Welcome to Letters From the Knot. This is a free weekly newsletter, primarily built as an outlet for a fiction writing project I’m working on. On the weeks I’m not publishing fiction, I’ll be sending something a bit more freeform and personal. This is one of those.
A couple of weeks ago I was finding it hard to motivate myself at work, so I decided to go a local café (Pret) and work from there, hoping the change of scenery would kickstart something in me. It didn’t help, and I just found myself getting flustered by all the people eating near me and talking and fussing over their babies. While I was reading an email for the tenth time, I noticed a guy walking past the window with a stupid hat on. Ten minutes later, still struggling to work, I saw the same guy walking back the other way again. Fair enough. But then another fruitless ten minutes later, I saw the same guy walking past again and I felt this incredible unjustifiable surge of anger.
When I had calmed down, I started to wonder if my anger was perhaps nothing to do with that man in the stupid hat at all. It was at this point that I realised I was probably overdue a holiday.
Indeed, looking at my calendar, I saw that I hadn’t had any proper time off since last Summer. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, how much working can grind away at you. However worthy your line of work may be, there’s an inherent illiberty to it. You spend hours of your day doing things that, for the most part, you would never choose to be doing with your time. And so much of your time!*
(*My instinct here is to carefully couch what I’m saying by recognising that I’m privileged to have a job at all, and that some people don’t have the choice to work etc. Of course, on some level that’s true, but I would struggle to describe working as a “privilege”; the reality is much more complex than that. That being said, I’ll rant about the inherent failings of capitalism another time. I’m on holiday, so this post is about holidays.)
We booked a trip almost at random to a place called Ludlow, an impossibly quaint little market town perched on top of a hill around an ancient, ruined castle. It’s the kind of place I imagine would make most American tourists’ heads explode when they realise that even the Greggs occupies a building that’s about a hundred years older than their entire country. It’s surrounded by idyllic countryside and full of nice pubs and the people are all unnervingly friendly. I would highly recommend it.
Our philosophy around holidays has latterly become one of reducing pressure wherever possible, and of trying as little as possible. A few years ago, I would have spent a holiday breathlessly hustling between museums and sites of historical significance, trying to cram in as much as possible, to tick things off. A lot like work, basically, grinding through a to do list as fast as possible.
Not any more though! Now the aim is to slip out of the regular rhythms of life as much as possible. These days when on holiday, I try to practice slowness and drift and indulgence. We’ve spent the past few days following our whims from meal to meal, and pub to pub. We’ve walked in big green valleys, and spoken to locals, and drunk weird ales. I’ve eaten three full English breakfasts in three days. Do I feel any healthier? Absolutely not, but my mind feels soothed.
It's still a battle. There’s a big part of me that wants to always be achieving things or being productive (another of the ills of living in a capitalist society). I’m working on it though and feeling better for it. I’m writing this on the train back to London and the Wi-Fi is shit so I can’t look up who said that thing about how the important thing about going away is coming back again or something. The point is, the holiday was successful. I’m excited to be heading home and I’m hopeful (for my colleagues’ sake if nothing else) that I’ll be in a fit mental state to do my job again. And if I see the guy in the stupid hat, I’ll give him a friendly nod.
Cultural indigestion.
Some things I’ve consumed recently.
Reading – I recently read Heaven by Mieko Kawakami (2009), which is a heartbreaking and, at times, frustratingly restrained story about two bullied teenagers who find solace in one another’s friendship. At times, I worried it was going to just be an extremely bleak portrayal of the cruelties they endure but it gradually blooms to become a (still admittedly quite bleak) story about transcendence and resilience and inner power. I’ve also read Tehanu by Ursula K Le Guin (1990) which kicks off like any other fantasy novel about dragons and wizards but gradually proves to be a feminist critique of a genre so often fixated on Great Man fables. She is, of course, the master of such things and it’s fantastic.
Watching – We watched The Nest (2020) starring Carrie Coon and Jude Law which tells the story of a once rich commodities trader who, running out of money, moves his family to London in the 80s in an attempt to ride a wave of deregulation to new riches. It’s beautifully shot and, although it builds to a slightly arbitrary crescendo, it seems to capture the spirit of the time and place and all the main performances are great.
Playing – For the probably less than 1% of readers who are interested, I’m still plugging away at Elden Ring and still trying to decide it its great or not. I think I’m now settled on the fact that, compelling though the systems are, and fascinating though the world is, the plotting and characterisation are awful. I think this adds up to an enjoyable but slightly hollow experience. I just want to understand why I’m doing anything! Why did I kill the big snake thing? Why am I trying to burn down this tree? I fear I’ll never know.
Drinking – There are many places in Ludlow I could recommend, but I was especially enchanted by the pubs. There’s a type of pub there that I haven’t really seen anywhere else, based on the ideal of a Georgian parlour where it feel like you’re in someone’s living room, but 200 years ago. This goes especially for The Blood Bay, and The Dog Hangs Well, the latter of which is a seemingly secret establishment in a building usually used as an office. It has no signs outside and only accepts cash and forbids phones and swearing and I already miss it.