15th January, 2023: Stanley Street, Liverpool
In a grey backstreet, Eleanor Rigby sits on a stone bench where a memory of her and so many others have been. She sits down next to her as close as she can to pick up Eleanor’s silent words living in a dream, waiting at the window, and wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door. But the seat that acts as a bridge between them is cold and broken. The one and the other together apart on a common, grey and stone cold seat, searching for words to repair the gap.
She doesn’t know who Eleanor is, Eleanor does not know her, but somehow there is a knowing that binds them. Knowing that being alone as a woman in this world is a common, grey and stone cold thing. Knowing that being a woman defined and described by men in this world is a common, grey and stone cold thing. Knowing that being a woman relegated to the backstreets is a common, grey and stone cold thing. She goes to sleep that night with stone cold feet thinking she and Eleanor, in the end, are nothing more than common and grey things.
16th January, 2023: Royal Albert Drive, Scarborough
She snuggles in close to him as they stand by the shore on the Scarborough esplanade. The sun reaches for the grey sky while the wind howls and white waves splinter shards of ice onto their faces. Her fingernails feel like they are about to peel her away from the insides out – she cannot remember a time when she felt so bone cold.
On the other side of the road, a bronze bathing belle remembers the lengths women went to in order to feel the salt on their skin in days gone by, shielded by a 17th century bathing machine as they stepped out of the shadows into the sun. Her eyes begin to sting as water drips outside in.
He is taller than her now, no longer a child, and she feels his 17 year old strength warm her across and in time. They laugh as the wind whips his hair and nips her nose. He stands straight and steadies them both. She has delighted in their adventures afar together and she knows it will remain forever etched in her heart long after she has lost capacity to remember.
16th January, 2023: St. Mary’s Church Graveyard, Scarborough
The wind whipped around her as she stood and soaked in the softly strange sight of the North Sea lashing against the steep heights of Scarborough Castle. The grey ocean mirrored the ruins; it was exhilarating as it was terrifying and she willingly gave into the elements as they carried her swiftly back down the cobbled path.
She hadn’t noticed it on the way up but the navy blue sign with an arrow indicating the direction and distance to Anne Brontë’s grave in St Mary’s churchyard beneath the Castle walls was hard to miss on descent. Anne is the only one of her family buried in Scarborough; the sea sun kissing her words and world while she worked there as a governess. Time and salty air has eroded the original headstone beyond measure and the inscription on a new marble slav, perhaps like the writer herself, is clear, simple and true. Beside the sand, shells and sea Anne loved so well, her gentle literary soul, lays in peace. With a silent gesture, she gives Acton Bell her heart and whispers:
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring,
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For, above, and around me, the wild wind is roaring
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
(An excerpt from “Lines composed in a wood on a windy day”, by Anne Brontë, writing as Acton Bell).
17th January, 2023: Corner of Waterloo Place and Leith Street, Edinburgh
She sits alone at Noon, preparing her paper for this afternoon. She is anxious about what she has written, words she has not shared with anyone before. There are 11 words in particular she is dreading. They have hung around her neck for 34 years and twice almost killed her. The first time she was alone in a hotel room with a hair dryer cord and a nail that wouldn’t hold. The second at home on a grey May day with a rope and a large banksia tree for company.
She has chosen not to remember these 11 words until now, choosing instead to bury them deep inside the walls of her memory inside college grounds. But as Ursula Le Guin reminds her, all walls fall, and hers have now crumbled in spectacular fashion – 1, 2, 3, 7, 11. She is not sure whose body will lie shattered beneath the rubble at the bottom. It doesn’t really matter because either way, there are pieces of her which she knows she can never put back together. Speaking these 11 words aloud is the best hope she has, so she holds on.
18th January, 2023: 5 Saunders Street, Stockbridge
They say space is the distance between you and loved ones; while place is where you imagine being with them. She makes this pilgrimage every time she visits Edinburgh and every time she is filled with deep traces of belonging which traverse past and present. Sitting on the kerb across from 5 Saunders Street, she pictures Stockbridge in 1833 when her great great grandfather George and great great grandmother Margaret lived there on the banks of the Water of Leith.
A bustling and lively Bohemian bridge between the old and new town, prosperity just within reach for the lucky and the strong. She sees Margaret, about the age she is now, making her way along the babbling brook each morning to the butcher, stopping to chat awhile with her neighbour Alice before sitting down a cup that revives while George went to work as a cabinet maker. She hopes in that moment Margaret felt content, happy and loved; and tries not to think of the sadness she knows les ahead of her great great grandmother.
20th January, 2023: Ard-na-Said, Edinburgh
250m high this ancient volcanic hill provides a panoramic view of Edinburgh and her surrounds. Today the sun’s rays are crisp and bright, the icy air nips and bites, and the melting snow melting and adds a further layer of daring to their climb. Standing on the summit of Suidhe Artair, sometimes called Ard-na-Said or more popularly Arthur’s Seat, she catches her breath and feels completely alive.
She looks at her 17 year old son, poised on the edge of his future, ready to flight into the world waiting at his feet. Her heart begins to beat unevenly; she worries he is going to loose his footing, but she resists the maternal urge to pull him back. She knows that falling and flying have a finely tuned affinity and one it would be best not to meddle with. He turns to her, “Now that’s quite something isn’t it Mum?” She hopes he doesn’t notice how damp her cheeks are. “Race ya to the bottom?“ he grins. Grabbing her hand, they stretch their arms wide as they can and soar back down the hill.
