Returning - Day 4

It’s been a day of rich conversations. I started with a long call with Lauren, an artist I met on a directing course and a Gravesend resident who works for the Woodville. We got on really well for the week we were learning together and have occasionally been in touch since but busy lives have got in the way of a deeper connection. I was really pleased we were going to speak.

Lauren grew up in Gravesham but left at 17 to explore the world, before the tides bought her back 15 years later on 23 June 201

6, the day of the Brexit vote. As someone who, as a teenager, also left a small town that was experiencing economic and social shifts I felt a real affinity with her experience.  Wondering what was out there in the world and where you might fit, and then finding yourself drawn back.  

A mix of usual life events, families changing and growing, combined with the surprising coincidence of a good friend choosing to put down roots in Gravesend prompted a return. Walking along the prom, seeing the finger post pointing to Amsterdam, a place that had been home and London, where she’d been living, studying and working it sounds as if a balance was found.  A moment of connection, a certainty that this place she had raced away from was where she needed to be. A new mission in life. It was such a poetic description of connection to place, not just the geography – but the people, resources, possibilities, challenges and stories of somewhere. Of feeling that, and deciding to act on it. I think we often think about grand landscapes or movie star cities exerting this sort of pull but I was really reminded of the guide book title, Everywhere means something to someone.

In 2017 I was very lucky to meet Amrita Hepi, a dancer and artist with Aboriginal ancestry, who introduced me to the structure of the traditional greeting, Welcome to Country. It’s a sort of verbal map that includes geography, family, resources and myths. Once you have been greeted in this way you are able to orientate yourself in much more than the physical landscape of a place. I’ve been thinking a lot about this in relation to pride and place and connection. I wonder what a Welcome to Country for Gravesham could be?

We talked a lot about Lauren’s working life, and how she’s been telling stories to primary school children all through lockdown. We talked about confidence and it’s connection to pride – on a personal and a community level. Noticing there’s the pride that shrinks us and the pride that expands us, as individuals and communities. She remembers walking through a bustling market with her grandparents – how that was all about the people, and connection.  But that maybe it was limiting, if you were in, you were cared for. If you weren’t, well you weren’t. We talked about how the capitalist, neo-liberal economy, that shaped appetites and attitudes in the 1980s and 90s, changed that. What was lost as communities splintered and we were all encouraged and influenced, maybe even shaped, to look out for ourselves. How that seems to go against human nature and causes so much suffering. I think I’d like to dig into the economy of the area more – money, where it is and how it moves, often tells a very vivid story.

Lauren said she feels there’s a pride revolution in Gravesend, that people are hungry to pride in the place. She feels it always has to start with, and be about, people. That when people feel valued and able to bring their value – skills, experiences, qualities –an expansive pride can flourish and grow. We are hoping to meet and take a walk along the river – Lauren has a particular route in mind and before we finished our chat I asked her what she was most proud of. Her relationships with other people, with her Mum and Dad, her sister, her partner but also her neighbours and postman and with the place she now calls home. I wondered, after four years, what her relationship is like with Gravesend? 

‘We are listening to each other’

I’ve been wanting to train in permaculture for a while. I think I just really want a garden, even more so after a year in a flat with no outside space. I can see how my creative work is already aligned with permaculture values and principles. I also love that you start by observing for a year – a full cycle. And then you make interventions, try to affect changes in accordance with the place. I wonder how that works with building a life somewhere? I don’t think I’m in place of listening to where I live, and I don’t think it even notices me. I reflect on how, if Lauren makes something about Gravesend, how much richer it will be for their mutual listening.

Just as we finished speaking I stumbled across another chair on the street. So here I am, 20ish miles away pulling up a chair.

Today I also read about the Freeport proposals and wonder what they might mean for the area. I replied to an email and some messages on social media. I wrote back to the LV21 radio operator, who also sings with the Swinging the Lead Shanty band. Which led me to their website, so I ordered a CD and had a lovely chat with a another band member about how he started singing. My desire for a pint (or a rum) and a sing in the Three Daws is reaching new heights.