On Nostalgia

The funny thing about feeling you're on the outside is how much you long to be back there.

Although we moved out of the house I grew up in when I was 16, most of my dreams took place there for at least a decade afterwards. We'd be in the kitchen, or the big garden that hugged the back and side of the house, an adventure ground of flower beds, curved walkways, the little pond, and the lawn where we'd play football around mum's daffodils.

Still now, nearly another decade later, my dreams are very often populated by my two brothers and my sister, and sometimes my parents, even though I've lived in another country to all of them for a good while . My unconscious is clearly very busy with them. There, we're still a little crew, negotiating often-tricky situations together.

In my waking life, thinking back to the years together in that house is one of the surest routes to a wave of nostalgia so heavy it atually hurts. If i let mysef give in to it, my chest gets sucked down to the pit of my stomach, a crushing feeling of something being ripped away. My throat closes in, and the energy saps out of me. I wish I could go back to being our little unit, the four gang members held together by the attention of our parents.

The thing is, though, when I see them today, I don't know how to be. I frequently become silent and awkward, stiffening up when asked a question, answering monosyllabically with an air of annoyance. I'm somehow unable to open up, caught in an illogical bind of being convinced they don't really care, while at the same time uncomfortable that they're so interested, as if opening up would be too risky, too vulnerable. I don't want to play that board-game, I don't want any wine thanks, I don't mind what we eat, there's nothing in particular I want to do, except maybe go for a run by myself. I seem to try to negate any needs I might have, to negate my presence. Don't worry, I'll be gone soon.

It takes me a while to relax into beng with them, if i get there at all.

Nostalgia is surely directly proportional to how much you can manage to let yourself in to the fullness of the present moment, and to connect with the people and things around you. I'm not so good at being close to the people around me.

Even as a kid, where the longing directs itself, I spent large amounts of time searching out spaces of my own, hiding in the attic with intricate jigsaw puzzles and my dad's anatomy books, reading alone in the room at the end of the house curled up in a ball in an armchair, or suddenly wandering off down the garden in the middle of a game of football or cricket with my brothers. I kept on trying to be separate. And yet the thought of the childhood years brings on its first taste the warm glow of being a close crew.

The idea of being really connected is wonderful when I locate it in the past, but in the present tense it makes me nervous. Whenever I leave my family after a visit, I invariably feel incredibly sad that I'm not with them, even though while there I spend a lot of time feeling on the outside, and hurt and annoyed that they're putting me there. I've done enough therapy to know that I put myself on the outside all by myself, and finally, finally, it might have got through to my scared little brain that I am not being rejected, and that they do actually want me there.

Sometimes feeling accepted is almost more painful than being on the outside. A fullness, a relief, an intensity I'm not used to. Nostalgia is so comfortable in comparison. A longing for connection, love, acceptance, whatever, without any of the dangers that could actually come from those things. I'll probably always need to retreat and be alone, but I'm trying to join in. I want to be part of it.

The Brown Leather Sofa

It began with carrying a dark brown leather sofa up to the third floor, one Sunday morning in spring, 2012. I’d found it right outside my flat, and my two flatmates didn’t mind, and even helped me carry it up. In Berlin, seeing furniture left out on the street is a daily occurrence, as is seeing an impressive array of it being transported by foot or bike. I’ve seen a man carrying a bed frame across the huge park that used to be the city airport, and people cycling while balancing bookcases, chairs, lamps, and alarmingly large suitcases.

Of course, most people have carried furniture through the streets at some point, marking the phase when you don’t have enough money or stuff to warrant paying someone with a van. As a Ph.D. student, I’d wheeled a blue sofa through Cambridge, but that was when I was living in University accommodation, and nothing was permanent. Perhaps that should have been over by my late-20s, but after moving countries, I found myself doing the same thing again. When I first arrived in Berlin in the fall of 2010, I came with just a suitcase and a big backpack. It was only when I lugged the brown sofa up the stairs that I finally started an uncertain momentum towards a fragile sense of belonging.

