Small Worlds

Grief never ends, but we find a way to walk in the light someone has left behind, rather than living in pain's shadow.

I’ve only ever known myself in song, between notes, in that place where language won’t suffice but the drums might, might speak for us, might speak for what is on our hearts.

We won't smooth over our closures and ruptures, but we ask each other to be open, to lean towards each other, to be close. Ask that love might grow in the space between us, where we might feel beautiful, we we might feel free.

In the wake of violence, acute or prolonged, we ask what we might need, how we might weather this time, how we might care for each other, how we might cultivate the space which encourages honesty, which encourages surrender. How we might build a small world, where we might feel beautiful, might feel free.

Auntie understood that anger was a necessary emotion but often it was misdirected; and its misdirection was how the death we knew in multitudes multiplied further, and much of this misdirection emerged from not having space.

Since the one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing...

I want to build a place where there’s a sense of freedom which isn’t attached to anything else, that doesn’t come as part of a transaction. There would be no catch. Just a place for people to eat and drink, to plot and breathe. To be. A place we could call home.

In the times we didn’t know ourselves, we always had each other; when faced with the unknown, we could lean back into the familiar, knowing each other’s hearts, knowing each other’s intimacies.

We know death in its multitudes, but we’re all very serious about being alive.

Maybe this is all we need sometimes, for someone else to believe in the possibilities you see for yourself.

So? It's just me. And you. Like we've always been.' The memories come back in a rush: our tiny histories, our brief intimacies, this small world.

Better means being open. It means allowing yourself to surrender. It means saying things which are honest and true, Godlike even. It means leaning into the quiet, even when it's loud with echoes of the past. It means gathering together on Sundays with others who, like you, have come from Ghana and Nigeria, Senegal and Jamaica, to London, to build a new life. It means making space for you all to pray, to reach towards your innermost desires; to reach past your beautiful, through your ugly, towards your vulnerable. It means making the space to feel safe enough to ask for anything, and believing what you ask for might be possible.

I long to be amongst the energy improvisation generates, to be housed in the small, beautiful world a handful of people make to house their joy and chaos and all.

Language always has to be so exact and I never know exactly how I feel.

Ray follows the instruction, telling me to wait right there. Alone, the worry I had perhaps been holding at bay for months bursts through. It's like a fully formed thing, a shadow version of me, the voice my own, asking, what will you do if you don't get into music school? What will you do if it doesn't work out and you're left behind, left alone? How could you believe it could? What will happen to you and Del if you're separated? What will happen to you if there's no music, no rhythm to your days? I'm in danger of becoming untethered, the fear swelling in me. I fear I might float up, up, away, but Ray returns, his reappearance pulling me gently back down to the ground. He hands me a plateful of barbecue food, and we eat where we stand.

We make it back outside for my favourite time of day, golden hour swarming our senses. Pink intersperses with the blue and grey of the sky, like a beautiful storm is coming. What's left of the sun softly punches our faces, discouraging sobriety. A young girl passes us, hand in hand with her mother, the other hand an open palm, feeling for the light in the world. Del turns to me, the black of her eyes full and open.

A gyász sosem múlik el, de megtaláljuk a módját, hogy abban a fényben járjunk, amit valaki maga után hagyott, ne pedig a fájdalom árnyékában éljünk.

It's here, when I'm with her, I know that a world can be two people, occupying a space where we don't have to explain. Where we can feel beautiful. Where we might feel free.

As if to say, to no one but himself, I am here

I don't push, instead coming round to where she stands, putting my arm around her. She leans into the hug, and we stay like this, mother and son, holding on to our joy, our melancholy, our love.

I don’t really know how to hold myself when I dance, but I do know how to surrender, how to let my body bend to the melody, like prostrating to something Godlike, something honest.

I’ve only known myself in song, in the space between the sounds we make to capture our quiet.

I struggle with the openness it takes to grow close to anyone new.