I am doing a try blog post. A difficult one. Found on another blog.
My life in years from now. If I imagine. And wish. And do not worry.
At least three things.
In 1 year (23).
~I have moved from my current student's flat, closer to the city.
~I have figured out where to do my MA.
~I might still be depressed. But I can talk about it.
In 3 years (25).
~I am doing, or have just finished, an MA in English literature. Preferably in the UK.
~I have made friends. And become close to them.
~I have been able to run 10 km quite easily.
~I know what is wrong with me and my head. And I know how to work with it.
In 5 years (27).
~I have had a relationship, at least once, with a man or a woman.
~I have a cat.
~I have written something I am proud of.
In 10 years (32).
~I have taken or am doing my PhD in English Literature, maybe on modernists, or how space/room is conceived.
~I have lived in Leeds again.
~I live in a flat or a house I like.
~I write. Or teach.
~There are some children in my life. Nieces and nephews hopefully.
~I am in a relationship? Or have had a serious one at least.
In 30 years (52)
~I teach at a university. Maybe in Sweden, but I have or will teach abroad as well.
~I have cats, still.
~I have nieces and nephews. And maybe, maybe, a child of my own.
~I have published something written. Apart from the thesis.
~I have run at least one marathon.
~I work not full-time. Maybe 75%.
Honestly. I was not that difficult. It seems just very unlikely.
It is exciting to think of myself in these ages. This is good for me to read when I fall into holes of meaninglessness.
Showing posts with label leeds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leeds. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Sunday, 8 February 2015
This Is a List
5 things I say a lot
- svin(mycket/jobbigt/gott)
- Jag vet inte
- Jag är så trött
- Jag vet inte hur jag ska förklara
- Kanske
- Jag är så trött
- Jag vet inte hur jag ska förklara
- Kanske
(I honestly don't know.)
5 things I think a lot
- I am so ungrateful/useless/worthless/a waste of space
- I love women so much
- I am depressed
- Don't think about that
- *What I would say at this moment to someone if I met them right now.*
5 things I dream about a lot at night
(I dream very little, but these are the few recurring ones)
- Being in love and being loved by someone I don't know.
- Having frustrating and stressful conversations
- Being trapped or stressed or in a hurry--often involving a murderer
- Getting stuck at something unable to finish it
- Being pregnant and about to give birth (this happens so often!!)
5 things very few people know about me
- I am depressed/have anxiety/social phobia
- I have seen therapists and am now doing cognitive behavioural therapy online
- I write on this blog!
- I am bisexual, undecided or very uninterested
- The very few people I have liked or had crushes on
5 things I love to do
- Read and find myself in other people's writing
- Walk in the forest
- Be completely alone in a foreign city
- Cook and do the dishes with an entertaining podcast
- Organise
5 things I want to happen before this year is over
- Visit Iceland
- Go back to Leeds
- Get to know someone I adore
- Finish something written
- Move
5 things I order abroad
- Veggie burrito or something at Chipotle
- Red velvet cake
- Anything vegan or vegetarian
- Eggs
- Breakfast!
5 things I miss in my wardrobe
- A perfect winter coat
- A silver grey chiffon midi skirt I saw on a girl in London
- A pashmina scarf
- Tops that look good with skirts
- A raincoat
5 things that smell wonderfully
- Ground coffee
- The forest
- Horses
- Bird cherry
- Summer mornings
5 things I want to get better at
- Writing
- Talking to friends
- Feeling things for people
- Making bread
- Languages
5 things I laugh at
- Podcasts
- Parks & Rec, Broad City, Friday Night Dinner, and so on
- Clever jokes
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Texts posts on tumblr
5 things that make me who I am
- My insane love for reading
- My somewhat insistent/annoying/clever joking
- My cleverness and good reading-head
- My independence and craving for solitude
- The space between everyone else and me
p.s. I adore the new design on the blog.
p.s. I adore the new design on the blog.
