Hello to now and hello to daydreaming

As the children hurtle through their teens into young adulthood we're daydreaming and quietly painting a picture of what our 'what next' might look like.

Apr 13, 2024

Photo of Whitby by Andy Carne via Unsplash

Greetings from Ilkley where I’m writing this between home and La Stazione, my local café, after a 36-hour circuit breaker to Whitby via Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Andy and I took advantage of the eldest going back to university for his final term ever (yikes) for a night away. While they went on a father-son laptop buying mission, I walked into the city centre from his flat in Jesmond. Walking past the university buildings on a steel grey Wednesday afternoon dodging rain puddles and wonky paving slabs, you might wonder why I love it this place so.

McDonalds squeezed next to Primark and opposite Marks and Spencer’s. It could be many city centres during the Easter holidays. The damp air filled with lively Geordie voices and loudhailered exhortations to ‘Repent your sins. Repent!’ and a young woman belting out Adele into a microphone.

Angel of the North and The Tyne Bridge as seen from the Millennium Bridge, first floor of the Laing Art Gallery and Laura Knight's 'The beach'

But there’s something about this city. The handsome Theatre Royal in the shadow of a looming Grey’s Monument. The Tyne Bridge, Swing bridge and Gateshead Millennium bridge measuring out the Tyne. There’s The Quayside, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and Laing Gallery. And Whitley Bay, Spanish City, Tynemouth beach, fish and chips only a metro ride away.

All I know is that I smile when I pass the Angel of the North.

Life never stands still

There’s a grainy slow-mo film forming in the back of my mind right now. The outline of a script taking shape with plot twists TBC. As the eldest child leaves university, the middle child begins their university experiment along with their 18-year-old friend who’s been living with us since last summer in need of a stable home for their final year of school.

Come September there’ll be three of us at home. Me, Andy and the youngest.

Plus the dog.

And the three chickens.

These aren’t intense conversation filled escapes. If anything we talk less and breathe more. It’s a break from the day-to-day and ‘do we need milk?’.

We’re used to crisis planning our future, not luxurious let’s take our time and lean into the daydreaming.

We’ve experienced ‘Oh f***’ Friday afternoons after ‘We’re terminating your contract with immediate effect’ phone calls. We’ve uprooted our family twice in quick smart time. Redundancy and relocation - words that don’t remotely describe the mental and emotional upheaval they bring.

I’m enjoying daydreaming and this slow change, especially when it involves micro escapes to the seaside.

Whitby beach huts, tiny passageways and the harbour

Painting the broad brush strokes of a new life

Leaving the firstborn behind in Newcastle, we drive to Whitby and wander along the prom to the harbour passing the pavilion and skirting past the amusements. Our bellies full after fish and chips, the sky darkens and the streetlights blink, and we jump back to safety as crashing waves breach the sea wall.

Andy slings his camera around his neck ready to capture swooping birds and the moon while my iPhone and eyes are drawn to the horizon and a row of primary coloured beach huts.

With the children hurtling through their teenage years into young adulthood, in the shadows we too start painting the broad brushstrokes of the next phase of our lives.

The loudening voice whispering ‘what next?’

In our fifties, we’ll be working for a good few years yet but there’s a loudening voice whispering ‘what next?’.

End of school looms with the youngest just three years away from leaving her black blazer, rolled up skirt and green tie behind. Yes, we have GCSEs and A levels to negotiate and no doubt conversations as intense as those with her brothers about her ‘what next.’

But there will come a time when we’re ready to leave this family home with its 31 steps from the pavement to the front door behind. Too much for our creaking knees even with its idyllic spot nestled amongst the trees and in the shadow of Ilkley Moor.

I feel guilty for writing about moving while the baristas call my name and take turns to guess my order today (hot chocolate this time but could just as easily be a flat white or an earl grey) while they singalong to Band on the Run.

Maybe creating this space for writing, this period of reflection since mum and dad died and cancer and moving here is helping me to feel more at home in myself.

Maybe because I am feeling more at home, I can indulge in these playful ‘let’s pretend’ daydreams without the heart pounding panic of a looming crisis.

And what next doesn’t have to involve moving away from here, but somehow, I think it will.

I love our life here, and can’t imagine living anywhere else right now, but I also know that moving – not just from this home, but from this place - is more likely to happen than not, whilst also knowing that anything could happen between now and whenever this future is.

Back in Whitby I play let’s pretend as we wander through the narrow cobblestone lanes and film boats in the harbour. We pop into the bookshop and have a cup of tea in a café at the foot of the 199 steps up to the Abbey. My eyes take in the higgledy-piggledy terracotta rooftops and miniature front doors.

I resist the urge to open Rightmove.

We’re both drawn to the sea, even if we don’t hanker after the beaches of Bournemouth where we used to live. I love Beadnell Bay and Seahouses in Northumberland. Saltburn-by-the-Sea is our go-to for a day trip. We love Bempton Cliffs and Flamborough. We also love rugged moorland.

I’m thrilled that the eldest staying in Newcastle for at least another year means more drops of Newcastle city life, but I don’t think city living is for us.

Hello to the here and now

Soothing and grounding these thoughts has been reading Irish poet Padraig O Tuama’s words. I placed this extract from In the shelter: Finding a home in the world on my homepage a few years ago because they so perfectly summed up my feelings back then, and that hasn’t changed. I listened to his interview with Matt and Parul from London Writers Salon last week and his words have been living in my head ever since.

‘To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent, but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart. Hello to here.
Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

I’m finding his Hello to here refrain especially soothing as I reflect on belonging and this thing called home.

So hello to the here and now, and hello to seaside circuit breakers. I’d love to hear where your next phase of life might be taking you or if you’re content where you are. Share away in the comments and thank you, as always, for reading. It really does make this 52-year old very happy.

Harriet