UnlearningSilence.blog

This afternoon, I cycled to the small park beside my home with my laptop, a silk picnic rug, my speaker and a copy of Why Sex Is Better Under Socialism by Kristen Ghodsee. The plan was simple: find somewhere beside the lake, see how much work I could get done outdoors and enjoy a few hours away from my desk.

London is still unbearably hot. There has been no sign of rain for days. I never thought I would say this, but I actually miss the rain. I grew up in a country where summers were scorching and winters bitterly cold, so I always assumed the heat would never bother me. Then I remembered that I have now spent my entire adult life in Britain. Somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened. I seem to have become just British enough to complain about the weather and genuinely enjoy doing so.

The park was full of people enjoying the sunshine. Swans drifted across the lake while people rowed little boats on the water. I spread out my picnic rug, opened my laptop and got on with work. I drafted a couple of leases, reviewed a contract, answered emails, made a phone call and replied to clients’ messages. Every so often, I would stop, read a few pages of my book, listen to the music and watch the world go by before carrying on.

For a while, I simply sat there, lowered the straps of my white polka dot top and allowed the sunshine to warm my shoulders. There was something wonderfully ordinary about the afternoon. A few years ago, I would probably have spent those same hours worrying about somebody else’s thoughts, feelings or expectations. Instead, I was reading, working, listening to music and watching the swans glide across the lake.

The day was mine. Truly mine. Completely mine. For the first time in a very long time, there was nowhere else I felt I needed to be.

As I packed my things a few hours later, I realised that I was not escaping my life. I was living it.

One of the unexpected blessings of becoming a self-employed consultant solicitor is that my office occasionally becomes a park bench overlooking a lake. It also means that, more often than I care to admit, I find myself happily drafting contracts at unusual hours simply because I enjoy what I do. It is a slightly unconventional way to work, but one that suits me rather well.

When I cycled home, my neighbour was outside, exactly where he usually is, tending the communal garden.

It is a beautiful English garden, full of colour throughout the year. Red, pink, yellow and white roses bloom alongside lilies, lavender and countless other flowers whose names I still do not know. Somehow, they all belong together. The diversity is what makes it so beautiful. Every time I walk through the garden, there is something new to notice. I often think that it reflects the man who tends it. It is calm, welcoming and quietly cared for, never asking for recognition.

We have known each other for years, although not in the way close friends know each other. We know each other in the way neighbours sometimes do. Every now and then, we meet in the middle of the garden and spend ten minutes talking about life. He tells me about Arsenal. He tells me about the creative career he had before deciding, at exactly my age, that he wanted to travel instead.

Some time ago, he developed kidney problems. I remember telling him that if he ever needed one, I had an extra kidney. I meant it then, and I still mean it now.

When I left my previous law firm, he introduced me to his niece, who worked as a recruiter. Before we spoke, he told her something that has stayed with me ever since.

“She’ll never let any recruiter down. She’s professional, and she always looks fabulous. I see her leaving for work every morning.”

I laughed. I had never realised that anybody was watching.

Over the years, I have forgotten my keys more than once and arrived home embarrassingly late. I would buzz his flat, apologise and ask whether he could let me into the building. He never made me feel awkward. He simply opened the door.

Whenever I travelled, he quietly checked whether my mother needed anything. Whenever we met, he asked how I was. He never offered grand speeches or tried to solve my problems. He simply paid attention.

Today, for the first time, I told him that my relationship had ended. I did not explain why or tell him about the months that had come before. I simply said that we had broken up.

He looked at me for a moment and said, “Have you heard Siena Spiro? You should listen to her.”

I climbed the stairs, made a coffee and opened Apple Music. The first song that played was Die On This Hill.

Not because he somehow knew the details of my relationship. He didn’t, and he couldn’t have. I had never shared any of them with him. Yet somehow, he knew what my heart needed to hear.

For years, my neighbour had quietly seen me leave for work in the mornings. He had seen me build a career. He had seen me come home late after forgetting my keys. He had seen me travel, laugh, struggle and carry on.

All that time, I never realised that somebody was watching.

As I listened to the song, I found myself thinking about the stories we choose to tell.

There are countless books about narcissists. We make films about toxic lovers. We publish articles about betrayal, manipulation and people who leave scars on our lives. Very rarely do we write about the quiet people who simply make life better. Yet, if we are honest, they change us just as much.

For much of my life, being watched never felt entirely safe. As children, some of us learn that being watched means being criticised. Later, it can mean being judged, misunderstood or controlled. Sometimes it means feeling that every mistake will be remembered. Sometimes it means trying to become whoever we think somebody else wants us to be.

Then, every now and again, life introduces you to somebody who watches differently. Somebody who notices without judging. Somebody who remembers without keeping score. Somebody who pays attention not to gain power over you, but simply because they care.

Over the past few weeks, these essays have taken me back through my own life. I have written about growing up in a world that disappeared almost overnight, learning to survive rather than simply live, an arranged marriage, motherhood, divorce, heartbreak and trying to understand why I believed love had to be so difficult. I have written about discovering London, reclaiming my identity, finding unexpected peace and realising, while standing beside a rusty bicycle, that love and familiarity are not enough reasons to keep carrying something that no longer takes us where we need to go.

I have been trying to make sense of my own life.

I have been trying to rewire a mind that spent decades believing it had to earn love by being useful, understanding, forgiving and endlessly accommodating. From as early as I can remember, it had been ingrained in me that being a “good girl” meant making life easier for everyone else. It meant keeping the peace, apologising first, understanding before expecting to be understood, forgiving before being asked and carrying responsibilities that were never really mine to carry. I believed that if I could explain myself better, love more patiently or understand somebody else’s pain deeply enough, everything would eventually be alright. I used to call that kindness. Now, I understand that much of it was just survival.

For a long time, I thought that healing from past negative experiences meant learning how to recognise the wrong people more quickly. I now think it is just as important to recognise the right ones. They are rarely loud. They do not ask to become the centre of our stories. They simply show up, again and again, with consistency, kindness and quiet decency.

Perhaps we spend too much time writing about those who wound us and too little about those who quietly help us heal. We celebrate grand gestures and dramatic declarations, yet so much of what shapes a life happens almost unnoticed. A neighbour who opens the front door when you have forgotten your keys. Someone who checks whether your mother needs anything while you are away. A conversation in the middle of a garden. A recommendation for exactly the right song at exactly the right moment.

I used to think that the people who shaped our lives were the extraordinary ones. The great loves. The difficult endings. I am beginning to think I was wrong.

Sometimes the people who change us most are the ones who quietly tend the world around them. They grow gardens. They open doors. They ask after our families. They recommend songs. They notice when we are struggling and quietly celebrate when we begin to flourish. Just like my neighbour, they never ask for recognition because, to them, kindness is simply what you do. For a long time, I thought I was only walking through his garden. I never realised that, in his own quiet way, he had been helping me grow too.

Somebody had been watching me.

With kind eyes. Waiting quietly for me to flourish.