I’m looking at the sofa now, crumpled creases shining in the late-afternoon light as I sit in a black leather and metal chair that one of those flatmates didn’t want anymore. We all moved out in the summer, and I managed to get a lease on my own place for the first time. I’m not sure where he is now, but the chair squats low and wide, with narrow armrests, and is possibly quite ugly, but it’s half-covered in a blanket. That came from a bodywork studio I worked in here a few years ago, and is one of the ones we covered clients with when they’d rest after sessions. I wonder if it’s creepy to have brought the blanket home after we closed that studio, but it’s a lovely, soft, blueish green.

I had come to Berlin for a one-year history research position, but then made the leap of beginning a course in somatic therapy. The training lasted almost four years, during which I slowly set myself up, working with people on their anxieties and stresses. It’s a fulfilling job once they find their way to me, but establishing your own client-based business in a new city as a fairly introverted and not very business-savvy person is a mammoth task. I joined the ranks of the precarious freelancers and part-timers that fill Berlin.

It’s never been clear how long I was going to stay here. Berlin is full of people finding their own paths and doing things differently, and I guess I was the same. There’s another chair opposite me, a strange construction that would probably identify itself as a desk chair, but is actually much too uncomfortable to sit on for very long. It came from a feminist NGO that I volunteered with here for a year. I’m not surprised they wanted rid of it; the NGO operated with a flat democratic structure, which involved hours of discussions, fueled by crisps and chocolate, and tinged with frustration and passive aggression, and for that you really need comfortable chairs. It’s quite striking, its pale, wicker-effect back panel framed in black wood with rounded edges, but it doesn’t really fit next to the table.

With its thin, spindly legs and deep red wood, the table is not robust enough to feel like a desk, but is too narrow for a dining table. It came from one of the flea markets here that are jammed full of people on Sundays. In my early years, I developed a fetish for the delicate, old teacups that I found there, and now have a proud collection of azure blue, poppy red, grass green and lemon yellow, each one patterned with gold. They make a delightful way to drink the morning espresso that I transferred to from my English filter coffee.

As I gradually collected objects, I didn’t imagine I’d leave, but then I didn’t imagine far ahead at all, even though the few friends I made in my first years kept leaving. To my left, now, is the red chest of drawers that used to belong to a friend from my research institute before he moved away. After the fourth friend packed up, I started to feel more wary about who I’d become close to, but you never really know. People try things out here.

On my right side is a huge white bookcase that made its way here via another freelancer friend, who stayed at my flat for nine months while contemplating where he’d like to live, and while I tried out living in a communal house with my then-girlfriend. When that all ended and I came back, I got the bookcase. It’s the kind that no-one would actually find pleasing to look at, but which holds so much stuff that it can mostly get away unnoticed. The house was one of Berlin’s “project houses”, effectively collectively owned by the sixty-odd people who lived in it, who made all of the decisions about it together. Like the NGO, this involved long discussions, inside and outside of meetings. There was always a conflict or problem to be picked apart, and most people seemed to exist within a blend of feeling tired and annoyed, but resolved to carry on.

I’ve been determined about something during my time in Berlin, pressing ahead as if I needed to prove something. I’m not really cut out for freelance life, but I stubbornly pushed forwards, focused on keeping my head above water. I tried immersing myself in a football team and a touch rugby team, I explored the queer scene, and I dived into the world of spoken word, finding my feet and my voice on stage. Whatever I did, it came with a kind of urgency, as if I needed to find my place. I’m an expert at feeling like I’m not quite good enough, and don’t quite belong, and as though I need to try very hard to keep everything together.

Looking back at all this feels like having stepped off a football pitch after the end of a tough game. Sometimes after a match, I can’t really remember what happened at all. I’ve been so focused on running, on watching the ball and people’s movements, and anticipating where they will go next, and afterwards it all seems like one big blur. Except that I’m still here, on the pitch, looking around at the jumbled furniture that has clustered around me. By now, I don’t feel so much like I need to prove anything. I feel comfortable. I do fit in. Now that I’ve realized those things, I’m free to leave.

