I think about the calendar year. About how the body grows more resilient to meet the time and the place in which it finds itself. I think about journey and growth. About how the old saying about time – how it can heal – may be so much more than a truism. How time can even be a form of prayer, not to anyone or anything else. How maybe it is a form of prayer to your own self; how simply allowing yourself to be may be an act of deep and unimaginable healing, a way to give thanks. I think of how that story of suffering and sorrow – followed by a journey towards acceptance and hope – is a tale that is being retold in places all around our broken, beautiful world, over and over again. I think of how there are still places – parts of this earth – where light flows in like a river that has burst its banks. We hold in our open hands the strength to take suffering and turn it into song. Our voices can tell a story of hope above the cacophony of sorrow, like those wee birds that have only just left this frosty, quiet laneway, the place I feel so grateful to now call home.
The day before I left Derry I ran through St Columb’s Park underneath ancient oak trees that tower above a trickling stream, the same stream I have listened to as closely as my ears have allowed since I could walk. Up the hill – mud thick underfoot, squirrels in the fallen leaves, a magpie in the lower branches of a chestnut tree, a mistle-thrush quarrelling with itself in the hidden parts above. I don’t know if it was the fact that that geographical place holds so many deep memories for me, if it was the adrenaline from the cold, bright run I’d just paused from, or maybe it was just something that the air held inside it, but I felt, for the very first time, as though I was letting go. As though each outbreath was taking something from inside me, and giving it back to the city that made me. I watched as my breath made ghostly white shapes right in front of my mouth, and I felt something inside me fall silent. There was quiet inside me – unbidden, startling – and I could hear myself, and I wanted to hear; I wanted to listen.
I was born in 1983, in the last white breath of December, at the ending of that old year. I arrived just as winter staked its claim on the north-west of Ireland, in the exact midway point of those dark, liminal, beautiful days between Christmas and New Year. I was born into a gap, in a way, a dip where the old year gathered momentum to try to make it to the crest of the hill. A wee cranny in the V of the land – I came in the lull, just before the turning of the year’s circle. My birthday has always held the feeling of something not quite fully formed – a day that has not been sculpted properly, an in-between place, somehow. The date creeps up like the silence before a storm – and when it comes, it is defined by a sense of otherness, as though the day is on the periphery of two worlds. Things nestled in the middle point of other things hold an energy all of their own. I was born into another middle, too: the middle of the Troubles. No one knew it, of course, but that year I was born cut the violent, terrifying period known as the Troubles completely in half, making a border out of time. They would continue – those tragic, terrifying years – for as many years again as they had already been raging for. There are particular periods in time – that human construct of division – that seem as though they, too, might allow for the lifting of veils, for things to happen in ways that would not (that could not) happen in any other moment. I think of the messages – the rich undercurrent of deep meaning – that have been revealed for me in this past year through delving deeper into the Celtic calendar, the circle of the year created by my ancestors, to help us all to get through.
There is a time for everything – for sowing, planting, harvesting. A time for holding on, and a time to let go. A time for sorrow, and a time for healing. More so, there is, simply, time. There is time for it all. We still have time to step in or out – of places, of relationships, of thought processes, of our own selves. Sometimes the snow will still be here on St Brigid’s Day, and sometimes we will have a year without it coming at all. There will be years when the autumn trees seem more vibrant, more sublime, than we ever remember them being before. There will be years when we have suffered so much that we can’t pick out one season from the other, never mind one day. Days when we cannot imagine ever feeling okay again, thinking that we have taken enough of it all, enough already, enough. Then, a change in the wind, the first bluebell, the smell of snow in the sky, the moment courses on, and everything has shape-shifted – everything is okay again, more than okay, maybe, even.
Our planet is changing vastly – so much of it is directly connected to things that are our doing, and we do not know what the future holds. What we do know, though, is that there are moments in the year, and places in the land, that hold depth of meaning far beyond the everyday. That hold weight and essence that run deeper than that which we have come so readily to take as real. The same species of moths and butterflies that fly above the bog, a short walk across the field behind this new house, flew above people who – not that long ago in the earth’s history – built vast stone circles in the hills here.
