Just. NOTES // Herb Robert
It's 9am and I'm already four hours into my day having woken at dawn. A matrix of early morning thoughts, punctuated by the school run, finally bring me to a stopping point by a clump of Herb Robert.
I woke around 4.30am this morning, just a few minutes after today’s civil twilight (4.22am), around half an hour before sunrise (5.04am) which I know from a lockdown obsession with the sunrise and sunset logs on timeanddate.com. Sometimes I would use these logs to know when it was safe to run up to The Flats, secure in the knowledge that light was imminent and so were the early dog walkers and runners. Sometimes I just marvel at how our body clocks can work with the astronomical workings of our planet, its moon and its sun. When I wake up early like this, I often find that I’ve been gifted a particular thought or idea – a way to edit a particular piece of writing, a headline for an article, or greater clarity for the contents of a book. This is usually connected to what I’ve been dwelling on before I go to sleep, with a bit of lucid dreaming thrown in for good measure.
Last night I was panicking about being too open in my writing. This morning I arose with the same thing on my mind, but somehow macerated. A softening of panic into a series of questions to be simply asked and answered. Do I want to express myself? Yes. Is writing the outlet? Yes. Am I a writer. Yes. Even after several decades as a writer I still ask myself this question. And the answer really is, well, go on and write.
Panicking about expressing yourself is really just about exposing your vulnerabilities and then being willing (or not) to face other people’s responses to them, from empathy, understanding and alignment to judgement, criticism, and rejection. We all struggle with this. But if the answer to the first set of questions was yes, then all that is left is to own what you want to say and find a way to either engage with or filter out the responses. I’m not sure where I am with that yet – halfway out of the rabbit hole perhaps – but my whiskers are twitching enough to find out what’s on the other side.
I also woke up thinking about the new book I’m working on, which is also much more personal. Dare I send it out into the world? Maybe a better question is, dare I not? By the time it was officially time to get up – 7am begins the steady stream of rousing boys into uniforms, and many peripatetic rounds of half-eaten toast – I had fallen back to sleep for another hour to the soothing hum and purr of our cat Nusch who had taken it upon herself to settle in next to my head. She does this sometimes, and I think with full intent. In this strange segment of slumber occurred a shifting of emotion. Towards the excitement of the day and its possibilities, framed by a renewed practice of daily writing.
I walked my increasingly independent youngest to school even though he’d rather go by himself, on the pretence that I had to water the school garden. I’m not quite ready to let the school run go, despite the fact I moaned about it for several years as many parents do. It’s peaceful chatting time spent with him but also the games we play along the way, the car brands he likes the teach me about, the plants and herbs I list accordingly. He’s a more than willing participant in this daily routine, the two of us similar in our quest for knowledge and the sharing of the connections we find within; the peace that these little tasks afford us.
Privet, magnolia (no longer in bloom), succulents on a bike roof, hazel and dandelions, Skoda, VW, Renault. The front gardens of Forest Gate are rich in species (more so than cars thank goodness), as are the cracks in the pavement. And there we find Herb Robert, his red stems, finely divided geranium-like leaves – he is Geranium robertianum, after all – and candy pink cranesbill flowers giving not a fig what the path thinks. An explosive self-seeder he is one of a multitude of young Roberts that currently line Godwin Road and beyond. Shallow-rooted, brazenly hardy, bringing floral joy between spring and autumn whether you want his presence or not.
It begins to rain, the softest of showers that I hope will as gently lift the grey. Bumping into a friend on a street corner, and then another who joins us, we have the kind of swift cultural exchange that busy people have when it’s almost time to clock on. All working from home but determined to put the hours in. The aiming of 8 hours, the probable acquisition of 4–6 by the time all the errands are run, and our eldest head back after their half-day Friday at school (a new initiative at the local secondary over the past few years).
Friend one tells me about a podcast that I should listen to: the poet laureate Simon Armitage (on The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed) talking to musician Loyle Carner about writing, poetry, rapping, ADHD, dyslexia, fatherhood, and cooking. She tells me this in reference to my eldest who has just been diagnosed with ADHD (it has been a long haul) and is similarly creative – the two so obviously in my experience of others with the condition, including children and adults I know well and teach, connected.
I spend the first half of writing this piece listening to Simon and Loyle talking: life and literature, words and expression, music and rhythm, experiences from different cultural platforms. It is soothing. Their voices are soothing, but more so perhaps their honesty. Personal is exploration, disruption, conversation, and encouragement. Personal is human. Personal is good. I’m sure Herb Robert would agree.