Two Years

A table in an upper room somewhere in North London. This was my room when I lived in London, and although I moved back home to Bristol two years ago I still visit my friends here often. They insist I keep my house keys.

In two years it's the first time I've sat at this table working, and in those two years life has changed to become almost unrecognisable. In this bare room, quite empty except for this table and the few things I've travelled with, I can't avoid reflection.

Two years ago, I chose the carpet and colours for the walls, then I painted this table white and put it in the place it still sits today. I gathered some tools around me to work, kept taking photographs, and arranged pencils and paper on the table to help me record the gentle untangling of thoughts that was going on–it was a difficult time: I'd not long given up work to return to college, and then moved to London to work on placement at Magnum Photos. I was really frightened and confused. The last time I sat working at this table I was about to fly to South Africa to shoot a story about a teenage community living on the streets of Durban. I moved home right after that moving trip.

Today, two years later, I'm back, and soothed by the peace up here in this attic. London is a big, stinky old place and I don't cope so well with it, but this upper room was like a cocoon at a time I really needed one. It's only 3 flights up but the noise and stink of London fades away, and I feel thanks for this little place. It is a place where I began putting myself back together, tending to the cracks in my walls like those in the photograph. There was stuff piled up all around the room. Now, the simplicity of this space makes me smile and well up at the same time. Its emptiness is a relief, but a part of me mourns a younger version of me that I left behind here.

In two years I can't begin to describe how life has changed, except through this quiet, white table, still in place, the little pink heart-shaped chair and those mended cracks in the wall behind...


{Today's soundtrack: Gorecki - Symphony No. 3, Tranquillissimo}