Between the Lines #2 ~ A Room in Brixton
A poem mentioning parakeets sparks a memory...
‘Between the Lines’ is a series where I share poems I have enjoyed from other poets and/or written myself — taking an informal look at construction, meaning and personal resonance.
At the end of my last update I shared a poem ‘How to Live’ by Todd Dillard and explained how the mention of parakeets had sparked a memory for me that seemed to want to be a poem itself.
Unusually for my writing process this involved research. I found a lot of what I needed to know about the London parakeet population in this Guardian article by Nick Hunt. After reading it I was able to start the poem immediately, following an uncertainty of how I would approach it. All I had swimming in my mind was an image of myself smoking out of my third floor bedroom window, watching the birds play. The article helped me to set the tone and I had the main bulk written within a few minutes.
I’m really pleased with how it turned out and the snapshot of my life it refers to. I was 32 and had just left my long-term relationship of 15 years. I was starting all over again, knowing I wanted children and with the colossal task of healing from a traumatic betrayal.
After many months of stress, I made the decision to leave and moved out of the house I had bought with my ex, in a commuter belt town just three years earlier. To be closer to my work as a midwife, I somewhat apprehensively moved into a rented room in a six-person house share in Brixton.
Was my life about to scale new heights or in a complete free fall? I had no idea.
I’d never been single. I’d never lived in a house share. I’d never been through a breakup. I was equal parts terrified but excited, depressed yet flying high.
It was my first significant trip into ‘The Bardo’, the in-between. It was a time that I felt so alive, but also kind of half dead — something I refer to with the ‘flashes of lime paint splashed across the charcoal sketch’ because life had felt dark, grey and empty for a long time. Ending it, leaving, moving out had been the only way for me to see and feel colour in life again.
I remember how curious I suddenly had to learn to be. I was trying on the different components of a new life like a huge payday blowout in a Zara changing room. People, hobbies, places, food, habits, music — you name it I was trying a new type of it, to see what would stick. Thankfully the smoking referenced in the poem didn’t continue, but creative writing as self-expression did.
I had always loved writing poetry but for some reason, I had dropped any creative wordsmith ways in my late teens. It wasn’t until I found myself utterly devastated by my partner’s infidelity that the words flowed. I started a secret Instagram poetry account where I charted the heartbreak, hopelessness and healing process. I think I wrote (at least) a poem a day for six months. It was an avalanche of creative energy, a torrent of urgent words. It felt like I was writing my old life into oblivion and the new one into existence. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel potential and possibility as potently as I did then. It was all consuming.
In the poem, I wanted to make a link between how I felt and the parakeets. I read about how they have not only survived in a country far removed from their natural habit, but multiplied and thrived. I didn’t know it at the time but I was at the beginning of an arduous road towards acceptance of my situation. I had no clue that I wouldn’t feel the safety of contentment, or that I would carry an uneasy sense of not belonging for a very long time. It was obvious to me that, the birds were a lesson in how to be bold and build a life wherever (and however) you find yourself.
I spent forever trying to get the last line right (very normal for me, it’s probably the part of a poem I work on the most). It only clicked once I re-wrote the lines leading into it. Originally I was just ‘pondering’ the birds existence but introducing the idea that I was taking notes from them, eagerly learning from their innate wisdom allowed the last line to reveal itself.
I get such a buzz from a finished poem that surpasses my initial expectation of how it will be. It’s a special feeling to take a memory swirling in and out of consciousness like a vapour, and be able to make it permanent — to distill it, to capture its essence on the page. I think this is the entire reason I write.
Permanence. Not something we can ever hope to enjoy permanently (see what I did there?!) especially if we are within a Bardo, but like a swooping parakeet on the periphery of your vision — it’s nice to sense it, even fleetingly.
Jade x
Writing/Thought Prompt
Comment below if you’d like to share :)
If you think of an animal from you life, where are you taken back to? What did they teach you? What are the links between the animal and your psyche?
Thank you for reading The Bardo. If you think someone else could benefit from these words, my posts are public so can be shared freely x
This is lovely, Jade. I enjoyed the peek into your process too.