The inky darkness beckons as time slows down. I try to move through mild treacle-like days of ‘winter’, only to find they coat all movements in waking hours, whilst drawing out my frazzled mindscape into long, blackened nights. Food, fuel, study, movement and rest have become the priorities. Through focusing on these things, life is mutating into a new form which I cannot yet fully make out. I think I like the shape of it, but know this creature will not show me their full light until I slow the pace of being with myself and my work. However, the wheel has turned with a Winter Solstice bringing fresh perspectives and possibilities. I thought I would read and study all Christmas as an act of festive resistance, but body-mind says a firm “no” and today, I shut up shop for the holidays.
I have done enough this semester. Many new research skills have been gained from online modules, reading lists created, towers of books loaned from the university library. Books are my touchstones this winter, new words and ways of seeing the world are always there. I submitted my first research skills assignment; an essay about abstracts. It seemed odd and a bit dull to do, but helped me write an abstract which was then accepted by a witchy conference-type event on Therapeutic Landscapes (which is in March). I began the practice-based strands of my research, but being someone who needs ideas and concepts to work outwards from I have focused mainly on theory, structure and skills. My literature review takes fledgling hops towards flight. The auto-ethnographic statement I must write turns over in a brain reluctant to answer the question “who am I?” right now.
Plans for the new National Park here in North-East Wales have been launched, and public consultations unveiled. This new expanded area is the field study site for my PhD, and when post-festive overwhelm is out of the way I will start to collaborate with the local AONB team. The networking bit of me is warming up again, and remembering how on earth to do that stuff. It feels different, connected and intentional. As an SWW-DTP researcher, I am expected to do at least one placement. This can be a residency or something creative, although I am also hoping to propose some work around creative engagement with the new National Park team.
So many parts of the terrain are only possible to start mapping out through landing in myself. I re-embrace exercise (after two nasty viruses) aided by friends at Soma Space Oswestry, my yoga mat and the many footpaths of North Wales. Christmas is imminent, and apart from a few commitments it is going to be extremely low key. With much relief this year, I cannot drink more than half a glass of wine and might manage to hang onto my immune system for the start of 2024. I need to sleep, and look forward to the quietening of my inbox so I can focus on re-grouping for a very different kind of year.
This year was the first in 41 of knowing I am autistic. The neurodivergent journey of discovery has slowed down somewhat (thank goodness) and mostly I am feeling ok about being on the spectrum. As a friend recently said to me “it’s a pretty good team to be on”. The stuff I need to do to be ok living my life is somewhat harder to manifest, but it is happening and I must remember that all of it is process which takes it’s own sweet time. Alongside more movement (and enjoying my body again) grows a small warm seed of self, embedded comfortably deep in my own skin. It is hard to find sometimes, but seeds do like to hide in winter. I know there are many more realisations, revelations, adjustments, elements of grief and acceptance to come with being neurodivergent, but my way through it is (helpfully) a little bit spiritual and at the moment intensely practical. This is not a bad place to be.
A key concept that has spoken to me recently is Adrienne Rich’s Politics of Location. Her point is that recognising and acknowledging one’s own politics of location is a useful starting point for feminist theory – in that we cannot make meaningful contributions if we can’t locate ourselves. Rich is talking about her location as a white feminist in America. The centre of her politics of location is her own body, a specific reference point on her map, made up of her “scars, disfigurements, discolorations, damages, losses, as well as what pleases me”. A politics of location reconnects thoughts, words, movement and actions with particular situated experience, a geography, a body. ‘Location’ is a place of experienced connections and intersections rather than a locality in Rich’s definition, I personally would add locality (or localities) to this more experiential mapping .
My own politics of location is essential to this research project. I cannot work as a disembodied researcher whose experience does not affect her perspective. I can certainly ‘identify’ within this locatedness as a variety of things; woman, neurodivergent, bi/pan/whatever-sexual, white, a child of those who were born working class but will not die that way. A beneficiary of privilege. Within these categories, I can locate myself as having a certain experience in terms of mental health, and a few other things. This is how I thought I would define myself as a researcher, but after the last year I am not so sure. The culture of intense identification we live in is starting to hurt my head a bit, and I am thirsty for nuance. I understand, now, that I must spend time with this nuanced seer, and get to know her much better. After moving homes and counties a lot, I also begin this research in an area I am mostly new to. I’m not a local yet, which presents a few challenges and opportunities. Locating one’s self is something that neurodivergent people often struggle with (a lot). it is something that I have struggled with, a lot, in terms of work, relationships, finding my place in the world, this body and mind. It isn’t as simple as picking a bunch of words to describe ourselves; it is a slow, multidimensional process of earthing into ourselves and the world. It isn’t just identifying with the bad and difficult experiences, the positive aspects of ourselves and our desires guide the compass too.
I could go on, but it is supposed to be Christmas so I’ll leave it there for 2023. I hope this year has brought you new ways of learning and landing. Rest up dear friends, 2024 needs you. Until next time!