Saturday, 3 January 2015
2014 review
I wanted to write something about the year (I have writing itching in my fingers), so I have taken a list from a favourite blog of mine and edited/translated it.
Describe the year with three words.
Leeds, lit-studies and depression.
How did the studies (and job) go this year?
My studies were great. Both terms were fantastic, educating, uplifting, inspiring and absolutely wonderful. At the same time it has been incredibly difficult (at one point I even considered dropping out). The spring was mostly wonderful and my grades were fine--I got the UK grade 2:1, which is something like C/B I think. The autumn has been more anxiety-filled and exhausting, but I have gotten great grades, so far all A's on essays, and A in the only course I have finished so far.
The job has gone on. It has been both meditative and boring. Lately, mostly boring. I am in charge of social media which is at times fun but mostly anxiety-inducing and horrifying. I am thinking of quitting it.
The people in my life this year.
I have attempted to withdraw, which I have succeeded with I would say. I don't have to see people as much what with living alone. But friendships are more or less the same, although I am less close with one of my best friend. Gets along better with certain people at work. Met lovely people at Oxfam in Leeds. Did not really befriend anyone this year, except possibly someone at work.
Social life has, overall, been very difficult this year.
The best trip this year.
Naturally Leeds, but if I had to specify more (what with being there for six months...), it woul be the short trip to Haworth I did when I wandered on the moors, the longer trip to Cardiff, Bristol and Bath and maybe my first few days in London before I went to Leeds--with the flavour of freedom in my mouth.
Best memories or moments of the year.
The evening I went to the poetry reading at uni, in Leeds, where I had wine and fell in love with poetry and talked to and saw people I liked.
When I got use to being in Leeds and realised my freedom of being there. Those freeing walks and bus rides and coming home to my flat.
The Head and the Heart concert in Manchester.
Any one of the good seminars/meetings I have had with my two favourite teachers this year.
Travelling alone. Some of the other concerts. Coming home to my flat, even this one in Stockholm.
Worst memories or moments of the year.
I would rather not think of them, but some of them are: the first few days in Leeds, when I was leaving Leeds, the first week home in Sweden, this entire autumn. When I was too drunk at two points, but my mainly last New Year's Eve. Some of the concerts I went to this year, when the mass of people have me panic.
What was the best thing you bought?
Maybe my black skirt on sale in Leeds, or books such as Glass, Irony and God, The World's Wife, Division Street, and The Waves. Can't think of anything else in particular. I bought a lot of skirts and dressed in England that I love.
What was the best gift you received?
Virginia Woolf's and Sylvia Plath's diaries. An analogue camera I got from Lina. Gift certificate to get a tattoo (which I haven't used yet). *The gift of knowledge.*
What was the biggest musical discovery?
BY FAR Kent. They made my months in Leeds. God I adore them, especially the latter albums. They are my favourite Swedish musicians.
Here is a playlist with the music I listened to this year.
What was the biggest literary discovery?
TOO MANY. Whole genres! The English 18th century literature, Boswell, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Carson, Helen Mort, and the re-discovery of Virginiaa Woolf.
What did I watch?
Few movies--the only one I remember liking is The Hours. But on TV: Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & recreation, Broad City, Historieäterna, Hannibal, Buffy (still stuck on the sixth season), Friday Night Dinner, Girls, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Pushing Daisies, and Veep.
This I should have done more of.
Always reading. Maybe talked to someone. Said yes. I did dare to do a lot, but I could have dared more. Believed in myself. Oh, and writing, definitely more writing. And more taking photos and blogging. Ugh. I will try to be better this year...
This I should have done less of.
Drinking wine... Doubted and hated and been ashamed of myself so much. I have been wrong to doubt myself so much this year. I should have done less of the things I did not want to do.
Biggest insight of 2014.
That I am unwell, maybe. That I realised I am actually depressed and anxious--that this is what depression and anxiety is.
