On Stepping Outside the Human Narrative

Living on the Threshold

There is a library inside every human life - inherited before we can read, added to constantly, and largely composed of the same book rewritten. The human narrative recycles itself with every generation. We swim in it without noticing, looking for balance in a system that structurally cannot provide it.

My latest YouTube video is about a camping trip in the Lake District, about going outside with a notebook, and about the difference between becoming a footnote and becoming soil.

The video ends with a poem I wrote that weekend. I hope it leaves you, even briefly, at the threshold. I’ll put the poem below.

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Camping

i.

Camping
is an idea,
a damp nylon, grassy-green,
bun and frankfurter,
chilly night with shared
ablutions,
kind of idea.

We are,
to the hill we're pegged against,
a fly's tickle,
an irritation to be
suffered,
a noise.

ii.

We dissolve
like cubes of sugar
into
the coffee-coloured night
leaving trails
of unsettled sweetness
as we try to sleep.

iii.

Tired,
we walk to the top
of Helm Crag
and feel
conquered,
as we become
children
to a single moment
of
easiness.

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