Holding space.

This date – the 24th May – in more normal times – seems to be the day of amazing things as Facebook memories reminds me today.

6 years ago I started my proper rehabilitation from the first wave of being super sick and not having any energy outside of going to work & doing the odd social thing. I managed 1.5 miles terrible run with shingles!!! It took weeks to build it up to just over 1 mile.

This year I got to do that half marathon. 2014 me would have been like WHHAAARRRT? NO WAY. NOT POSSIBLE. She’d never have believed it, esp given I was barely running when fully 100% healthy (?) . It also reminds me that – now after nearly 11 weeks of not being able to exercise outside of my house due to shielding and my poorly leg (injury from the half marathon). Now my leg has healed (i think?) & shielding is nearly over (lol, we also think) — it’s time to start back at it, and i think i might be back at those fitness levels of 2014. It’s going to be hard. I’ll have to do it late in the evening to avoid seeing people. but this reminds me that it can be done. And to persevere.

I started selling a print of my drawings of Sheffield 5 years ago today. That raised over £1000 for Doncaster Detection Cancer Care charity. Wild!

I got to see the amazing Andrew Mchanon In the Wilderness at the first-ever gig I went to alone, in Manx – 3 years ago. That was incredible.

And this date seems to be iconic in our PHD studio community. From doing a field trip to stoke on trent – which was so much fun (3 years ago). to celebrating spring/summer together 2 years ago now. It was a glorious day. Bright blue clear skies. A bit of wind that blew across our faces as we sat and drank lemonade with raspberries and mint, or passion fruit juice with a shot of grenadine for sunsets. All i remember is bright colours and laughter as we got to test out Antons cool artwork – Mollie! A cool-street-version of may pole dancing. It was hilarious and incredibly spectacular.

I share all this because I don’t want to keep writing depressing truths of an incompetent government (it’s like a weird compulsion i have to keep sharing it).

But i share this as a reminder that we still have each other, of the things we’ve been so lucky to get to do in the past.

That there are brighter days in the hazy, bad days. There seems to be such strength in the thinking of all the days we spent, orchestrating adventures and how the lights that used to blind us will somehow guide us through these nights. Cars now just parked outside the house, how we’re staring down the roof and the walls. The balcony, the hills, the pain. The years of hope, the months of rain.

When I thought my life was going to end (and honestly, it really felt like this), i felt like I had wasted my time before that. worrying about stuff that didn’t really matter, not paying enough attention to the beauty and immediacy around me. So much i wanted to see, people i needed to thank, things i wanted to change, kids i wanted to see grow up. all these lives i wanted and had to live.

I am so frickin’ glad I did that. That I got to see so many places. Listened more deeply, was a basic bitch and went out of my way to watch and see properly so many incredible sunsets and sunrises. I knew I had to notice it all, create times to bring people together, to seeing things i loved, to try new things i had no idea i liked and bank it all. in photos, in over the top facebook posts, in endless external drives of data, most of all – some how ingrain those memories and feelings in my head. I felt like it would be for a time i wouldn’t be able to physically be able to do it anymore. I knew that I could not waste a minute of my life.

But! i had no idea i would be banking it for something like now.  

What I can say, from experience is that once we’re safely outside of it all (tho that will take years). we’ll be able to see that we (hopefully) will have survived it after all, using each other. and that is so powerful. Holding space.