And the insight, that Leeds is where I want to live, and English literature is what I want to work with, study and think about.
This I bring with me into 2015.
Very little. 2014 has not been good at all--and I don't believe 2015 will be any better. I will remember that I like running and that I can get good grades in literature courses. But a whole lot of memories from my home on this planet.
Describe the year with three words.
Leeds, lit-studies and depression.
How did the studies (and job) go this year?
My studies were great. Both terms were fantastic, educating, uplifting, inspiring and absolutely wonderful. At the same time it has been incredibly difficult (at one point I even considered dropping out). The spring was mostly wonderful and my grades were fine--I got the UK grade 2:1, which is something like C/B I think. The autumn has been more anxiety-filled and exhausting, but I have gotten great grades, so far all A's on essays, and A in the only course I have finished so far.
The job has gone on. It has been both meditative and boring. Lately, mostly boring. I am in charge of social media which is at times fun but mostly anxiety-inducing and horrifying. I am thinking of quitting it.
The people in my life this year.
I have attempted to withdraw, which I have succeeded with I would say. I don't have to see people as much what with living alone. But friendships are more or less the same, although I am less close with one of my best friend. Gets along better with certain people at work. Met lovely people at Oxfam in Leeds. Did not really befriend anyone this year, except possibly someone at work.
Social life has, overall, been very difficult this year.
The best trip this year.
Naturally Leeds, but if I had to specify more (what with being there for six months...), it woul be the short trip to Haworth I did when I wandered on the moors, the longer trip to Cardiff, Bristol and Bath and maybe my first few days in London before I went to Leeds--with the flavour of freedom in my mouth.
Best memories or moments of the year.
The evening I went to the poetry reading at uni, in Leeds, where I had wine and fell in love with poetry and talked to and saw people I liked.
When I got use to being in Leeds and realised my freedom of being there. Those freeing walks and bus rides and coming home to my flat.
The Head and the Heart concert in Manchester.
Any one of the good seminars/meetings I have had with my two favourite teachers this year.
Travelling alone. Some of the other concerts. Coming home to my flat, even this one in Stockholm.
Worst memories or moments of the year.
I would rather not think of them, but some of them are: the first few days in Leeds, when I was leaving Leeds, the first week home in Sweden, this entire autumn. When I was too drunk at two points, but my mainly last New Year's Eve. Some of the concerts I went to this year, when the mass of people have me panic.
What was the best thing you bought?
Maybe my black skirt on sale in Leeds, or books such as Glass, Irony and God, The World's Wife, Division Street, and The Waves. Can't think of anything else in particular. I bought a lot of skirts and dressed in England that I love.
What was the best gift you received?
Virginia Woolf's and Sylvia Plath's diaries. An analogue camera I got from Lina. Gift certificate to get a tattoo (which I haven't used yet). *The gift of knowledge.*
What was the biggest musical discovery?
BY FAR Kent. They made my months in Leeds. God I adore them, especially the latter albums. They are my favourite Swedish musicians.
Here is a playlist with the music I listened to this year.
What was the biggest literary discovery?
TOO MANY. Whole genres! The English 18th century literature, Boswell, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Carson, Helen Mort, and the re-discovery of Virginiaa Woolf.
What did I watch?
Few movies--the only one I remember liking is The Hours. But on TV: Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & recreation, Broad City, Historieäterna, Hannibal, Buffy (still stuck on the sixth season), Friday Night Dinner, Girls, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Pushing Daisies, and Veep.
This I should have done more of.
Always reading. Maybe talked to someone. Said yes. I did dare to do a lot, but I could have dared more. Believed in myself. Oh, and writing, definitely more writing. And more taking photos and blogging. Ugh. I will try to be better this year...
This I should have done less of.
Drinking wine... Doubted and hated and been ashamed of myself so much. I have been wrong to doubt myself so much this year. I should have done less of the things I did not want to do.
