Trying (And Failing) to Be "Present" During My Daily Permitted Exercise
I often write stream of consciousness essays like this, mostly whilst walking or on public transport, but I never post them anywhere. However, this week I read this Man Repeller article about the need for personal essays during quarantine and it gave me the push I needed to publish this one. There might be more, there might not! But I hope you enjoy this collection of my thoughts during my walk to, on and from the beach the other day.
I took this photo accidentally whilst tying my shoe
Shutting the gate to my house, I send a photo of the Creme Egg I am carrying to my boyfriend with the caption ‘Going to the beach with a seasonal snack.’ Photos like this one have become somewhat the norm, 9 days into self-isolation, in order to update him on my day, always trying to be funny, succeeding only occasionally.
I bite the top of the creme egg and begin to devour the filling. Usually I wouldn’t do this in public, but with only one other person to be seen on my road, and my inability to care about anything, including how I appear to others, in such a time of overwhelm, I do it with added vigour, smiling like a psychopath.
I fix my earphones into my ears, and press play on a podcast I’ve downloaded specifically for this walk. It’s an “in conversation” with Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adicihe by the New York Public Library. ‘Am I listening this so I can tell Instagram I listened to this while walking to the beach or do I actually want to listen to it?’ I thought to myself. I decide I do actually want to listen to it, although only partly for pleasure and also for education, although the two have become somewhat amalgamated in my head. I struggle with the pretentiousness of that idea, as someone who is notoriously condemning of anything pretentious - books, films, lecturers, songs, lifestyles etc. But after three years of studying English Literature, I’m beginning to realise I now enjoy many of these things, as has been made glaringly obvious to me now I am back at home, self-isolated with my family. 10 minutes into the walk, and the podcast, I am undoubtedly enjoying it but I will still post about it on Instagram later.
Part of what I am enjoying about the podcast is the sounds of the audience, their mumbles, sneezes; their laughter as Adichie reads out a passage from her book that describes Brooklyn as smelling like ‘warmed up trash.’ I breathe in through my nose in an attempt to characterise the smells around me. “Shit.” I think. “It smells like shit. But a nice kind of shit, a fresh kind. Animal poo, rather than human.” It’s almost comforting, after long days and nights spent in doors with only stale air and the artificial smell of anti-bacterial spray.
I’m walking down a side path next to a field and peer in at the houses I can see past the low fences. One house has a small conservatory, with a low roof that I might have to duck my 5’4 body in order to get inside. There’s a shelf filled with books. I can’t see their titles but they are old books, backed in fabrics made out of primary colours, rather than the shiny, bright contemporary paperbacks and hardbacks that fill my shelves.
I leave the path and approach one of the most infamous houses in my area, marked, as usual, by a small police van sitting outside of it, that I’m sure could be used for a better purpose during lockdown than guarding this millionaire’s property. I walk past the walls of the house, that are thick enough to prevent you from really being able to see the house whilst walking, but thin enough that you can catch glimpses of it that make you want to stop and stare. A design that I’m sure, like Gatsby’s, is intentionally alluringly elusive, built to encourage envy. “I am not envious”, I think as I walk by, smiling at a man and his dog stood 6 metres away from me. “But I wouldn’t mind self-isolating in there,” I sardonically say out loud under my breath, catching a glimpse of the huge circular balcony that is the size of the entire bottom floor of my house.
I chose this path to the beach for its practicality, having only an hour and fifteen minutes to spare before an online Barre class but it is one that I am not familiar with. I see two paths ahead of me, one that turns into a field and one next to a house I recognise. I opt for the latter, after skim reading a sign about the history of the area.
Once I am walking on it, I realise that there were in fact 3 paths, and I had not walked far enough to the one that was actually the quickest way to get to the beach. The path I am walking on is hardly a path at all, more of a break in marram grass made by those who were braver than me and followed their own navigation rather than that of a sign. I follow in their footprints, stopping every now and then as I notice a new path opening up beside me, sometimes taking it.