21st January, 2023: Castle Hill, Edinburgh
She has walked past this memorial many times but until now, has never stopped to remember. The “Witches Well” atop Castle Hill in Edinburgh is sequestered away on the wall of a biscuit shop. People around her push and shove past, jostling for a view of the monument to royal prowess and power. She stands still and stands her ground, listening for the voices of women skewed and silenced who screamed and sang as their bodies burned just metres from here.
She reads the inscription and bows her head as she bears witness to the suffering and injustice of wise women accused of witchcraft in the past and the ways these words render them suspect in the present. Searching the Scottish archives, she found the name of Joan Millar of the Mackinlay clan accused of being a witch on Shetland Islands in the early 1600s and feels a keening begin deep down in her heart. It is raw and escapes as a rough promise to the thousands of women assaulted, tortured, and murdered in femicide, “I will not forget”.
24th January, 2023: Kings College, Kings Parade, Cambridge
She wanders into the grounds of Kings College at Cambridge and pauses in front of the sign, “Please keep off the grass”. The rule has been enshrined in collegiate law since it’s inception – only Fellows, those in the company of a Fellow, or ducks are allowed to walk on the green patch of lawn in the centre, while everyone else is confined to the gravel and cobblestones bordering the edges.
She recalls that it was only in 1970, the year before she was born, that a woman was allowed to place her feet on the grass in her own right. She remembers how 42 years earlier Virginia Woolf had tried to land her thoughts on the turf but was rudely intercepted by the wild gesticulations of an indignant and horrified Beadle. She is reminded of the thin line between now and then where the simple fact of being a woman leads to all manner of exclusion. She takes a step backwards, noticing how the smoothness of the present masks the roughness of the past and how each blade of grass retains the danger.
24th January, 2023: Kings College, Kings Parade
Later that evening she returns to listen to Evensong at Kings College. She gave up her faith long ago but she is drawn to the ritual which has been in place since the Chapel was built in the 15th century. She is moved to devotion through music after purchasing by chance a copy of Patti Smith’s book of the same name at Heffers book store as it flitted past only ten minutes earlier.
Smith’s work is a homage to Simone Weil and she is quickly caught up in her words. The other Simone, brutal thick dark hair framing her heart shaped face like the brilliant independent bride of Frankenstein. She can’t explain it, but at 5:30pm in the absence of light, she is overwhelmed by love as she walks into the chapel.
She sits down quietly in the third pew and closes her eyes. She pays attention to the voices as they soar around her, relishing the sensation of sound as it embraces her body, mind and soul in the bittersweet. Her salty tears are filled with devotion borne not of consolation, but light.
26th January, 2023: Newnham College, Cambridge
She feels a delightful thrill ripple her skin as she steps onto the grounds of Newnham College. She is following the footsteps of Virginia Woolf who famously visited in October 1928 and delivered the lecture “Women and fiction” which questioned the exclusion of women from patriarchal institutions, including writing, which would later become “A room of one’s own”. 152 years old, Newnham was founded on the radical belief that women were every bit as intelligent as men and deserved a first class education, exclaims her guide and current principal of the college Alison Rose. Unlike Girton, Alison explains, Newnham actively resisted the blueprint for education laid down by men and developed courses by and for women. “Look at the beautiful Queen Anne architecture!” Alison gestures, “And of course, we have always allowed, indeed encouraged, our women to walk freely on the grass!”
After lunching on Vegetarian Bourguignon and Bakewell tart in Clough Hall, she pours over correspondence between Ursula Stevenson and Elsie Phare in the Newnham archives who were tasked with arranging Woolf’s visit. “She was nearly hour late,” wrote Elsie, “And arrived with her husband, completely upsetting our seating plans. Is it any wonder she found dinner so plain!” “Her lecture was formidable, a fiend hid behind a cloud!’ wrote Ursula in reply. “I thought she might say something profound during coffee after dinner, but my vanity did sit up and purr when she remarked that she had no idea the young ladies at Newnham were so beautifully dressed! By the way Elsie, do you know the story about two old ladies who went for a tramp in the country? He never recovered!”
27th January, 2023: The express train from Cambridge to Heathrow
She tries to write of this and that as she often does at this time of day, but is interrupted by an elderly Indian lady sitting opposite her.
“You are doing something very productive with your time I see! Are you a writer?” the woman asks.
She does not think of herself as a writer, even though she writes, writes and takes the time to just write every day. Maybe it was the elderly lady’s kind eyes, her gentle smile, her soft voice, or maybe it was because the woman had taken notice of her, today she throws all of her inhibitions away and replies, “Yes – yes I am a writer”.
“What kind of books do you write? How many times have you been published? Do you have any coming out this year? Can I follow you on Socials?
She begins to feel giddy. Her words stutter in response to the questions time travelling between them thick and fast; her thoughts run themselves raggard trying to keep up with the very notion of staking such a claim.
The express train arrives in a timely fashion at Kings Cross Station and with a swift goodbye they part ways, without ever having spoken one another’s name.
Yes! Yes, you ARE a writer! Write!
Thank you for another beautiful journey … through time and space and the magic of your mind x