First Movement: Awakening of pleasant feelings upon arriving in the country

Back at my parents' house in Leicestershire. I seem to have reached a point where I'm having to look seriously at my life. I won't go into details, but after a couple years now of questioning and confusion I realise I'm going to have to work on myself before I can reach out to someone else.

Hmmf. Its okay, really. In fact its good, because to look at myself, I must also look after myself, I need to connect with others, to work on my health, to undertake healthy pursuits, take rest; to practice being 'happy', which is really more tricky than it sounds, but profoundly necessary. So yeah, if the tone of this here blog becomes a bit more circumspect and less 'jaunty', its only because the emotional depths of its author are being sounded for perhaps the first time.

Walking yesterday across fields along the footpath that leads from my house to the village churchyard, a route I've taken innumerable times from back since I was at primary school and used it as a shortcut home. Memory-saturated. The village itself is small enough that I pretty much know all of it, from the time I did a paper round and was made to lug enormous bags of Leicester Mercurys for the local newsagent, for which I got the princely sum of £4 a month and all the Yorkie bars I could eat. Obviously, every time I come back something has changed, new houses appearing where there used to be green space, posher cars in driveways, new faces behind the co-op counter. And I notice things differently, too. Like how silent the place is in the evenings, as residents vacuum seal themselves inside double-glazed bungalows. And how small the place is. I'm different, too.

The Geographer Doreen Massey writes of places not just as 'meaningful spaces', but as collected assemblages of trajectories, of the lives of their inhabitants as they interact with the wider world. Returning home, then, especially after a long time away, is always unsettling; the familiar is rendered poignant by the presence of the new, forcing one to measure the progress of our own lives in the changes.

Anyway, in terms of changing landscapes, my own is about to open up a bit more: I've got my mum to insure me to use her car. My first solo drive is therefore imminent. Wish me luck.