With grief at our backs
With grief at our backs
TW: discussion of male violence
‘On any single day, in any given hour, I swing between two poles.
One is defiant optimism, the other abject hopelessness.
There is compelling evidence for each condition.’
- Bri Lee, ‘Between here and justice’, The Saturday Paper
Purple crocuses, mingling with white, fill the floors of parks – radiant against rich, end-of-winter grass. The weather is warm, and I go for a walk without a coat, winding my way through squares and parks.
It turns out to be a fool’s spring, that brief week of warm weather and glorious, radiant sunshine at the end of February, before winter returns, ever lingering. Layers are drawn back around us, sunk back into, as skies darken once again.
The first sighting of blossoms – snow white, delicate like crêpe paper – at the end of my street. In an afternoon of errands, the first magnolias in full bloom are spotted outside rows of Georgian terraces, the delicate white striking against the dark brick. Rows of daffodils – sun bright and soft like butter – stand tall around my feet. It is bitterly cold. I complete my errands and rush home, deeply regretting the all too hasty burying of beanie and gloves at the back of my wardrobe.
The bittersweet feeling of tuning into an afternoon wedding from your bed in the early hours of the morning, half a world away. Of a dear friend swapping deeply held vows, mediated by a screen.
The distance, brought sharply under spotlight over the past year, feels especially vast when witnessing deep joy from afar. In itself, a type of grief; for the distance, for what could have been. I think I should have been there I should have been there I should have been there and knowing that I couldn’t doesn’t take away from the raw truth of that feeling, of how deeply I wish I had been.
I walk up a hill in the park. London is laid out before me, the view mapping the winding curves of the river from Canary Wharf in the east, around through the City, on to the Strata tower of Elephant and Castle, and on to the west where the new developments of Vauxhall, Nine Elms, and Battersea stand tall. The skyline is a reminder of all the lives lived within this one city, and of all that brought me here in the first place.
The wind picks up and bites my cheeks.
I walk home.
In the days following, there’s a new kind of grief. A grief for Sarah Everard and a grief for all the women whose names we don’t know. For all the women, like her, who never made it home, and for all the women whose homes and workplaces weren’t safe. A grief for Breonna Taylor, for Eurydice Dixon, for Brittany Higgins. A grief for all the women with near-misses and survivor’s guilt. A grief for all women, everywhere, throughout time.
My eyes drift to the still-barren trees, spirits lifted briefly by the bright, bold, brilliance of sunshine-yellow daffs, even in days of pelting rain and wind that rattles the double-glaze of windows.
I watch the grey clouds as they move swiftly across the iridescent sky. The equinox is nearing, approaching minute by minute, day by day. The gradual expansion of light.
An early morning spent with a friend. A walk and talk call connecting East London to South London and connecting here to home. Ominous clouds roll down from the north as we share the all-too-familiar sense of it could have been me it could have been me it could have been me.
In other times, this would have been a week where we clung tightly to each other – long, lingering hugs, debriefs over wine and plates of pasta. Without it, we are left alone, isolated, left simmering in our emotions, having to find, again and again, new methods of coping as we have done so, again and again, over the course of the past year. Texts are threaded across the weft and warp of London, weaving a sense of solidarity, support, and love, but, while texts suffice, they are incomparable to the physicality of simply being together, of holding a friend’s hand in support, or of the transformative power of a hug.
‘To live in a city is to be forever flinching.’
- Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
A vigil takes place. After a week trying to convince women the streets are safe (whilst also telling them to stay indoors, and arresting one of their own) the police themselves act in a way that proves that not to be the case.
At home, I light a candle, connecting me to other women doing the same, on this night, at this time. I place the candle on the shelf above my bed, watching the flame flicker and glow. I look up and realise that behind the candle rests a print – Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (c. 1638-9). Painted near the end of her life, the rough, confident brushstrokes, project an image of her image to the world as strong and capable, in the prime of her life. Yet she, too, once suffered at the hands of men. Power, privilege, and violence were used against her. In response, she fought to be heard, fought to be believed, and fought for justice, just as we are doing so today. She wanted to be safe, 411 years ago, as we want to be safe today.
‘Sorrow does not have a century.’
- Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living
You light a candle, listening to the rush and fizz as the match turns to flame, and flame engulfs wick. You sit, cross legged on your bed, and watch as it flickers and grows, as the wax melts slowly, gently, to the base. You are one of the many women doing the same tonight – a vigil flowing from the bandstand at Clapham Common, out across the expanse of South London, and on to the rest of the city, ever onwards, covering the country in individual moments, held within individual flames. The universal act – of lighting a candle, of finding light in dark times – connects and centres you, focuses your attention.
