymore.

This is where I am. Dusting this off. Thinking deeply. Writing for myself. Working through my rest. Being surprised by peace.