“We raise our fists in salute, not in threat but as a sign of solidarity. In those fingers held tight we embrace everyone however different they may be. Gay. Trans. Straight. Black. Brown. Yellow. White. All colours of the rainbow. All are welcome in our London.”
Annie Wight, London Whatever
Do you ever feel like an alien, a stranger in your own body? The sensation of being different, of being at odds with yourself, of being out of sync with the daily routine. For many, it has little to do with where we hail from. It’s about how we experience life, how we approach the world. Rather than berating ourselves for our foreignness and suffering at being different or worrying we are going crazy, why not relish the strength and the heightened discernment that feeling alien brings.
See that cat over there as it rolls on its back flexing its legs in the air. Can you feel the tautness of the skin around its jaw as it yawns or its joy at being free and able to move? Listen to that thrush half-concealed in the foliage driven to ceaselessly chirp an ever-changing song. Watch those rooks zigzagging across the sky and marvel at how they know where to fly. Take root like a tree and feel the earth rich beneath your feet and the ever-shifting wind ruffling your hair. Let a burgeoning flower or a sustained note make tears spring to your eyes. Lay a hand on your chest and unknot tensed muscles or soothe a suffering liver. Listen to the unspoken thoughts of little children who have yet to find the words to voice their mind. Savour the conviction that you are being watched although no one is there to do the watching. Marvel that you know how most drivers are going to react even before they do, while a stubborn few remain impenetrable and unpredictable. Stand still as scenes surge from the past with all the potency of memories that you can’t possibly have had, not in this life at least. Relish the attraction of a person you’ve never met, someone who inexplicably has your pulse racing at the very sight of her. Delight in the quizzical smile of a pretty boy or the hop and skip of a handsome girl that summons your own ambiguity and leaves you yearning for another world, for a past that could only have blossomed elsewhere.
Feel your way tentatively through those upside-down answers that spring to mind in response to the unrelenting shocks of politics and big money. Like staking out common ground with longtime rivals who were hitherto locked in a bitter fight for territory. Or nurturing local bonds and encouraging the out-held, helping hand when communities harden identities and table on exclusion as they scramble to ward off rampant globalisation. Or agreeing on the meaning of keywords with opposing parties who were stuck in slinging swearwords at each other. Or reshuffling the cards when past options appear immutable and people cry out, “Impossible!”. Raise your clenched fist, not as a mark of defiance or hostility but, like Annie the unexpected hero of my new novel, Stories People Tell, as a sign of solidarity and the will to embrace diversity. I am an alien and proud to be one.