Migration, humanity, solitude, cruelty and healing. Place – our connection to the land we share – is a story we are all drawn to, in one way or another. I have been asked, over and over again, what my connection is to this place – what lines connect me to this laneway (neither blood nor marriage); what threads tie me to the middle of this island (neither biological nor historical). The only thing I know is that there is no other place I am meant to be right now; there is no other place at all. There is only the fact that when I am here it’s like I can hear Ireland’s heart, like I can hear my own, too. There is only the matter of all those moths and butterflies, those swallows and swans. There is only the soft, silent moon above the dark, muddy lane, and I cannot leave it. For the first time, I am ready to stay.
The longest night of the year will be here soon on this laneway, in the middle of the land. It will arrive in the very tip of the South, and in Derry, too, in the part of the North I know the best. The earth is spinning, still, on an axis that is tilted, on the same axis it has spun on since it all began.
In our Celtic landscapes, the winter solstice is an ancient seasonal rite of passage that is of deep importance and meaning. We do know not when our ancestors first stood together and paused in harmony at midwinter. Some sacred sites are aligned to the morning’s rising sun. They tell us a story of the winter solstice as being important enough, over 5,000 years ago, to build a temple in its honour.
In Irish, the winter solstice is An Grianstad, literally translating as ‘the stopping of the sun’. These days around winter solstice time are precious, the pinnacle of a darkening that calls us to rest, to be still, to heal and to hope.
The dark has been painted – over much time – as being a negative thing, a part of existence to be wary of, a bringer of fear and things best not to be thought of. Yet nature tells us a different story. The earth tells us, over and over, as each year turns the circle of itself around, that it is in the dark where beginnings are found. Life first is dreamed, birthed and shaped in the absence of light. The seeds sown in autumn germinate underground through winter before appearing as shoots in spring. Our ancestors intuitively understood this phenomenon, and held the time between Samhain and the dark-full winter solstice as the biggest gift of life: the safe place in which it all begins. In many traditions, winter solstice, the midwinter, is a time for ritual and celebrations. In a sense, this was a turning point in the battle of dark and light in the world. On the island of Ireland, our ancestors did not see winter solstice as a sad, sorrowful time, but a cusp moment in which the reverence of the equally vital energies of darkness and lightness are understood and honoured.
I think about the North, about Derry, about the changes that have arrived there, and are arriving still. I think about the crossroads that Brexit has given birth to – just at the exact moment in time that I left Derry. It is my intention to stay here, on this laneway, in the heart of Ireland, for as long as I am able. I think about the changes that – once again – I will watch from a place away from that oak-bordered city in whic
h I was born. I think about the past, and all of the bloodshed that can never be undone. I think about the lessons that have been learned, the promises made – despite the differences between people – those promises that have long been kept. I think of the words shared between people from both sides of that once so fiercely divided city, people who had sworn never to be together in the same room as the other. I think of the light that threw itself down onto our pathways and allowed us to find the way through. I think of the laughter that found its way back, after decades of tears. I think of the brutal history we have been trying to make peace with. I think of us all, all the time these days. I think of Derry-Doire-Londonderry, that city of strong oaks, deeply rooted and full of resilience. Brexit has left scars on the city, on the whole of the UK, in fact, already, and there looks to be much worse on its way. Divisions, fear – the emphasis seems to be strictly on difference and separation, on borders and on keeping us apart, keeping us out. I have no doubt in my mind that the people of Derry – and of many parts of the North who have watched their safe spaces finally be restored in the recent past – will not stand by and watch their homes, their lives and their futures be stamped into the ground again. People who have suffered, who have been broken, who have lost too much to recollect, and have finally found a way through, will not allow the past to repeat itself so quickly. I may have just left my hometown but I am still that same wee girl who spent her childhood there, and I think I always will be. That wee girl who stood beneath a sky – ravaged by thick, black smoke – full of beautiful, winged creatures hovering and diving, dipping and soaring, glistening and calling, circling above me. I am still looking for the things that guided me through – the things that guide me through, still – and I know I always will.
