All This Light : Foreword
The following entries were written in the later part of 2020, and across 2021. I had hardly written anything all year in 2020. Not because I couldn't, but because I fancied a break. The pandemic was a good reason to go concentrate on other things: soundscapes, reading, mindfulness, identity, wellbeing, sanity. I was burnt out from the stress of living, and needed to draw myself back into focus.
However, in late October, I started to feel I really should be writing something: anything, to help keep away the rust and flex the brain. During these writing sessions, lockdown and the pandemic never felt far away. You tell yourself that you're free to write anything and go anywhere, but inevitably, themes emerge. And mostly, the theme was death. We had daily death tolls for the country on the news; every walk outside was a little ballet with mortality; social media filled up with stories of hospitalisations and the loss of loved ones. Death was now a large part of life. As the number of dead rose, so did the journal entries. Possibly through the act of repeated writing, childhood memories came rushing back, as fodder for the journal. Some days, I reflected, other days reacted, or ranted. This is not a journal of events, of what happened to me, but a journal of what thought I had. Sometimes the thought would be far removed from the actual content of the day, but somehow, something sparked somewhere to bring it to mind. Within, nothing is held back: what you read is what I felt day-by-day. Rightly or wrongly, I present the entries as I experienced them, as a fallible being that makes mistakes and has regrets. A few minor details have been changed or withheld to protect the innocent, and in some cases, the guilty too. Back to ASLIWTSYD Main Page | Sample 1 | Sample 2 |