You sigh, deeply, and the single flame dips and dances in response. You think of all the women, of all the moments felt in fear.
You think of that walk, from Clapham to Brixton and all the small yet immense decisions she would have made; the same ones you would have made too. You think of how hypervigilance is so ingrained that it is second nature now, muscle memory woven into the fabric of every day.
You think of the past year – of the enforced domesticity that has made so many unsafe. You think of all the women having to complete the majority share of unpaid, unacknowledged housework and childcare, on top of holding down jobs, or being made redundant while trying to do it all. Of all the fears of women’s progression being taken away day, by day, by day over the past six, nine, twelve months.
You think of all the odds stacked, again and again, against women, and you watch the flame, watch the wax as it continues to melt down as your fury rises.
This is bigger than one case, bigger than London, than the UK, bigger than 2021. This connects all women to each other – a universal, timeless solidarity to all we know and experience, and all we wish we didn’t.
‘The man didn’t understand birdsong.’
- Elif Batuman, The Idiot
Week by week, we wait patiently for the magenta magnolias to bloom. First the soft, furry buds appeared. Then a dash of pink. Slowly, now, the petals are beginning to appear and unfurl.
Another call from East London to South London, and back to the park. The sun ripples across the lake. This time, the sun warms, and I regret not bringing sunglasses. At the top of the hill, dogs rush past me, keen to mingle with their mates.
Later that day, a walk with a friend, over the river – the first time since December – up through a deserted Covent Garden, an empty Soho, on through quiet Carnaby Street, past the locked-up Liberty, and on down to St James’s Park.
All the park benches – now legal to be sat on – are taken, so we find the least damp spot of grass at the top of a gradual hill. Daffodils are nearby, as are pink blossoms, striking against the white stone walls, but in the air there’s still a sense of things yet to wake, yet to shake off the weight and burden of winter.
The trees are still mostly bare, their greenery yet to triumph. It’s the last day of winter before the equinox arrives and the air is still cool. It feels like we’re still a few steps away – maybe a week or two – from the true start of spring, from the most eagerly awaited turn of seasons yet.
As we walk back towards the river, the sunset breaks above the dome of the National Gallery. We pause in the middle of the empty street, awestruck by its force. So many sunsets missed in the rigmarole of working from home, our lives confined to what we can see through the square of a small window. Without the benefit of a daily commute, the essence of a morning is lost, the joy of the evening, misplaced.
There are some days where we don’t miss the commute one bit, when the rain lashes the windows, and we curl our hands around mugs of hot tea, thanking our lucky stars that we don’t need to leave the flat. And there are others where we miss it; the distinction between work and home, the act of leaving our worries on the other side of the river.
There’s a grief for that, too. A grief for all the opportunities lost in the tumult of the last year – for all the sunrises and sunsets, all the lunchtime picnics, all the evening walks. A grief for London despite still being here. The city out of reach, despite all the sacrifices made to be within it.
The equinox passes. Winter tucked away for another year – the great long stretch of this vast winter now finally crawling to a close.
The next time I sit down to write this, the blossoms will have swooned across streets, and trees will be abundant with bright new greenery. Already, the birdsong is vibrant in the air. The daffodils sway in the gentle breeze of the early afternoon. A squirrel leaps between the posts of a newly built fence.
Change is upon us. New beginnings are in the air if only we look for them, if only we make them our own.
It’s been more than a year now – of lockdowns, of tumultuous, traumatic change, of turbulent, charged emotions. A year in and we are exhausted and left without proper ways to grieve all that has been lost, all those who have been lost. We do what we can, how we can, but the deep sense of hopelessness is unabating, forever simmering, just beneath the surface.
Errands after work and a shortcut home. The park is empty as I cut through it, unexpectedly quiet in the late drifting of the day. I wonder should I be here should I be here should I be here? An all-too-common thought pattern: what could happen, what might happen, would I be to blame if anything were to happen? It could have been me; it could have so easily been me. I pick up my pace, look around, and head home.
It’s after six. The sunset is ablaze behind the skyline of Waterloo. The day has been warm and bright. Daffodils shining, the buds of magenta blossoms visible on trees. Windows left open.
Soon the clocks will turn. The gentle unfurling from the depths of a difficult winter is beginning to take shape. The gently approaching faint glimmers of hope are appearing. There’s sense of things shifting, increasingly for the better, despite the news.
At least there’s that. At the very least, at least there’s that.
'There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.'
- The Naked City, 1948