Biggest insight of 2014.
That I am unwell, maybe. That I realised I am actually depressed and anxious--that this is what depression and anxiety is.
And the insight, that Leeds is where I want to live, and English literature is what I want to work with, study and think about.
This I bring with me into 2015.
Very little. 2014 has not been good at all--and I don't believe 2015 will be any better. I will remember that I like running and that I can get good grades in literature courses. But a whole lot of memories from my home on this planet.
Sunday, 28 December 2014
The Best Books of 14
These are my top ten books I read in the last year (including poetry collections and graphic novels etc), in the order of reading (starting with the latest read).
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
The very best discovery by Woolf this semester--the long prose poetry books, with so many beutiful quotes, and a rhythm like a dream. I loved Rhoda and Bernard.
(Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf)
I re-read Mrs Dalloway this autumn and this time I adored it. It was very much like reading it for the first time, again. Furthermore, I wrote my BA essay on this book and got to spend a lot of time with it. Clarissa, always.
Kunskapens frukt, Liv Strömquist
Fantastic, funny, depressing, illuminating, as always. Everyone should read it.
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
Gorgeous book that was mostly sad and sometimes funny. It was incredible to read without knowing what it was about--that surprise, when it was revealed. Staggering ideas and new thoughts on anthropomorphism's good and bad sides. I want to give this book to all my friends and family.
Villette, Charlotte Brontë
I thought it was extraordinary, especially how it was about solitude and loneliness and pride. Perhpas better than Jane Eyre.
"The Glass Essay," Glass, Irony and God, Anne Carson
I have yet to write a post on this one! It was partly the reason I started this blog--I wanted to write about "The Glass Essay." And I will. But for now, I can say it is my best essay ever, and my favourite longer poem. And I fell in love with Emily Brontë because of it.
Girl Reading, Katie Ward
Lovely book, on this list mainly because of one story. Which I want to re-read now.
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
It was the last book I finished in Leeds, I think. I read it on my Kindle and was floored. I remember finishing it sitting in Caffé Nero in Chapel Allerton (god I miss it) and trying to hide my tears. Beautiful and sad and perhaps the greatest OTP of this year.
Division Street, Helen Mort
Wonderful poetry collection, with sharp lines and grey skies. Her wonderful voice echoing in my head. Words that feel near.
Belinda, Maria Edgeworth
This was my favourite book I read in my spring term. What I loved was the female friendships, the complex utterings of feminism, and Belinda being ridiculous and wonderful. And I loved that I discussed it afterward in my favourite room in Univerity of Leeds, with my favourite teacher.
Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
This was a mid-term reading break, of sorts. It went quickly, because it was impossible to stop. Gorgeous writing, awful story, an admiration of language, and more than anything else, the love between Maddy and Julie. Such a fantastic love story between them. I think it is a book anyone of any age, gender or interest can read.
It was a good reading year. This autumn, especially, I have read such good books. Most by Woolf, of course, but a few other good ones.
I have read or re-read 61 books this year, including poetry collections, non-fiction and short story collections.
53 books were written by women, 6 by men, and 2 were novels or collections with writing by both men and women.
Clearly, I have read almost entirely books by women this year. It started out unconsciously, but then I more or less decided to keep doing it--excepting school reading, naturally. I did read mainly women authors in school as well. I have loved it and I plan on keeping it up. Not rigorously, but with that vague aim.
I have read a few books in Swedish, more than usual, I think: 11. I am glad of that. I want to keep adding Swedish books to my reading. Similarly with poetry. I have read 7 poetry collection, and many more online.
This has been a great reading year, supported by a fantastic year in school in terms of the modules and courses I have taken. I have learned so much. I need words, books, writing to breathe.
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
The very best discovery by Woolf this semester--the long prose poetry books, with so many beutiful quotes, and a rhythm like a dream. I loved Rhoda and Bernard.
(Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf)
I re-read Mrs Dalloway this autumn and this time I adored it. It was very much like reading it for the first time, again. Furthermore, I wrote my BA essay on this book and got to spend a lot of time with it. Clarissa, always.
Kunskapens frukt, Liv Strömquist
Fantastic, funny, depressing, illuminating, as always. Everyone should read it.
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
Gorgeous book that was mostly sad and sometimes funny. It was incredible to read without knowing what it was about--that surprise, when it was revealed. Staggering ideas and new thoughts on anthropomorphism's good and bad sides. I want to give this book to all my friends and family.
Villette, Charlotte Brontë
I thought it was extraordinary, especially how it was about solitude and loneliness and pride. Perhpas better than Jane Eyre.
"The Glass Essay," Glass, Irony and God, Anne Carson
I have yet to write a post on this one! It was partly the reason I started this blog--I wanted to write about "The Glass Essay." And I will. But for now, I can say it is my best essay ever, and my favourite longer poem. And I fell in love with Emily Brontë because of it.
Girl Reading, Katie Ward
Lovely book, on this list mainly because of one story. Which I want to re-read now.
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
It was the last book I finished in Leeds, I think. I read it on my Kindle and was floored. I remember finishing it sitting in Caffé Nero in Chapel Allerton (god I miss it) and trying to hide my tears. Beautiful and sad and perhaps the greatest OTP of this year.
Division Street, Helen Mort
Wonderful poetry collection, with sharp lines and grey skies. Her wonderful voice echoing in my head. Words that feel near.
Belinda, Maria Edgeworth
This was my favourite book I read in my spring term. What I loved was the female friendships, the complex utterings of feminism, and Belinda being ridiculous and wonderful. And I loved that I discussed it afterward in my favourite room in Univerity of Leeds, with my favourite teacher.
Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
This was a mid-term reading break, of sorts. It went quickly, because it was impossible to stop. Gorgeous writing, awful story, an admiration of language, and more than anything else, the love between Maddy and Julie. Such a fantastic love story between them. I think it is a book anyone of any age, gender or interest can read.
It was a good reading year. This autumn, especially, I have read such good books. Most by Woolf, of course, but a few other good ones.
I have read or re-read 61 books this year, including poetry collections, non-fiction and short story collections.
53 books were written by women, 6 by men, and 2 were novels or collections with writing by both men and women.
Clearly, I have read almost entirely books by women this year. It started out unconsciously, but then I more or less decided to keep doing it--excepting school reading, naturally. I did read mainly women authors in school as well. I have loved it and I plan on keeping it up. Not rigorously, but with that vague aim.
I have read a few books in Swedish, more than usual, I think: 11. I am glad of that. I want to keep adding Swedish books to my reading. Similarly with poetry. I have read 7 poetry collection, and many more online.
This has been a great reading year, supported by a fantastic year in school in terms of the modules and courses I have taken. I have learned so much. I need words, books, writing to breathe.
Tuesday, 2 September 2014
School & Virginia Woolf
I have started school again. It's with mixed feelings to be sure. Mostly negative ones, but I do look forward to the structured reading again. But it won't be like in Leeds. It won't be as in-depth and interesting and enlightening. The classes are just not on the same level - they're too slow, too basic (how horrible of me). I can't stand how much time is lost on explaining things like group works and assignments. All I want it melodious voices telling me everything they have discovered about a text and be so interesting and interested that students share their own thoughts.
I will study Virginia Woolf thoroughly this semester. I didn't want that to happen, either, but it did. I'm taking a One Author course on Virginia Woolf which will be so great (if we can ever get a conversation started). The other course is Literary Theory and Method and the only fiction in that course will be To the Ligthouse. And then, finally, I will write my BA essay on Virginia Woolf.
