#lifeinavan

What a funny week we’ve had. This week has certainly seen some big changes, as we finally made it out (three nights in a row) into Valencia to catch up and hang out with people after months of social isolation. It’s also been a week where I’ve been a bit lost in my own mind, thinking about the bizarre situation I find myself in, somewhere between ‘Fernweh’ and ‘Heimweh’.

I first heard these two German words from Charles Landry, an author and speaker who specialises in cities and the topic which his name has almost become synonymous with, ‘Creative Bureaucracy’. I saw Charles speak as part of the States of Change Learning Festival back on the 20th June, in a session about the roles of public imagination versus bureaucratic creativity when it comes to culture change. Because it was an online festival, the beauty of the session was the sense of intimacy you got from seeing Charles and the other speaker, the wonderful Anthea Lee, discussing the topic directly over Zoom, and them answering the questions from the participants directly using Zoom as a conduit.

Charles introduced his own tangled sense of place and identity, and referred to the words Fernweh and Heimweh, which mean ‘wanderlust’ and ‘homesickness’ in German. Charles’ description of this strange kind of yearning struck a chord with me. Having left home to go to uni in Newcastle at 17, moving to Australia at 21 and then returning to the UK at 24 to build a van to try to travel the world in, I have certainly felt a similar tension: a strange kind of desire to be both uprooted and rooted, on-the-move and grounded in one place.

I guess this tension between wanderlust and homesickness is what drives many people to travel a lot while young, before ‘settling down’ in later life.

But the strangest thing about this tension (and something which I’ve observed increasingly in lockdown) is the nonsensical desire that I have to have both at the same time. Of course, that’s completely impossible. You can only be in one place at any given moment, and so that can either be off galavanting and exploring new places, or building roots and a sense of community in the place you call ‘home’.

One of the inadvertent results of coronavirus for George and I however, has been getting ‘grounded’ here in one place not long after we set off from the UK. In this sense, it feels like the worst of both worlds, not getting to travel the open road as we’d planned for so long, and also not getting to live in a community, near friends and family we know and love in a house of our own. 

(images, left to right) Exploring hidden pockets of Corbera, enjoying odd little photo-ops, and yearning for the open road.

Of course, this really is a ‘first world problem’, but it’s also been an emotion I’m keen to explore in myself, as I feel like it’s always been there even before the pandemic struck. What is it about the desire for diversity that drives travellers like George and I out of our comfort zones, away from our dearest friends and into the unknown? And is the pain and sense of disconnection, the lack of financial security and yearning for the roots of community really a worthwhile price to pay? 

When I’ve aired my doubts about our travels to friends, they often reply with “but you can’t do that, you’re living the dream!”. And I’m left thinking, “Am I? Is this the dream?”

I guess these exchanges have made me question what we put on the line for our ‘dreams’: imagined perfect futures which embody the values we want to live by and the lifestyles we want to enjoy. It’s not that I’m not enjoying my life right now (even though it certainly doesn't look anything like what I expected), but it’s that I’ve been genuinely questioning the pay-off between the different dreams that I want, and the pain that has to be endured to get there, which in some ways is the pain of having Fernweh but not Heimweh, or having Heimweh but not Fernweh.

This idea of our ‘dreams’ has been making me think about the future. I’ve always been interested in the study of the Future, not just in terms of predictions and projections but in terms of imagining alternative outcomes and utopias. In fact, I interviewed the wonderful Futures Thinker, Mansi Parikh, a month or two ago for an upcoming video and it’s a topic I continue to get drawn into. All that said, living life amid the pandemic has reaffirmed in me the importance of being present, and finding ways to enjoy the here and the now (something I wrote about back in Week 16’s post). 

It seems that Western culture’s fixation on the future can in many ways lead to unhappiness in the present, despite the irony that the time we only ever experience is right now. 

With that in mind, I’ve been trying to draw my attention to the here and now. I find the only way to curb my sense of isolation from friends or my sense of frustration at not yet being able to resume our travels has been to focus on the small things that make the everyday good. I guess what I’m effectively talking about is gratitude, and realigning awareness to the positive things that we forget to see. Often those small things, even if unplanned, are the things which make life worth living, which can give you a sense of wanderlust or a sense of home too.

So I’ve been noticing the sunshine. The way the heavy air falls around 2pm here and the siesta brings the village to a sleepy lull. I’ve been noticing George. The way he doesn’t get bored of my jokes and (amazingly) still finds things to tell me about despite being with each other 24/7. I’ve been noticing art. Dancing in the kitchen to music on repeat or getting lost in the instagram feed of countless talented illustrators and collage artists. I’ve been noticing friends. I can choose to tell myself I’m far from home or I can celebrate the sense of immediate connection afforded by a quick phone call.

Getting a chance to socialise has also been a real gamechanger. You really don’t take for granted the opportunity to hang out with others after months of not being allowed to!

Apart from seeing a few friends here and there, my exhibition opening night was the first ‘proper’ time we hung out with people face-to-face since March. The show opened on Thursday 25th June, and I was delighted to have it attended by a handful of people we’ve been lucky enough to meet whilst staying in Valencia. What’s more, some people even came who had just found my work through instagram, which was certainly a confidence boost (not least cause ever since I organised this exhibition, the pangs of self doubt had started to kick in).

(images) ‘Stop Making Sense’ collage exhibition

Seeing ten of my collages, made from as far back as 2016 and as recently as a week or two ago here in Spain was a real treat. It was also pretty surreal to see them framed and visible to the public after working in such isolation for so long! I wrote a bit more about my belief in the power of making in my blog last week, as well as the motivation behind my collages. The show has got me inspired to keep up the frequent creating too, so look out on my instagram page for more new work.

The following two evenings we ended up getting invited out again! The simple act of eating and drinking with others felt like a friendly hand pulling us up and out of the misery of lockdown. On Friday, we went to ‘La Pinada Fun’, an informal outdoor space in the heart of a super exciting eco-neighbourhood which is under development. On Saturday, we headed into Cabanal, for a small house party to celebrate Pride, in what is no doubt the most low-key Pride celebration in years.

(images, left to right) Live music at La Pinada Fun, friends at the exhibition and a lovely evening in Cabanal.

I hope for a long while we don’t take for granted the power of communing with others, and we learn to value the hospitality and arts sectors which keep our pubs alive, our restaurants serving food, our social media feed filled with art and our ears filled with live music.

It’s been those things which have made life meaningful, and which made those evenings out this week so enjoyable here in Spain. As the UK also emerges into the next phase of de-escalation, I really hope people there are able to enjoy themselves and celebrate human connection, supported by the government in ensuring that sectors like the music industry stay alive. (On that note, you can support ‘Let the Music Play’, a campaign supporting the UK music industry).

I’m thinking of ways to make this blog more participatory and accessible too, so as ever I’d love to know if you’re reading it and what you think. I guess it’s my own way of making sense of the world, and hopefully inspiring others while I do. As I balance the feelings of Fernweh and Heimweh, I’m sure you’re all balancing other things, like work commitments, boredom and exasperation, bills, lack of creativity or even trying to work out the meaning of the universe!