repetition, repetition, repetition
the everyday of every day
Wake up. Brush teeth. Shower. Dress. Bag packed. Coffee. Not enough time - into a takeaway cup it goes. In the car before 6am. Fuel? Ugh, forgot to fill up. Roads are nearly dead quiet. A few runners at this time of day, now that it’s light from 4am onwards. Stop at the service station. Ouch, don’t look, just fill up to £20, that’ll be enough. Two other cars. Pink skies. Good morning!! Am too tired for small talk. Can I pay for number 4, please. Really, I am so tired. Wonder how long the person at the petrol station has been there. Did they just start their shift or is it coming to an end? Back in the car. Traffic not too bad. Podcast, on.
As I walk home, the street lights all come on in unison. It always feels like something you’re not supposed to see. I’ve been thinking about those things that I’m ‘not supposed to see’. Like when I sit at the traffic lights in rush hour and see into the car behind me via the mirror, someone picking their nose or rubbing their eyes or yawning reflected back at me.
Last night, I was watching a movie. I turned off all the lights for the full cinema effect, and saw, in a flat three floors up opposite, someone hanging up new curtains, wearing their dressing gown, standing on a ladder. It made me smile.
When Ed and I lived in our first-floor flat in Bristol, the living room window aligned perfectly with the top floor of any double-decker bus going past. Sometimes, in traffic, a bus would end up stopped right outside our window, and always a few heads would turn to see us, sat eating our dinner, or in pyjamas on the sofa. Such funny moments that only happen in the city.
In the park, I watch two skateboarders going up and down the hill – a long walk up, sudden descent, coming to a stop by placing their hard, gloved hands upon the tarmac. They rest every now and then in the shade, taking off their kneepads and gloves, smoking, laughing. Enjoying the rare good weather. This June has been pretty awful; long, long rainy days. I read my book and look up every time I hear the sudden scraping sound of them swerving to a stop after descending the hill at speed.
A couple sit on the grass on a towel and look to be falling in love, passing a beer back and forth, feet intertwined, talking like they’ve still much to learn about one another.
Three little girls come up the hill, picking buttercups out of the grass, barefoot. Soon after, one of their dad’s comes looking for them, and they all giggle, watching him behind a tree. “Don’t go so far!” he says somewhat sternly, but it feels like he doesn’t really mean it, and they all shout soft responses like “we’re not!” and “sorrryyy, dad!”
Two guys practice wrestling on the flat, grassy area. A group of people watch on from a distance, cheering now and again when one of the guys tumbles over. On a bench nearby, a woman soaks up the sun, eyes closed, bag spread out beside her.
I walk to the supermarket to buy dinner supplies. By one of the fruit shops, on the main road, a group of people gather to talk and soak up the sun that bleeds through a gap in the tenements. Cyclists shoot past in the cycle lane, ringing their bells. Children dart out of a shop, pulling on each other’s school bags, laughing. Someone steals a can of Pringles from Tesco – the security guard yells “Oi!” without going after them.
Summer in the city is here. Today, it’s sunny, and the rarity of the heat on a nearly cloudless day means it feels as though everyone is outside. The buildings must be empty, for the streets and parks are full of people.
Mostly, it’s been 15 degrees and wet for weeks now. Everyone has done their best with the miserable summer. They’ve gathered in beer gardens even when it’s overcast. Runners are still dashing past, talking loudly. Games of cricket in the park, jumpers on. Ice creams in the rain. The neighbours sit out late in the shared garden when they can, and I hear their voices float in from the ajar window. I hang laundry outside for the day – only to realise my mistake when I’m half an hour from home, watching the skies break open and the downpour begin.
It’s boring, admittedly. All this routine. This repetition.
“What’ve you been up to lately?”
A lot of work. And not as much writing as I should be, the dissertation looming in such a nonthreatening way that I must remind myself I should be threatened. The two-month deadline should really kick me into gear. But, life is just a lot of repetition at the moment. So much same-same-sameness that the pace of time feels hard to acknowledge when there are fewer and fewer markers. Eat, sleep, work, repeat.
But then, you make good plans. Really good ones.
You steal the final hours of the day for a swim with friends at a loch, a twenty-five-minute drive from your flat. You stay up too late to finish a good book. You watch a movie that makes you cry. You go for a long walk and pick elderflower and wild raspberries. You eat fish and chips on your lunch break from the chippy that’s closing down after decades. The owners make the food. They put CDs into an old CD player and sing loudly. They’re retiring, they say. Time for some well-earned rest. You arrange drinks with a friend. You plan camping trips. You’ve got dates to look forward to. You eat crisps in the bath. You sit in a cafe window and watch the world go by. You lay in the park for an hour. You walk home late and it’s still light out. Finish work and the sun looks to be almost at the top of the sky.
And then, the threat of time racing by again. I always find that at this time of year. I feel so worried I’m missing out on it all. The longest day of the year is today, which always causes me anxiety, realising that the days will only slowly grow shorter again. I’m not ready for it. This season always goes so fast. The year goes so fast. I’m constantly trying to stop time. But, of course, it’s impossible. You can’t stop it.
Time and grief have always gone hand in hand for me. The further we move from the passing of someone, the stranger I feel in this truth that time really does just go on. That time goes on, without. All around, time moves, no matter who is there to see it.
Three years ago, almost to the day, someone from my childhood died. I hadn’t seen him in years when I found out. I wrote about it in this newsletter. My friend texted to tell me about the post on Instagram that his family had made. The shock stopped me quite literally in my tracks. I remember vividly what I was doing, that I was walking back to the caravan I was living in. A hot, sunny day by the Scottish seaside, my skin prickled with the salty seawater. I can still hear the conversation with a friend who didn’t know him, who kindly did his best to comfort me in the moment, in my shocked state. The tears not really coming until I sat alone, still in my swimming costume. This time of year weighs heavy with his loss.
During COVID, Ed and I moved to live with his parents for lockdown. Roughly three weeks in, someone in my life died. I knew it was coming; we’d exchanged final texts. Cancer, unstoppable this time. My to-be mother-in-law lit a candle. Sometimes, I think these rituals mean the world. These small gestures that hold us in space and time so tenderly.
Repetition, repetition. Ritual, ritual. What’s the difference? I think the intention. The intention of said repetitions. I suppose trying to bring intention to my repetition, to my everyday. To not use constant distractions for every motion that I must repeat, but to see the motions, to be present in them.
I don’t know where I’m going with this newsletter. The movements of time? The peak of summer? The man picking his nose in the car behind me? The random people I see wandering through the city? What does any of it mean?
Maybe I’m just writing to write and there’s no connection or meaning between any of it. Maybe I’m just procrastinating my dissertation. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
But, I suppose, the effort of this newsletter has always been to appreciate the little things. The soft spirals of time. It’s never-ending twists and turns. To take the heavy with the light.
And so. Alarm goes off. Up I get. Off I go.
Sorry, it’s been a while. I’ll keep writing these when I can. Sometimes, they’ll be really thoughtful and great(!!!). Sometimes, they’ll be meandering musings like this one. Thanks for reading, eitherway.