This means saying goodbye to Barbauld, Austen and Edgeworth (for now, at least). Give up the last of my Leeds studies. I wanted to do my essay on the 18th century and women's spaces and their interiority. But they did apparently not have a supervisor for it so I was given the Virginia Woolf one (it was my second choice). It's fine, I guess, only I had looked forward to immerse myself in the late 18th century again. And it will be so much Virginia Woolf.
(Mostly I can't bear to leave Leeds behind.)
But I will have other opportunities to write essays. And I love Virginia Woolf. I really like my supervisor too; she's wonderful and has studied at Leeds and knew about one of my teachers there.
I have come to terms with the Woolf essay. But not quite with returning to a school full of people and my inability to inhabit it. I find the social aspect of school absolutely horrible. I want to attend small seminars and meet with teachers and never see another human being. It would be fine, just pushing through it, but it's tainting the whole reading-learning-doing school thing as well. And it's so much worse at Stockholm with the crowded halls and large buildings and big class rooms and classes and none of the intimacy and privacy of the teacher's own studies.
To end with something else, another emotion, here is a part from To the Lighthouse:
And with this, it is not at all bad to be reading nothing but Virginia Woolf this autumn.
I will study Virginia Woolf thoroughly this semester. I didn't want that to happen, either, but it did. I'm taking a One Author course on Virginia Woolf which will be so great (if we can ever get a conversation started). The other course is Literary Theory and Method and the only fiction in that course will be To the Ligthouse. And then, finally, I will write my BA essay on Virginia Woolf.
This means saying goodbye to Barbauld, Austen and Edgeworth (for now, at least). Give up the last of my Leeds studies. I wanted to do my essay on the 18th century and women's spaces and their interiority. But they did apparently not have a supervisor for it so I was given the Virginia Woolf one (it was my second choice). It's fine, I guess, only I had looked forward to immerse myself in the late 18th century again. And it will be so much Virginia Woolf.
(Mostly I can't bear to leave Leeds behind.)
But I will have other opportunities to write essays. And I love Virginia Woolf. I really like my supervisor too; she's wonderful and has studied at Leeds and knew about one of my teachers there.
I have come to terms with the Woolf essay. But not quite with returning to a school full of people and my inability to inhabit it. I find the social aspect of school absolutely horrible. I want to attend small seminars and meet with teachers and never see another human being. It would be fine, just pushing through it, but it's tainting the whole reading-learning-doing school thing as well. And it's so much worse at Stockholm with the crowded halls and large buildings and big class rooms and classes and none of the intimacy and privacy of the teacher's own studies.
To end with something else, another emotion, here is a part from To the Lighthouse:
'And it was then too, in that chill and windy way, as she began to paint, that there forced themselves upon her other things, her own inadequacy, her insignificance, keeping house for her father off the Brompton Road, and had much ado to control her impulse to fling herself (thank Heaven she had always resisted so far) at Mrs Ramsay's knee and say to her - but what could one say to her? "I'm in love with you?" No that was not true. "I'm in love with this all," waving her hand at the hedge, at the house, at the children. It was absurd, it was impossible.'
And with this, it is not at all bad to be reading nothing but Virginia Woolf this autumn.
Friday, 18 July 2014
Leeds Elaborated
There are two moments - a day, a night - I will cherish from my time in Leeds (I cherish and miss and barely believe in it any more). For their magic and their promise and their beauty.
The first, the easiest, was only my second to last weekend in Leeds. Perhaps I remember it so clearly because it was recent. But more than that, I think it was the height of one particular aspect of my life in Leeds that I adored. It was the nature of Yorkshire; the moors; the lay of land, so to speak.
I wanted to say goodbye to the moors and views so I took the train and the bus to Haworth - with the usual anxiety and worry - and visited the Brontë Museum again and then I went west, out on the moors. I followed a trail, the Brontë Way, and at first it was populated by tourists and walkers like myself. But after I passed the Brontë Waterfall the number of hikers thinned out. The path was thin and less well-trodden. It travelled up and down the moors, along the little brook that led to the waterfall. The view showed Haworth and Keighley in the distance, and green-and-brown hills in every other direction.