As I sit in my flat, I’m surrounded by my little world of familiar objects, but they make a strange mixture. It’s the first time I’ve owned all of the objects in a place, but they seem as if they’ve blown in with the wind. The sofa was the start of my first attempt at my own home, and I am thankful for it, but I’ll finally be leaving Berlin soon, and I’ll probably leave all of it for some other people to collect on their journeys. I’ll just be taking my colorful teacups, and making a different attempt at belonging.

One night in June

Rosie was sitting in the candle light
Watching the flames in her glass of wine
As curving lines mix dark and shine,
And the world comes rushing in.

Rosie was waiting in a bar for some friends
All she wanted was to have a little laugh for a change
Or for somebody to stop and ask how she's been --
If things have got any better. Some

Days it's hard just to leave the house
And go to a job where too many people
Too many eyes talk back when you meet them
Stare at a screen for a task too simple

Can't keep your mind on track, play it back to
There in meeting, everybody speaking
Larger than life, and you, busy thinking
How can make sure you don't look stupid

Don't get me started
Don't get me started
I won't know how to stop

Now Rosie's friends were sat in corner
She's at the bar, getting ready to order
Drinks in a list, say it through and repeat it
Money in her hand, hold tight

But what happened next she could hardly believe it
Freezing chest locks down isn't breathing
Suddenly she swore she heard her name
Didn't even think just turned her head, and

Eyes caught glancing towards her
Furtive laughter ripples like water
Ears blocked, can't feel the floor now
Always knew that they didn't really like her

Drinks come, slowly walking,
Sits in silence, friends all talking
Happy to see her but all she sees is
How can she make sure she won't look stupid

Don't get me started
Don't get me started
I won't know how to stop

The Canal Bridge

There's a funny quality to the air on a sunny, cold winter's day. Something about the paleness. Or the way your skin slices through it, the way it encases you and keeps you distinct.

Jack paused at the bridge over the canal. It wasn't that he wanted to stop, but that his legs slowly ceased to move. Sometimes it felt like being a swing that keeps getting pushed from behind, sending it up high, and plunging back down, again and again. And then the pushing would stop and the swing slowly used up its momentum, and gradually came to a stand still.

Jack didn't know where the pushing came from, but it was usually there. When it stopped, he supposed he should feel relief, but mostly he just felt lost.

This short, wide bridge is full of people sitting around in groups on the cobble stones in the summer, occasionally making way for a car or a bike. But now it was nearly empty, and Jack stood looking along the canal.

Maybe it was because of the water. Isn't air always different next to bodies of water? Jack wasn't sure, but there was something peculiar about the air, as if it was peeling away like the bark of an old birch tree, and cracking like the oil of an old painting. It seemed to be pulling him in to its fissures, and as part of him hovered up there, his shoulders dropped a little.

Years ago, he'd walked across the bridge with someone else. Jack hadn't known much about F., but that didn't matter. F. was enthusiastic about life, and seemed to delight in Jack's way of being alive, which Jack carefully presented to best effect. They had gone to a bar further down the bank and talked enthusiastically, drinking the same drink, smoking the same cigarettes. It can be so easy to get someone to like you. But it never really gave the kind of satisfaction Jack was after. The kind where you can relax into the air like a huge rocking chair that will softly push you upright whenever you need it. The only time Jack had sat in a rocking chair was at his grandma's house as a kid, but they hadn't visited very often, and he had been suspicious of it.

The trouble with making someone like you, Jack thought, hovering in the cracks in the air above the canal bridge, is that it's never enough. You can never believe it, because you've created it. But you can't risk what would happen if you would stop trying. Until you get too tired, but then it's usually too late.

Back then, it had been autumn. Jack remembered the leaves, and the air had been a bit denser than it was now. The days must have been shortening already, because Jack remembered the candles in the bar.

