Just. NOTES // A new route
Just. NOTES // A new route
I have a new home and a new route up to the nature of Wanstead Flats and it's time to explore what that means
I moved house two months ago. Not far from my previous home in Forest Gate, and nearer to Wanstead Flats, but a move none-the-less, two undulating children in tow. A move that has been a long time coming but was not entirely down to choice. Although I ultimately chose to leave a relationship that was at best ‘not working’, I also chose to be married and bring up my family under the sanctuary of one roof, to be part of a unit, to feel the joy of togetherness, to tend our garden.
In the end separation was inevitable followed by the upheaval of mediation, divorce, and the sale of the family home – and garden – of 15 years followed by moving house (me to one, he to another), and very quickly trying to make it home for my new family of three. All while working through it and being the mothership for my two boys, one of whom finds it difficult to regulate. Living together through the aftermath of a breakup. In which time we also lost our beautiful niece/cousin Lily. And all under one year. Even with the most amazing support that I could hope for, it’s fair to say that it has taken its toll. Not depressed, but certainly stressed. Not lonely but more aware of what it means to be alone. Not floored but absolutely exhausted. It takes a while for your body to come down from being in Warrior One pose for many moons in a row. It takes a while to adjust and understand that everything is a process and you have to go through it. And to really align yourself with the fact that the only thing you can be certain of is uncertainty.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, they say, and this is true. I am stronger, and wiser, and now fully in charge of all my choices. It’s partly terrifying – emotionally, financially, and in terms of time with and without my children – but liberating too. And so today, I chose to walk up to The Flats and begin a new daily practice of writing. Not a new route exactly, but enough of a pivot to turn old into new. And there was that big horizon, and the ever-changing clouds, the light, and the wildflowers, and the trees among which I know little owl dwells. I also chose to make my personal writing public, which is something I did during the big lockdown of 2021 – except that time, I published it but didn’t really tell anyone.
Every day, I would take a picture of the sky (even when we were restricted it was always available) and write for an hour as a way to carve out some time for me within each intense day of homeschooling and trying to keep my career going at the same time. I’d often rise at 5am to slot this writing in or run up to nearby Wanstead Flats for inspiration and much needed peace and solace. My relationship had been difficult for many years but under these circumstances it had hit really rocky times. I didn’t outline any of this in my writing as with almost £0 in my bank account at the time due to putting work on hold, I couldn’t conceive an exit plan. There’s also a lot tied into the demise of a relationship, shame and loneliness among them. This was a time for showing my boys that all was well, that they were safe, and that I was a sound role model. Inside however, I was crumbling. I’ve looked back over my words from that time (currently on my website at www.abotanicalworld.com/journal) and there is much I can read between the lines. An absence of other, mostly. An absence of a partner. Of support and respect. And this is how it was. The only people who really read it at the time knew me anyway, so I suspect they could read between the lines too.
That hour of writing each day absolutely saved me though. As did the nature that forms the subject matter of most of my wanderings. Whole entries devoted to congregations of starlings, the workings of magnolia buds, the science behind the rising of the sun and the moon. I got lost in those moments, the experiencing of them and then the purpose of writing them down. As my connection to my husband and marriage dissolved to irreparable levels, my connection to nature grew manifold. The world was also turned on its head, with no way of knowing, at the time, how the pandemic would evolve. But nature is consistent, and the seasons for all of their shifting and hostage to climate change are consistent too. Even if spring never came, the concept of it being around the corner was enough to keep reaching for.
I stopped my diary on 27 April 2021, on the Pink Moon, exactly two years before I began NOTES. from a botanical world (and wrote about the Pink Moon too). Funny how the world (and its moon) turns that way. My final entry talks about ‘adjusting how this journal will go forward as it’s come to a place where transformation is required’. Even though I had written every day since the lockdown began on 1 January ‘a plan that proved so therapeutic I continued on after the kids went back to school and were were allowed into each other’s gardens again’, I knew that I needed to focus my time on writing a book commission. To make money and take stock. I also felt guilty about taking the time to write even though I had given all of my time to my kids, one of whom I clearly saw needed extra help (now confirmed). But looking back, I had also run out of ways to only partly express myself. My writing had become a reminder of what I couldn’t say. My final words read: ‘A butterfly just flew by. Feeling freedom, flexibility and light. Signing off until the next time I have a moment to write.’
In those words I was sealing my future. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it and it took another year before I was finally empowered to call time on the conflict I didn’t want or deserve in my life. A whole year where other heartbreaking things were also going on. But now I am that butterfly. Free to fly. Freedom, flexibility, and light. And this is my moment to write. Fully expressed.
I have a new home and a new route up to the nature of Wanstead Flats. It’s time to explore what that means.