radio silence
I haven’t felt able to write for a while.
There comes a point when the only thing I want is to be alone. I’ve been an awful correspondent, in the middle of crisis. I’ve been haphazardly on Twitter and Discord, intermittently texting friends, seeing and immediately forgetting direct messages as a sideways sort of self-defence against social obligation. I thought about hugging my friends last night and nearly cried, but when it comes to digital communication — video calls, emails, this newsletter I committed to of my own volition in the halcyon age of ‘just over a month ago’ — I have wanted nothing but to disengage. I don’t fully understand why. Overwhelm, maybe. If I am by myself then I don’t have to think beyond my flat, where death isn’t.
Nevertheless: I ordered pizza today, because reality is out to lunch and lockdown has not been sufficient to teach me how to cook. I went downstairs to pick up my order, and the delivery guy saw me shielding my eyes from the daylight as I stood in the doorway. “Wow,” I said, without really thinking, “it’s fucking bright out here.” He laughed, and offered up his own uneasy lockdown adaptation in return: I had forgotten the midday sun, and he had been stress-eating since early March. I commiserated, and thanked him for his service to nervous eaters everywhere, and I ate half of my pizza before putting the rest into the fridge for later on.
I felt giddy, talking to another person. Just making conversation about nothing, almost (not quite) the way we did before.
Most of my friends are with people. They’re married and cohabiting, or engaged and cohabiting; they have housemates; they’re with their families for the duration. I know who I am, which is how I know that any of those scenarios would have driven me up all four walls by now. It’s a relief in so many ways to be alone. But I miss talking, and this is about the nearest approximation I can rely on.
I spoke to my therapist by phone on Tuesday, as I have been doing since just before lockdown began. She keeps telling me I sound well, or positive, or some other such thing. I think I am well; I don’t know if I am exactly positive. I found a quiet place by the river, out walking in the evening the other day, and tonight I went back with a book. I sat there for an hour and a half as the moon rose and the light passed, looking up from my reading at intervals to witness the colour of the sky, or the ducks passing by in neat pairs on the water. I saw tiny ripples spread circle within circle on the surface of the river, and I wanted to cry for something I’m not sure I understand. Everything is touched with so much grief. None of this is new anymore. I am holding it together, but I am tired, and I want the world back.
I don’t know how to turn that into writing that will move you, or prompt you to feel or to think. I barely know how to turn it into momentum when I wake up every morning. So I am reconciling myself to talking about nothing much — about forgetting the sun, and swearing without thinking at a pizza delivery guy — and hoping it will reach you where you are.
There isn’t an update schedule on this. I am trying to go easy on myself. But I hope I will write again soon.
W