Arriving at the beach, there is, unusually, no breeze and I realise I do not need the puffer coat that is tied around my waist that I brought specifically to guard myself from the tough wind sent on by the ocean. I am greeted in the best way: by an enthusiastic dog with a ball in his mouth. I go to stroke him then realise, better not, pets can carry it without showing symptoms, and pass it on to others. I smile at him and he, irritated by my inability to imitate his glee, heads back to his cooperating owner.
I walk down the beach for around 10 minutes, taking photos and videos of the sand, the sea, the sun and my outfit. I consider posting them to Instagram now to encourage everyone to experience this spring-like day, but decide to post them later, half out of selfishness, of getting to be one of the few who chose to abandon their Netflix bingeing session (ignoring the ‘are you still watching?’ notification) and take their once-a-day permitted exercise, half because I want to use this time to be away from my screen, something that is increasingly difficult when the only social contact I get is on social media.
The irony is, I have been tapping away at my phone, writing this piece for the entirety of my walk. The podcast I was listening to is paused 11 minutes in.
I imagine the middle-aged people around me judging me, for spending my daily exercise on my phone. I’ve probably prompted a conversation in them that will fill the rest of their walk or run, about the toxicity of social media. “Well, too bad for them because I am not on social media but, writing.” I think to myself, irritatingly smug in the knowledge that their assumptions about me are wrong, ignoring the possibility that my assumption about what they’re thinking could also be incorrect.
To be truthful, being a person who writes is far more addictive than social media anyway. Hearing someone tell me they liked a sentence I wrote, or coming up with said sentence, produces far more adrenaline than a like on social media. And it takes me out of the moment more too. Because whenever I am seemingly in the moment, I’m reading, or listening to words (having mostly given up on music since the advent of podcasts) and sometimes, but admittedly less often than the others, writing them.
Maybe tomorrow I will use my daily walk to be. To be in the moment, to be adventurous. It feels as if this is how my time outside should be spent, seeing as there is now a limit on it. But I struggle to be in the moment, listening to the sounds of nature rather than the sounds of other people talking in my ears, or to be content to leave my thoughts in my head, instead, frantically writing all of them down, becoming distracted by something else I want to write about before finishing every sentence.
‘Excuse me, excuse me. Where’s the beach?’ A man, around my age, comes up to me, asking me this frantic question. I look up from my phone and turn around, to check the huge towering sand dunes behind me haven’t somehow disappeared. I see that they are, as expected, still there and point towards them. ‘The beach????’ He repeats, perplexed by my ignorance. I can smell his breath now he has moved closer, most definitely violating the 2 metre social-distancing rule; it smells like alcohol and I now understand his confusion. “Just follow that path down there,” I say, pointing. “Thanks!” He says and wanders off with his friend, the plastic bags they are carrying swinging and create a clinking sound from their contents.
“See now that’s what I should be doing,” I think to myself. “THAT would make a good story.”
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Are Words Dying Out?
Are Words Dying Out?
Photography by Ell Field.
I'm back today with a more 'thoughtful' post (i.e writing about something that's been on my mind that has nothing/very little to do with the photos I share alongside it). These types of posts, as opposed to posts about fashion and style, tend to be my favourite ones to write and tend to be received the best upon sharing so you'll probably be seeing much more of them on my blog. I've even created a new category to my blog called 'Thoughts & Musings' to allow myself this space on my blog, so do head over there after reading this post to read more of these types of posts. Also, final sort-of disclaimer before starting the post, you may have noticed that I haven't been posting on my blog as much recently, which isn't down to lack of wanting to do so but a lack of time as I have been working A LOT. For now, my aim is to get up a blog post once a week on Sunday evenings but don't be surprised to see an extra post up (probably on Wednesdays or Fridays) on the weeks when I'm working a little bit less.
