we have another special for you by writer Andrew Nicholas who coincidentally also writes a zine so we are so pleased he has take time to write a piece for us.
links here to his blog, https://cavedweller71.wordpress.com/2022/09/28/communique-21-09-2022-to-write-is/
Boundary
I often find myself there. Someplace I went to as a child. And where I go as an adult for a creative spark. It's virtually the same space. We weren't the kids of youth clubs or shopping malls. We'd walk past them and play at the weir near Quaker Bridge. That place sort of marked the boundary. The motorway on one side and the woodland on the other. We sometimes played on the motorway before the cars came. Now as with most things I have no idea what was there before. Was anything knocked down to make way for this? Just to help others avoid us completely.
It's somewhat sad that there are faces from my childhood that I will never see again. Perhaps their lives should now be left alone? Left in the past. I don't know whether I'd be able to make sense of some of it anyway. Why Mark, why? It's the same routine. Across the railway and under the flyover. Taking photographs and noticing that change from grey to lush. And yet that's also where the plastic seems to accumulate. That's where there's discarded clothing and signs of transient life. That's where humans and beasts seem to meet. Sometimes I go just to hear the birds chatter. I imagine they are putting the world to right or chatting shit about worms. Or deciding when to migrate.
I have a hideaway in the woodland where I become both a child and an artist. Again that boundary is very loose. The younger me would be more down the bottom of the path so wouldn't catch sight. In fact, the younger me would be lost in his own little world. Plus ca change! Is what I do play? Possibly not but there's certainly a wild abandon and giddiness on my part. One of the trees has been etched with initials but it looks old. Very old. I may knife mine one day if I find someone to love. I don't crave going there. This isn't a pilgrimage nor is it particularly spiritual. This isn't me trying to reconnect or be at one with God. If I sense anything it is a vacuum. Possibilities. It's the sort of place I would write poetry about if I was
that way inclined.
I sometimes leave trinkets or found objects. A mirror. A school tie threw away when it broke and went out in the world. My alter egos mask. I brought it home this time before the rain made it completely mush. I'll let it dry add some marks and see how it looks. For once I am being literal there. Though I am another person when I put on that mask. This is me as 'real'. This is me who took a different road. Who said "yes" all the time? This is impossible for me I guess. Sometimes I write as him. As him, I write more about conflict and fucking men. Things that were deemed obscene by my church. Things that seem to have passed me by or I haven't done in years.
I don't think I would want to go there too often. For some strange reason, I feel it would consume me. It would distort. It would cause me to shiver and convulse. It would feel like a friend but in a second become bitch. Become master. For all that wild garlic, cold stream, and bluebells I need concrete. I need the scrawl on the flyover. Some teenager are swearing allegiance to Sleaford Mods. Nothing else but those two words. I don't see it as a bad thing. That I cannot be an artist all the time. I don't feel like a failure or bastard half-breed. I know it's there as part of me and appear when provoked.
