Very little language

Picking up pen and threads, once more

Brighton Beach, 14 August 2025, photo by me

It’s been three months and ten days since I wrote the last post at the beginning of May. At times it feels it was only yesterday, at other times like ages ago. A lot has happened in these months: a sudden and intense period of anxiety began with Israel’s attack on Iran on 13 June and the subsequent adventure of husband and son, who were in Tehran at the time, making their way overland through Turkey back home in London. Two intense work projects gave rise to an all-pervasive lack of headspace. The first one coincided exactly with the above events, while the second one brought me back mentally to an earlier version of myself as a scholar of Persian pragmatics and communication, as I copyedited and proofread the PhD thesis of a student I have been advising for the last six years.

But I haven’t been absent only from Substack; I haven’t done any other writing either for months, except for journaling. I’ve also been generally away from a lot of the activity at the London Writers’ Salon, although I occasionally join the Memoir and Life Writing group’s Saturday writing hours.

As a gentler return to personal writing, I began 100 days of journaling, working through Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy . I am grateful to Helen Errington who had the inspiration to set up a group at the Memoir and Life Writing group in the Salon. The group is now at Day 20, and the practice has so far inspired vignettes in a style I have not written in before, between prose and poetry.

With this post I pick up the end of one strand as a gentle way back to some writing.

The responses to two prompts stand out, one from the section On Beginning and one from On Memory.

Day 10 “I begin again” by Aura Brickler

I begin again, on this early morning, with a cup of warm water to rinse out the gut, past pain, and everything I hold on to but need to let go of.

I begin again by pulling in the ‘hooks’ that drag me to different directions: I am in control of my boat now.

I begin again with a new season of new music and singing discoveries, and with a return here, in this newsletter, picking up the strands as they appear and following them where they take me.

I begin again on this new day, in this moment, through this line of ink that unspools though my left hand.

***

Last Thursday, the Tall Dark Stranger and I drove down to Brighton. While he went off to carry out measurements for a building project, I sat by the sea to read and journal on Day 15 “Encapsulating Ephemera” by Jenny Boully.

Waves are lapping on the beach at the old port of Emboreios, Kasos, Greece, early 80s. A mature lady advances one pace at a time, unsteady on the sea pebbles, stumbles but regains her footing. She scoops sea water over her forearms, her arms, her chest. My sister Eleni and our friends, Pelaya and Loula are splashing about in the water, screaming in joy. They will later lie on the beach, to dry and fry in the August Mediterranean sun.

I sit under the sun tent on a raised cement platform, book, notebook and pen in hand, looking down at the beach. Once, twice, may times removed. Eleni and the girls will join me after the fun is over for a locally made lemon drink in a squat, reusable glass bottle. Until then, I look out at the waves lapping in, cresting, breaking, rejoining the sea. I let my hand surf and glide smoothly on the page.

Emborios old port, September 2023, photo by me

Four decades later, in this moment, I sit on Brighton Beach, the nearest I got to the Mediterranean this summer. A large family sit on a picnic blanket with Thermos flasks, crisps packets, tupperwares of salads, keeping an eye out for the swooping seagulls.

Brighton Beach, 14 August 2025, photo by me

I sit in the shade of a beachfront cafe - out of the sun, always - notebook open and pen in hand, looking out to the sea. Removed and observing people and the sea. A mature woman stands on the enclosed decking area and throws a red ball outside, on the beach for her dog to fetch. The black, shaggy dog rushes round tables, bumping against my chair. The Tall Dark Stranger will join me when his work is done. Until then, my ink glides over the paper, getting closer, or trying to. No matter.

Keep gliding, keep flowing. Waves are lapping in. They crest, break, rejoin the sea.

The heart meets the (left) hand in an embrace of imperfection