April

I join you at the breakfast table,
waver by the fruit bowl like a hungry child,
all matching green-grey tracksuit.

Anything above two minutes and the oats overflow
in the microwave, so colourless
scooped in kitchen paper
(beige on pale beige).

Too much spare time on our hands
but no inclination to soak the dishes.
Have we always been so impatient?
Unaware of our luck – dishwasher (hot),
work (most days), health (full-ish).

My sister works another night shift, tells us:
prepare yourself. It’s going to be a shock.

Here we are, April, hiding in my parent’s home
(again). The only problem being the spiders,
their legs dripping through old beams and skylights.

I check the oranges for nesting insects.

She’s right, of course, she’s right.

From the notebook:

Natalie:
This poem was written during the first lockdown in April 2020 when Pen & Bulb escaped London and moved back to the countryside.

There’s not much I can say about 2020 that hasn’t been said in a more poetic and profound way in one of the many new-normal articles floating around the internet. When it comes to my own writing, the poetic and profound seems to have passed me by. I’ve barely produced any new poetry this year due to a lack of energy and motivation. I know many other creatives have felt the same. As for my OCD – that’s a definite work in progress for 2021 thanks to the upheaval of this year. And travel… well you can probably finish that sentence off for me.

However, it’s certainly not all doom and gloom. Chris and I have been so lucky, we were able to move back to the countryside and escape from lockdown in London. Getting back to the countryside, namely to the tiny village where I grew up (think 1x pub, 0x anything else), I developed a new-found appreciation for nature. Despite having lived in said village since I was 3 years old, 2020 was the year that forced me to discover the abundance of nature right there on my doorstep. I followed new walking paths – some ancient, some entirely new as I got lost across muddy fields. I marvelled as the frost-bitten branches of our apple tree suddenly blushed with blossom one Spring morning, then fell fat with apples in late Summer. My camera roll bulged with photos of nature. The wisteria could have filled its own album alone. And, really, that’s a wonderfully privileged way to have lived a year of such big, strange and scary happenings. Next year, I hope to get back to nature more, to write it but also to preserve it, not just through words but through proper environmental actions. So here’s to protecting the natural world around me a little more in 2021… and a course in eco-poetics, perhaps.

Chris:
As a self employed freelancer, I, like many, experience the constant fear of where my next job will be coming from. Am I working too much? Am I not working enough? Why are those around me working on better jobs, or even working at all, and I’m not? This year, after 8 years of freelancing, this underlying fear of work and progression suddenly stopped. Going from an industry and an environment where you are always looking forward, to the next job, project, promotion, to a hard stop was a real shock to the system. I am very lucky that I was able to access financial support from the Government as well as having savings myself, meaning that for the first few months at least, I was able to relax into a prolonged period of enforced rest.

Going from a life where you can only just squeeze your hobbies into the week, to a life where hobbies are all you’ve got to keep you sane was strange. It took a while before I fully adjusted to it. I begun researching photographers, following editing tutorials and enjoying taking photos of the everyday. When we travel I often feel it’s hard to take a bad photo, the location and newness of where you are makes everything exciting to look at. However, when you’ve only got your home and immediate surroundings to take photos of, photography becomes an exercise of finding beauty in the everyday.

Resources and people I’ve found really inspiring to look into are;
– Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
– Lightroom tutorials
– Masterclass, in particular Jimmy Chin and Annie Leibovitz
– Photobook Cafe in Shoreditch, they’ve always got an excellent run of photo-books coming through

It hasn’t all been summer walks and picnics, it’s been hard having this much time to sit around and think. Self-reflection is always important but it’s hard not to let it become self criticism. During the first lockdown my anxiety began to manifest itself in new and weird ways with me only able to notice when I began to go back to work. It’s been a hard year for so many reasons and for so many people but I hope one positive takeaway is people having a new perspective on what is important in life. For me, the time I’ve been able to spend with my family has been absolutely priceless.