In the opposite direction along the canal, there had been summer. Where the wide grass bank sloped up from the water, Jack had sat with C. and a bunch of other people on blankets. The slope had been full of clusters mingling into the gentle dusk. Had it been a birthday of one of C.'s friends, or some kind of celebration? Either way, they were in a large group with pizza, and wine in plastic cups. C. was often in large groups of people, and Jack went along.

It's harder to know what to do in large groups, Jack thought, still drifting in the air. There are too many separate variables to monitor simultaneously. How can you know what effect your words and actions will have on multiple agents, many of whom are only partially familiar? This is a difficult situation to keep in control, and Jack would often retreat into silent observation.

The tricky thing about silent observation is the vague tinge of boredom and resentment at not being part of the group and its mood and jokes, even while rejecting them. Jack called it shyness, and C. was very understanding.

C. liked making plans and filling the time, and following causes that really mattered, because the world is full of things that are unjust, that can burn like a fire inside, and you are responsible to make them better, and make sure you live up to what you've committed to doing about it and what others expect, otherwise you'll disappoint them or yourself or -- you're not sure but it's important that you keep trying and pushing, even if you don't want to. Jack followed the plans, and made the causes important, because Jack was responsible for making sure C. was never disappointed.

The trouble with being responsible for someone else's emotions, Jack thought four feet above himself, looking at the grassy slope, is that it's a lot of pressure. And it never becomes less, because even when you manage to prevent the disappointment, the threat of it never goes away.

Jack felt tired. Floating in the air like this seemed to make everything appear in flat layers that made him slightly dizzy. Jack came back down into himself, and noticed he'd been leaning heavily on the thin iron railing, and his forearms were sore. Looking around, he rubbed them through his thick coat, and started walking home.

Sally-Ann

Precious vase
as old as you on your death bed
smashed to shards
for a lifetime
it was

On a warm day Sally-Ann's skin didn't seem so much like an edge. Thick air that you swim through, and her insides seemed to slide out of sloppy pores. How do you keep yourself in?

Life of shards
shaken you
could only hold so many at once
not sure how to combine
each day

As Sally-Ann entered the room she saw -- all of them saw the light bend and land -- flecks of light scatter across the floor, the walls, as if it fractured from a crystal but they didn't know that. Each of them saw only one point.

Fragments past
caught in glimpses in between
sometimes too sharp
but you don't let go
on purpose

Now Sally-Ann was walking as slowly as she could bring herself to across a great expanse of grass, where the old airport used to be in the middle of Berlin. She watched her knees appear and fall, her feet make heel and toe on ground, and how the blades disappeared under them. She looked at the sky -- so much sky -- more than her usual routes through the city would permit. So big that at times, her feet and eyes were miles apart, and in the space between she saw a series of people and hopes stacked one on top of the other, all of them her. Saw herself half her size, clutching at the bottoms of skirts for safety, not quite able to look up at the faces. Saw the faces too late, and confusion, and empty hands. As she watched she was trying not to feel disappointed.

Flashes first
take on new light as you find them
each time you look back
not quite the same
now and then

When Sally-Ann talked she watched the other person intensely. When the other person talked she heard shapes, and shifted herself to match without even moving the air. The new people seemed like new maps of home, all sitting around a dark wooden table in the corner of the bar, playing the music she'd listened to fifteen years ago. As she watched Sally-Ann said to herself that it was a relief to finally be able to express more of her real self.

Torn apart
searching you
wish for one whole image
never seen
and will always change

Sometimes you can pull yourself inside your own skin. Sally-Ann took a small step back but didn't want anyone else to notice -- which they did -- and so she did it only with her attention. Now she was stood fifty centimeters behind her own head and slightly to the left. Sally-Ann had a habit of looking at the neatly structured patterns of corners and edges. She had discovered that this made the air seem more solid, a layer separating her from the people. She wasn't sure if they were really her people. She didn't know what to say.

