Disconnected || The Creative Pandemic

I wrote another blog post for The Creative Pandemic called Disconnected, about moving house and not having the internet. You can read it in full here or further down below. 

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DISCONNECTED

The feeling of being disconnected.

I have not had this in a while, maybe when lying in a hospital bed and thinking about all the fun that my friends were having out there, in the summery sun-kissed world. 

(I have moved into a house with the love of my life – I feel like I should precursor this mope with my own context, by the way, I am happy.)

At the moment we have no internet and are busy moving-in; painting, decorating, searching, planning, eating, etc. My mind is taken up by all manner of things like, ‘Where the hell is the dustpan and brush?’ and, ‘Why is this microwave so complicated?’

And yet, when it comes to the witching hour, a term I heard from a friend who has recently given birth, which is when daylight warps into dusk and babies find it disturbing and cry, I get the heebie-jeebies wash over me too.

It’s a certain sinking feeling you get, as if you were in a cavernous auditorium and the lights are being switched off one by one from the back. It’s the encroaching darkness that dampens my mood. It’s why the Danes have hygge, right?

I feel even more out of joint from my normal routine. I have no internet, so can’t check my inbox for unread mail. Usually this means nothing to me, but this is not the deep truth because they do mean something to me, they are my normality. 

I usually unlock my phone out of habit like sighing deeply after climbing a hill, and when I see those red notifications my pulse rate lowers, then I carry on. Even if I return the device to the crevices of my pocket without checking them, it does the trick.

I was never aware of this sort of dependency. I watch my drinking, I watch my sugar intake, but do I watch the number of times I light up my phone for no reason? Pretending to check the time and date although I can’t seem to hold it in my head for more than the split second it took for the light to flash on and off. But the colours of my friends on my wallpaper brighten up my boredom to give me a hit of happiness in these gloomy times.

 

Inbetween Time

The only time you ever have ‘enough time’ is in between things. Such as now - while I lie flatly between duvet and throw - when I am supposed to be packing. An in between state (I am in) because I left work an hour ago to go home to pack for the very long journey tomorrow where we cross continents. Another man I know crosses oceans (going the other way round the globe).

Everyone is on the move again after the roast turkey and stuffing and gravy sandwiches. I lie flatly and think of the beauty of the way - how family will fly up to taunt and tear one down and then shoot up like a distress signal which ends in a glittering shower-burst of light - the winds picked up at night and in the day it was still. 

Orcadian landscapes have a haze they wear; the locals call it the Har. When there is no wind and the sun is lower than you could possibly paint it on the horizon the Har dissipates the sunlight and generously spreads the particles across seas and mounds making everything glow, faintly. When the wind picks up the droplets are blown clear and you’re left with hewn edges. Fragments of rock that were sleepy giants turn in to tablets. There are bird calls everywhere and the sun rises only to set - you’re right there sir - there is a certain timelessness about it all.

When I travel my body puffs up. That is when I travel internationally across time zones; that is when I am not in any time zone. Maybe it’s because the mental state of waiting (for the flight to be over) versus the physical sensation of it being day when it should be night (thus having gained a few hours out of nowhere) creates a physiological contradiction in me that makes me swell. I have no idea but time is tricksy.

And so why is it that I only feel like I have enough time in between things. Like for example, you have a meeting at 3pm but you got out early from the dentist's at 12pm so you have 3 hours to kill - you literally have it in such abundance that you need to get rid of it via murder - poor time. You think we don’t want you when you know all people want is more time, you must get such mixed messages all the time time. It must be the want for something to arrive quicker or last longer that marks the passage of time. Or gives it any meaning at all, otherwise we’d all be here in between states neither waiting nor wanting nor waning. And a warning to all layabouts like me who try to hide from time in between inner and outer layers of bedsheets fully clothed lying really pebble still - we won’t go unnoticed - time will creep up and devour us whole like a crocodile.