I once wrote that there were entire cities residing beneath my skin. It sounded romantic. Exciting even. What it was was an anxiety so fierce that it felt like it was going to eat me alive.
My Uncle got married in his mid-eighties to his late wife’s best friend, as you do. Her name was Madeleine. I called her Auntie Mad and had known her all my life. They had a traditional wedding in a church, and a full reception. The bouquet was thrown and champagne was poured.
They were both rather short. She had pure white hair like snow and amazing skin. I often wondered how that was possible given all she seemed to eat were jam tarts and cream cupcakes. He wore plaid waistcoats, hats with small feathers tucked in their band, and played the bones at all our family weddings. He also made his own brew in ‘the shed out back’, but that’s another story.
Neither of them could walk without a cane, except, that is, when they walked together. They would stroll to the shops in Sunshine every day, arm in arm, leaning into one another for support as they went. ‘Are they your Uncle and Aunt?’ someone asked me. ‘They’re so cute!’ Without each other they would have been trapped at home, afraid of falling should they dare venture out alone.
I have been thinking of them of late. They both passed away many years ago and their Californian Bungalow with the painting of the two girls above the fireplace has now been renovated by a young couple, as young couples do. I can see a trampoline in the backyard. I think about my Aunt and Uncle leaning into one another as my anxious mind spins and whirs like a mechanical toy.
The forced retreat into our homes has seen us all build entire cities under our skin, of varying sizes and shapes. There is a collective anxiety at play in the home, at work, at school, and in the shopping center carpark. We’re irritable. We’re tired. It has felt like death by a thousand lockdowns. We have forgotten how to … everything.
So what to do? What my Aunt and Uncle did, clearly. If I can lean into you, while you lean into someone else then that someone else can lean into another who can then lean into me because I am stronger now for leaning into you. If we can do that then the cities beneath our skin might turn from hellscapes into playgrounds.
And we can go to the shops together — like hair like snow and plaid waistcoat.