Fight me but I don’t think there’s a better part of London than the bit of land, river side, from Waterloo station (or more accurately the start of the Cut) to London Bridge. I am in possession of a rare pokemon: a husband who grew up on the shore of the Thames, right in the city centre, where no tourist ever imagines a local could exist. This brings me a sense of pride I can’t really describe. This city that is both mine and not mine at all has held me for ten years through moves and breakups and falling in love and no matter how quickly the cityscape changes there are some things that really do stay the same.
I’m sitting by the river, the Globe and the Tate are opposite me - two of my favourite places in London. The sound of a mudlarker is drifting up to my window from a low tide. I am sitting here thinking about the word wallow.
As I often do when I’m back, yesterday I made my way down to Kent to see my granny. I write about her a lot these days, I write down the things she says because I often forget to record her when she’s speaking and she’s not always in the mood to open up about her past. I write about her because she’s in her mid 90’s and she keeps telling us she’s about to die. My granny says the women in our family have two things engrained in their genetics: a saviour complex and a lack of wallow: one deemed unavoidable and the other totally unnecessary for our survival.
To wallow is to (1) roll about or lie in mud or water, especially to keep cool or avoid biting insects (similar: loll around, splash about, slosh, splosh, squelch, welter). (2) To indulge in an unrestrained way in something or feeling.
I, unlike granny Sue, believe that wallowing is actually a very necessary part of life. It’s important to savour a win and process loss in whatever shape or form those come. I do think one should know when to move on and let go but let’s be honest, a bit of wallowing never hurt anyone. On the other hand, she who has lost her parents, all her siblings, two children, a husband and more friends than either of us care to count claims to have never know grief, only death and attributes that largely to her capacity to not dwell on a feeling. How victorian of her.
In this shared space of genetics, history and different points of view she and I have (unbeknownst to her) found our own way of wallowing in our lineage. We share a pub lunch, talk about her being a great-grandmother, the state of this messy world and compare the lines on the palms of our hands wondering what will come next.
man…. you’re such a good writer!