Precious vase
stands in final resting place
patterns and shape revealed in all their glory
at the moment you cease
to comprehend

Once, Sally-Ann had been a giant whale. The water had pushed her up even when she wasn't looking, and it only took a soft impulse to arc and glide and drift, somehow fast and incredibly slow at the same time. The whale wasn't particularly concerned about what other creatures would do. It operated at a different scale, a different speed.

clean

part 1.

there's a puddle on the ground
right across the path
i'm wearing my best wellington boots
but it's too muddy and murky to see the bottom
it looks too deep to go through

i'll go around
tip toe on grass
there's barely a gap to the edge of the canal
no hand rail, a sharp drop down
a knife edged moment of concentrate

my brother's still talking
leaves words in the air
the others are lagging behind
back there
my feet are squelching
hands are wet
a bubble of focus
doesn't want to fall

and i'm thinking how something uncomfortable
is happening because of a dirt track
that hasn't been covered in tarmac
let's puddles spread in its hollows and dips
and land in my body's sensory

when i walk in the street
it's much more clean
i barely notice a thing


part 2.

the tables are shrinking
under the weight
of all the scattered glasses and plates
and handbags placed
not far from reach
as crumbs and pepper
pot crowd in

on one, a wine glass sits
collecting the light to itself
funnels it up and down its stem
fractures and bends
above and below
the light of a whole room
in one glass
it's all you can look at

the table is dull beneath
at a loss for what to do
it's not quite steady
rocks in seesaw
as elbows shift
in conversation

and i'm thinking how all this
is distracting me from my
previous thoughts
how it irritates

and yet if it were to be clean
it would be empty
no life to be seen

shoulder maze again

woman walks across the street,

feels presence of eyes that would meet

her gaze if only she'd lift it up

shoulders shift in bumpy maze

her feet don't touch the ground today

she's lost in thought circles of



trails in sand, stranded threads

crossing, crossing, endlessly

deserts made of rolling dunes

where every grain touches many more

but wherever you stand

you're hidden from view



I've seen you before

we've never met

but I've been breathing your air

wearing your frown

side-stepping and looking down

I've held your money at the bakery

drunk from the same glass as you

your favorite bar, I've sat in your chair

borrowed your lighter, held open the door

pocket stones again

my pockets are all full of stones

catch on fingers fumbling round

fragments broken from age-old cliffs

pebbled weights that hold me down

sometimes I spread them out on the ground

stones like stars brought out to shine

stand there looking for joining lines

a thread to stitch some meaning in

my pockets are all full of stones

the only people I’ve ever known

all these people have been wearing my name

there’s more of us in here than I can count

there’s a fork in my tongue, a great crossroads

there’s barbed wire stuffed inside our mouth

there’s photos and scars but they’re waterproof

all surface and nothing left behind

I’m not sure what they’d have said back then

like a taste that’s hard to identify

swirl it in my mouth like an ageing wine

til all I’ve got is the urge to swallow it down.