And. It. Was. Breathless.
The extraordinary feeling, the one I will cherish, was walking straight away from civilisation (Haworth in my back, nothing in front of me). Even though I knew I wasn't alone (ridiculous bikers left by the previous wall, a few meetings in the form of fellow hikers), it felt a if I was leaving the populated world behind. It felt as if I could walk until I dropped without seeing another human being. And all the time in that gorgeous environment.
It was the feeling of freedom. A feeling I so strive for, adore and yearn for. Am addicted of.
The second was the night in March when I went to my second poetry reading and was blown away by Helen Mort and made casual conversation with a girl also in my module 'Fictions of Fallen Women' and saw someone I was almost-interested in and he noticed me and I realised (that very night) that I was being ridiculous and also was having a crush. Stupid of me, naturally. All of this was important and I can't tell what mattered the most which is why I love that night so much. I spent the ride on the bus home SO HAPPY, my heart beating unevenly and I could taste hope and beauty and life and it was unbelievable.
The wonderful part is that reading Helen Mort's poems brings me back. Not it back to me; me back to then. I'm there. I hear the cadence and warmth and melancholy in her voice when she says
(That horrible hope.)
It was what I brought with me from Leeds. A land where I want to be buried. Where I feel at home. And the fragile, flickering hope that there might be somewhere I could feel content and alive; a room with kindred souls and poetry and red wine.
The first, the easiest, was only my second to last weekend in Leeds. Perhaps I remember it so clearly because it was recent. But more than that, I think it was the height of one particular aspect of my life in Leeds that I adored. It was the nature of Yorkshire; the moors; the lay of land, so to speak.
I wanted to say goodbye to the moors and views so I took the train and the bus to Haworth - with the usual anxiety and worry - and visited the Brontë Museum again and then I went west, out on the moors. I followed a trail, the Brontë Way, and at first it was populated by tourists and walkers like myself. But after I passed the Brontë Waterfall the number of hikers thinned out. The path was thin and less well-trodden. It travelled up and down the moors, along the little brook that led to the waterfall. The view showed Haworth and Keighley in the distance, and green-and-brown hills in every other direction.
And. It. Was. Breathless.
The extraordinary feeling, the one I will cherish, was walking straight away from civilisation (Haworth in my back, nothing in front of me). Even though I knew I wasn't alone (ridiculous bikers left by the previous wall, a few meetings in the form of fellow hikers), it felt a if I was leaving the populated world behind. It felt as if I could walk until I dropped without seeing another human being. And all the time in that gorgeous environment.
It was the feeling of freedom. A feeling I so strive for, adore and yearn for. Am addicted of.
The second was the night in March when I went to my second poetry reading and was blown away by Helen Mort and made casual conversation with a girl also in my module 'Fictions of Fallen Women' and saw someone I was almost-interested in and he noticed me and I realised (that very night) that I was being ridiculous and also was having a crush. Stupid of me, naturally. All of this was important and I can't tell what mattered the most which is why I love that night so much. I spent the ride on the bus home SO HAPPY, my heart beating unevenly and I could taste hope and beauty and life and it was unbelievable.
The wonderful part is that reading Helen Mort's poems brings me back. Not it back to me; me back to then. I'm there. I hear the cadence and warmth and melancholy in her voice when she says
So forgive me if I looked upand like hearing a song once sung at a concert, I'm there, alive and feeling everything at once; the hope and the disappointment and the acceptance of the ways of life.
past your face, to see those nearly-silver drops
make rivers in the dark, and, for a moment,
almost thought there might be stars named after us.
(That horrible hope.)
It was what I brought with me from Leeds. A land where I want to be buried. Where I feel at home. And the fragile, flickering hope that there might be somewhere I could feel content and alive; a room with kindred souls and poetry and red wine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)