Sinking down under the water, slipping down under
Drifting out into the water, missing down under
Tell me what is it you care for? Is there even a care at all?
Praying for sense of direction, praying for love and protection
Have mercy.
In the past four years, I have moved four times: from Edinburgh to Berlin (2018); within Berlin from Neukolln to Moabit (2020); then, at the end of the first Corona summer, I went from Berlin to Cardif (2020). Finally, last September, I moved from Cardiff to Manchester (2021).
The past four years have been — I think — one of the loneliest periods of my life.
Moving is deeply unsettling. It forces you to reckon with the space, place and people you have called home, however temporarily. For me, I realised just how easy it was to leave, and how few people I would take with me when I went, in the sense that some people stayed where I left, becoming shadows of a place I had inhabited. Other times, my relationship with folks branded me, a souvenir of our relationship packed along to the next place. Moving so frequently means I have had homes but nothing to show for it. It isn’t easy to make real, long-lasting relationships in such short periods of time. So instead of feeling the pull to stay, the anticipation of greener(?) pastures, and being excited for what’s next, yet sad to be leaving things behind, I have often felt empty. I feel a nothingness, an abstract emotion felt when you’re lonely, but not alone.
Because I’m not alone. I have people I speak to regularly — friends in different area codes. I have several Internet friends who probably know me better than my immediate family, mainly Black and Brown women who I’ve met on Twitter or Instagram. But having friends online, although they provide care and support and comic relief, feels disorienting because I don’t have this experience offline. Due to childhood migration(s) between home and host land, chasing careers and experiences, my friendships are suspended in the liminal space and unhelpful dichotomy of “online vs offline.” It’s probably why I’m obsessed with Twitter — I mean, I’m doing a PhD on it. Twitter allows me to connect to an online Black diaspora. It’s my gateway drug to the joy found in friendships and kiki-ing with Black women, a necessity when you’re a raisin in the rice pudding.
I am so grateful for these friendships, and these women. They have taught me that my loneliness is a consequence of situations, and not some personal character defect. It can sometimes feel utterly heartbreaking to wake up on a bright Saturday morning with nothing planned, not being able to see folks that you would like to. To want to “reach out” to someone ~IRL~ but not be able to. That gap — between the level of connectedness you want vs the reality of your life — is the definition of loneliness.
Watch
- Heartstopper on Netflix is the sweetest most precious coming-of-age/sexuality story about gay teenagers. It’s SO cute. Watch!!
Read
- Edna Bonhomme is a Haitian American historian of science and writer based in Berlin, Germany. You should read some everything she writes, but her newsletter, Mobile Fragments is a great start.
- Nani Jensen Reventlow’s “What does building an intersectional feminist internet look like?” is a great primer on the racial + capitalist logics underpinning those tubes underwater, and why intersectionality is a great hermeneutic for digital liberation.
Listen
- The lyrics opening this newsletter are from a song that takes my breath away. Stream ‘Have Mercy‘ and get in the feels.
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