I’ve shed my skin, I’ve bled them out

I’ve been slowly replacing all of my cells

I don’t know them and they don’t know me

and yet they’re all I’ve ever been

I thought I’d turned my back on you

I’ve been red-orange-yellow-green-two-toned-blue

I thought I’d made myself anew

but there’s traces stuck like hardened glue

running between my muscles and bones

and I don’t know if I should shake them loose

or if they’re what’s been holding me through

my pockets are all full of stones

pebbled weights that hold me down

I stand there looking for joining lines

but my thread is bare and I cannot sew

precious vase

precious vase

as old as you on your death bed

smashed to shards

for a lifetime

it was

precious vase

stands in final resting place

size and patterns and shape revealed in all their glory

at the moment you cease

to comprehend

life of shards

fragments you

can only hold so many at once in hand

not sure how to combine

each day

life of shards

caught in glimpses in between

each time you look to memories

not quite the same

now back then

fragments past

take on new light as you find them

sometimes too sharp but you

don’t let go

on purpose

fragments fast

forgotten in the blink of an eye

who are were could you be if not your self

selves split solve salvation

tears apart

glimpses between

searching you wish for one whole image

never seen

and will always change

glimpses between

are more than enough if the mirror is clean

but none of ours are

and you’ll always try

but never know

still nothing again

tree tops bare in quiet sway meet

slanted rays of wintry sun pale fingers

reach through patchy cloud

slip your eyes over miles and miles

sounds come wrapped in tin foil

thinned by so much empty space

land like hollow prickles on ears

Danny said: I’ve gazed right into nothingness, and all it is

is nothing less than a long sigh of relief

I’ve tried and tried to prove myself

you won’t believe all I’ve achieved

I’ve tried to show I’m worth the salt

on anybody’s table, and only after so many years am I finally able

to see that all my precious salt isn’t worth anything at all

Andy said: this seems like a wonderful place to sit for a while

the morning sun has poured into the long grains of this bench’s wood

melting scores of moments where other people stood and sat

a pew to silent memories that we can almost touch

Danny said: I’m everything and nothing, simultaneously

all that I touch will disappear, including both of us

we’ve already lost our entire lives, faded out of reach

remember when we climbed the great apple tree?

planks of wood, and hammer and nails in hand

grand plans of what we’d make, and never

the concept that we’d failed when it took a different turn

all those moments are already gone

Andy said: sometimes I think that wood can breathe

have you ever laid on the forest floor and watched

the trunks of tall pine trees sway to and fro  

look at the way the light catches the needles like tongues

of fire, as if the whole tree might go up in flames

Danny said: I’m not afraid of nothingness. I know

I need to slow down and rest, leave more time to digest

the days and days, stop trying so hard to grip onto

things that will only last a fraction of the sun

Andy said: sometimes I like to face backwards on the train

to watch the land and sky and everything between suddenly

appear in the window, hang there like lamps gently swaying

and gradually shrink and fade, so you don’t even notice

the moment when they’re no longer there

Danny said: there’s a great emptiness that sits inside

a lake that reaches far beyond what my skin could hold

whenever I stop for long enough to hear the way

I breathe, there’s a loneliness I cannot bear,

there’s loss and loss, and endings and lack, there’s sorrow for

what never was and what will never come back

Andi said: when all is quiet, the quietness grows and fills the sky

as if your eyes could reach way up there, brush

the tops of the trees and spires, as if your feet

follow and settle on the brow of the farthest hill

your eyes can pick out, and the space between

is empty and full, and you’re here and there

in ploughed up soil and asphalt street

cracks in the air

on the canal bridge you see cracks in the air

that peel away like the bark of an old tree

or the oil of a dried-out painting

and when you stop to stare they pull you in,

knock the wind right out your sails
pulling teeth like pulling nails
sting in your eyes like rings of salt

when they come, they come silently
slices of time that slowly bleed into

your present tense, like
water drawn up from a well
that slowly drips back down again,
and round and round the bucket goes,
water pouring from the holes

if you want you can call them memories
cracks in the air that freeze and thaw

and buckets falling in the breeze

and you end up saying what you did back then

you’ve thought this before, haven’t you?

did you turn a leaf, a page, a few,

or are you turning round but standing still?

and lurking at the bottom of the well,
the thing that tugs on heart strings
that keeps you moving half-pinned
that drives your unconscious thought,
is not what could happen to you,

it's what's already been

but you never were enough back then,

and you’ll never make time undone

and still you expect the past

to happen next

aftermath again

I cannot speak

I cannot mouth the words

cannot fit to you now, after



the mean face of sleep, when

a fierce slap of daylight fights back

the echoes of the night, where



drums could beat a heart to fright

the bate to catch a mouth to choke

to squeeze around a bruised throat

to tighten breath to stop a chest

I cannot keep it in



I cannot be where

I want to be

I cannot want you

to wear yourself down

you cannot see me

like this



I cannot look at you

not knowing when the sudden flash

of hands face too fast heart rate locked in place

I cannot feel



you cannot know

the numbness down here

until it snaps

you cannot leave me

like this

leave me

alone