Anyway, let's move on to the discussion point of this post, something that's very close to my heart, words. I've always been a reader and a writer, both in and out of school. As an English Literature student, I spend most of my time doing these two things during the academic year and as an avid reader and someone with a blog, I spend most of my free time doing the same two things. I simply love words (hence the name of this blog), whether I'm reading them or writing them. But in an age where most of our communication and entertainment is in the format of photos, videos and even voice-notes, are words simply unnecessary? As you can probably guess, I'd argue against this and although I love Instagram, Netflix and Snapchat as much as the next person, I get the most satisfaction through reading something that is above the 140 character (or is it 280 characters now?) limit and writing something longer than an Instagram caption.
Are Words Dying Out?
This post isn't designed to be an insult to anyone who doesn't enjoy reading or writing because not everyone does, and I'm not going to act all high and mighty just because I do! To my shame, I'm really not interested in anything remotely science-y and I even find Blue Planet (maybe stop reading now if you're a big fan) pretty boring. Everyone has different interests and they're definitely not always as simple as preferring English to Maths or History to Science but sometimes people simply do not like reading or writing and that is fine. The problem today, in my opinion, is that many people don't know whether they do or not because today's fast-moving, visual-orientated society doesn't give them a chance to find out. When I was listening to The High-Low podcast the other day (10/10 would recommend), someone sent a question in asking about how to improve their attention span in order to be able to read for longer, worried that social media had essentially shrunken theirs. The discussion that ensued following this was so interesting. Pandora and Dolly discussed how social media essentially provides quick-fixes to everything, allowing you to consume so much varied information in one go, which is perhaps why the 'task' of reading one book that is on one topic sounds like too much and boring for many people. After this, they thankfully assured their readers that it is impossible for our attention spans to 'shrink' and that, with practice, almost anyone can become an attentive reader. Despite this, it is still interesting to think about how social media is changing our habits and our ways of thinking.
Even as someone who loves to read I still find myself reaching for my phone rather than a book 90% of the time, a habit that I'm trying to change, and skipping through articles to the 'important bit' and ignoring most of what has been written. I think this is part of the way modern life is becoming more and more fast-paced and social media is obviously becoming such a big part of it. Since starting my blog I've found that I'm on my phone even more now but, because I use social media to promote and go alongside my blog, I can kind of count it as being productive. And it is a lot more productive and positive than it used to be, but I know that turning to a book or an article would be much more beneficial for my brain and my mental health than scrolling through Instagram for the 20th time that day.
Are Words Dying Out?
Finally, I wanted to discuss how the gradual death of words is affecting blogging. I only started my blog a few months ago but it's already clear to me that people would rather scroll through my Instagram than scroll through my blog, which is fine because scrolling through my Instagram is less time-consuming and probably a quicker way to get to know me and see what I've been up to. Does this mean that blogs are going extinct? I don't think so. I think/hope that there will always be people who love to gobble up words as much as I do and therefore blogs will always be able to survive through them, if not on such a large scale as photos do on Instagram. I think there is an element of compromising as well because putting a blog post up without photos is pretty much a no-go, which is saying something in itself. This can sometimes be annoying for me because sometimes I want to discuss something and don't have the photos to go with it but I also understand this need for a visual aid and enjoy it myself. I compromise with this by just adding photos to a blog post that are, more often than not, unrelated to the topics that I'm discussing. And this seems to go down with readers of this blog just fine!
So until words truly do die a death, which I know the book-lovers of the world would never allow to happen anyway, I will continue writing on this blog, whether anyone reads it or not! And if you are someone who likes reading or writing but perhaps has fallen out of it, there's no time quite like the present to start again- you could even take a look at my blog post on the best holiday reads for some reading inspiration! I'd love to hear your thoughts on how social media is affecting our reading and writing habits and maybe even some ways to ensure that you still get your dose of words in the comments or on social media.
Are Words Dying Out?
Are Words Dying Out?
Are Words Dying Out?