•
The light is waning quickly. The moon has settled into a different part of the sky – metallic grey has been laid on top of mauve, and streaks of a much lighter grey run through it all like a collection of thin rivers; the morning is making ready for the middle part of this cold and quiet day.
It is close, so close, to the winter solstice. The year is getting itself ready to turn; the land that you are held by is holding its breath. You and that land are making ready to wait. Snow, not yet here, is on the wind, hidden in a part of the sky you cannot see. All at once, from no place at all – softly and without any sign – comes the beating of wings, powerful and otherworldly, you thought had long since left the day. The December sky above, for the most fleeting of moments, has turned to lavender; it is a world all of its own moment in time. The land that you are being held by breathes out. You breathe out, too, slowly, letting every single part of it go, watching as it all dances in the emptied sky.
You watch until you feel the loosening – the lifting – until you feel the soft, white wings leave your skin.
You watch until you see that everything else has gone; there is nothing left here.
You are completely alone under this feathery new sky; there is nothing there any more to hold you in place.
You watch as the last of the light starts to fade, as the day begins to make way for the darkness.
You sway, and you dance, remembering those curlews, and all the white moths.
Remembering those deeply rooted reeds, and the change in the wind.
Remembering them in the changed winds, dancing.
Acknowledgements
Writing this book was a bit like the moments of an eclipse. Times came when it was too dark to see, until certain people came along, and shared their light. Wee shards of it, like ancient stone, like dust off the wing of a moth; nestling in beside my bones. There are not enough words for Thank-you, when it comes to those people. If I have left anyone out, I hope I’ve made it clear enough, through my actions, how grateful I am for you.
Bringers of the light:
I am grateful to Kirsty McLachlan, my agent, and one of the most amazing women I know. I don’t have the words for what you mean to me. Your support and care has changed me. Thank-you for everything but mostly for the moths.
To Jo Dingley, my editor, thank-you for all that you have given me, particularly for your trust, and for such exquisite sculpting of the words.
To every single person at Canongate: Thank you. I am so proud to bring this book into the world, held safely in your strong, kind hands. Particularly to Leila Cruickshank, Vicki Rutherford, Anna Frame, Vicki Watson, Gill Heeley, Francis Bickmore and Jamie Byng. And to Alison Rae for proofreading
For professional support, kindness and encouragement, I am full of gratitude to Mark Avery, Laura Kenwright, Spread the Word, New Welsh Review, Martina Devlin, Jon Woolcott, Gracie and Adrian at Little Toller, Dunlin Press, Jeff, Diva and Andrew at Caught by the River, Wendy Barrett, Autumn and Richard at Corbel Stone Press, Clare Archibald, Sara Baume, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and many others.
Some people read this book in its early stages, in the midst of a global pandemic. I will never forget that, and I shall be ever grateful. To Seán Hewitt, Wendy Erskine, Dan Richards, Darran Anderson, Jill Crawford, Robert Macfarlane, Kathleen Jamie, Amy Liptrot, Max Porter and Sinéad Gleeson, with deepest gratitude. I will hold the words you gave me close to me always. To walk behind you all, on the path you carved out, moves me beyond words.
During the writing of this book I was grateful for the friendship of Jo Sweeting, Tanya Shadrick, Louisa Thomsen Brits, Julia O’Mahony, Jenni Doherty, Christian Donaghey, Maria Rubio, Jennie Buchanan, Kirsteen McNish, Nadia Almaini, Dan Richards and Lorna Mills for all the joy, shelter and healing love that they brought.
I am grateful to my parents for everything but most of all for keeping me safe, my brothers for teaching me to love, and my grandparents for their goodness. To the children of the man I love, I am so grateful to share a life with you. To my family, both blood, and not; this book only exists because of red threads, both visible and not, that bind me to you. It has not been easy. I love you in ancient, untamable ways. Thank-you to those who stayed.
To M, the one who lit every light in the world for me, and then taught me how.
‘A luminous, life-affirming book’
Olivia Laing
‘A beautifully written meditation on landscape’
Sunday Times
‘Breathtakingly beautiful . . . A story of growth’
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