Returning to E17, I have a feeling of home. Trotting about my old haunts I'm alert to and grateful for this after my unhomely years in Sheffield.
I walked as a stranger, a player in a film about my life. Watching myself be, monitoring my moves, recording it as an experience I knew wouldn't last. As yet I don't understand why, one day I'll join the dots but for now its simply somewhere that wasn't home. This was my dirty little secret as most Sheffield folk were horrified and perplexed at any mention of not liking the city, my southern accent (that belies my North East Scottish heritage) jumped on as a reason for not coping with The North. City as body, as a pulse that runs through flesh, as a site where words can wound.
What an amazing stepping stone Sheffield was in creating a path to greater self awareness and focusing my thinking towards creating what I want in my life, being strategic for the first time EVER. What a gift. I'm sitting with this now, questions forming, answers yet to materialise - I'm liberated, hopeful, unsure.
I walked as a stranger, a player in a film about my life. Watching myself be, monitoring my moves, recording it as an experience I knew wouldn't last. As yet I don't understand why, one day I'll join the dots but for now its simply somewhere that wasn't home. This was my dirty little secret as most Sheffield folk were horrified and perplexed at any mention of not liking the city, my southern accent (that belies my North East Scottish heritage) jumped on as a reason for not coping with The North. City as body, as a pulse that runs through flesh, as a site where words can wound.
What an amazing stepping stone Sheffield was in creating a path to greater self awareness and focusing my thinking towards creating what I want in my life, being strategic for the first time EVER. What a gift. I'm sitting with this now, questions forming, answers yet to materialise - I'm liberated, hopeful, unsure.
