Wild Swimming

I sat down to write this and then I remembered that a month or so ago I recommended Sebald’s Rings of Saturn to someone having never actually read it. I now feel like a gargoyle and remember the conversation I had earlier about imposter syndrome. A bit pseudo for me. It makes me tired to think about. I’ve been scared of being found out for years and years, so it’s nothing new or hugely exciting.

I read a headline earlier about rising sea levels and daydreamed about the world taking itself back. I can sit for a while and wonder about the art of reclaiming things, but in the end it’ll come to nothing much at all.  It’s true that the thought of any hand being put on me again makes me feel anxious. That’s something I’d like to reclaim eventually. To feel decisive and yes, powerful, where recently I’ve felt like I’ve just had to hope for the best – that my body will do what it’s meant to do while my mind burrows into itself. With things the way they are, I’m both thankful and bereft not to have someone I can think of to conjure up pieces of ingenuity or truth. It gives stability in the place of jumped-to conclusions; nights spent diving head-first into whatever crisis is going down.

I’ve got a bite on the other end of the phone now and I’m scared to reel it in, because I don’t really feel at home with him anymore. I’m not with him at all. All I can really do for now, for comfort, is remind myself I’m coming to terms. How brave I’ve been, or how I’m still kind.

“The thing is though that it’s not the ‘sea’ in California, it’s the ocean. It’s much tougher than the sea you know. It goes on forever – it’s all about the surf, and there are sharks. Often there are lagoons of stagnant water there, too.”

I’ll take surf and sharks.

I’ve never seen the ocean.

I’ve been gingerly revisiting the last time I was truly happy with somebody and it has made me sad. Such a stupid word. So long ago, and so many people since. Never felt safe in love again, really. The weight of it all and the layers on layers of experience over pink innocence. The knowledge that there once was someone who loved me with everything his sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-year old heart could manage. He left me notes around my room – in empty cigarette packets and in books. A hornet we had to kill and then pickled in the last of a bottle of whiskey that I kept on my shelf for months after.

I think

Of you

And everything goes to shit.

I think of everything I’ve lost over the years and I feel like a shore waiting for the tide to come back. I remember things piecemeal, so I don’t get overwhelmed. One of my absolute favourite things to remember when it’s not too raw is lying on that boy’s trampoline, drinking port right into night. Imagine having that now.

Imagine having someone say I’m in love with you. Not just I love you but that they’re right there in it and you’re in it together. You don’t feel scared and it’s not tinged with its own end. It’s just that they say it so off the cuff and then they keep on saying it, reminding you that they’re still there, in it, with you.

Anyway I hope wherever he is he’s alright and still has the same twinkly eyes and lop-sided gait. I hope he’s still kind and quick to laugh.

Hope he’s alright.

Hope I don’t forget that for a short while I had someone there, with me, out there in it.