The River

Three days every year, the river is empty.

The first happens in February. It's a cold Sunday morning, and the river is quiet. In town, college rowers are waking up, nursing hangovers or maybe still celebrating blades and drinking spoons into oblivion. BCDs are over, and now all that is left is the cold. Some of the town clubs may venture out, in singles or doubles, but for the most part, the river is calm. This might be the quietest of the three days: it's still very cold, and it doesn't get light until almost 7:30. Who would want to be on the river anyway?

The second happens in June, and it is bittersweet. The sun is shining, it's been a hot week. The Plough has punters sitting on the garden, having Sunday roasts. The cygnets have hatched, and if you look closely at the bushes you will notice where leaves have been ripped out for laurels. Locals walk up and down the tow path enjoying the weather and the closeness to the water. But it's also the day after an ending. For many, the previous day is the last time they will race in a boat. The glories of Easter Term rowing, with never ending evenings, are over. For many, this is the last Cambridge thing they will do before they leave the university for good. But it's still a beautiful day, and the quietness of the river is just the calm after four days of joy and excitement.

The last day happens in July. The students have left Cambridge for the summer, and this is the only day when the river is truly empty. Or is it? If you woke up early enough, you might have caught a naked 8+, or a quad, showing off their hard work for the season. But if you come later in the day, you will feel the end of something. On the Cam, it's the end of the rowing season. Most people will be taking a few days off from training. Some will be leaving. The river is stunning, and nothing appeals more than a cold beer drank on the bank, but the thought that Bumps is over, that there is no more beer tree, no more crews to shout at, or friends to say hello to, is too hard to stomach. Not to mention too many rowers are sleeping off the excesses of the night before. Which club got shut down for playing music too loud after 1AM? Who slept in the boathouse?

Yesterday the river was empty too. But there was no sense of joys past. It was just quiet. No coxes talking firmly to their crews. No strong finishes with a satisfying clunk as the blade settles in the gate. No blades cutting into the water cleanly, or splashing into it. No coaches shouting at their crews, no crews racing up and down, trying to shave off a few seconds off the 2.6K course. It was a warm May evening, it was light until well over nine, and yet. The clubs are shut. The students have gone home. The river is at a standstill. There are still people walking on either bank. Dogs splashing into the water to fetch balls. The swans have confidently taken over the emptiness, their cygnets enjoying the safety from blades and boats. But it's not the same.

We'll be back, of course. The clubs will reopen, at first for singles and doubles, then for more, and we'll be back on the river. We'll drink beer after races, and wake up early to get a long session in. We'll row again. But we will have lost a glorious season. Many will have lost a last chance to row in Cambridge. Many may never be back. So I mourn for a lost summer. For the boats I won't get to cox. For the bumps I won't get to celebrate (and the ones I won't get to award). For the summer mornings sitting on the boathouse balcony chatting about nothing in particular. For the debriefs, the races, the training. Yes, we will be back. But for now, I don't think I'll be going back down to the river.

Pencil and paper

Sometimes happiness is knowing that I can write about anything. That I can't work, but I can write.

I could write about the girl who was playing with her skateboard outside my house the other day and who grinned manically at me when her mother screamed at her to get off my front garden. Her skateboard was pink, and she wasn't wearing a helmet or any sort of protective gear. I thought she was pretty good, but I don't know much about skateboarding. It was obvious she was faster than her mum though. She did get off my lawn, though, and when I told her it was ok she screamed at me that we had to stay 6 feet apart because of the cornvirus (her words, not mine) and that that was why her mum was shouting at her. "Chain of screaming then?" I asked her. She just grinned again and rolled away down the road.

There were four dogs on my run yesterday. Unfortunately, I can't stop and pet them these days (it's one of the perks of running and a great excuse to take a break as often as possible) but I can have a chat with the owners and watch the dogs for a bit. Two goldens, one collie and a gorgeous black and brown mutt that must have been about 7 months old. He's gonna be a big, big boy. He seemed a bit too warm, with his shaggy coat, but he was happily pulling his owner along, who was calmly telling him to heel and offering treats everytime he did. I said hi, and the owner said hi back, and I asked about the pup, and got told his name was Oli, and that he was indeed a very big pup, the son of a Great Dane and St Bernard. That's gonna be a hell of a big dog. I was wrong about his age, only just turned 6 months old. I kept running.

But if I can write about anything I want, why am I writing about myself and right now? I'm finding it hard to imagine things. Or not so much that, but I'm finding it hard to imagine things with spark. The usual inhabitants of my stories – clichéd for sure – are strong, young women looking for something, trying to get something back, or yearning to understand themselves. And right now I feel like life is on pause, and there's very little to do in any direction. That affects my writing. Traveling is out of the question, I can't see friends or family, and it feels like I'm passing every day not to build something but just in waiting for this to be over, and that translates into what I write. So what could help?

There are suggestions everywhere: learn a language! Take up a new hobby! Start a project! These are all great ideas, with one single central failure. I'd only be doing them because of isolation. For many, that won't be a problem (in fact, I could argue that it's a great thing!), but for me, the fact that I did something simply because I couldn't do something else is frustrating and sad. Learn to knit? Sure, but I would never learn to knit in other circumstances. Study Italian? Of course, but come on, I hadn't looked at an Italian text in years. Teach myself maths? OK, yeah, but again, I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. And for some reason the thought of simply picking a hobby because I'm bored seems wasteful. I'll drop it once things get back to normal (if they ever do), and then what's the point? Of course, this is self-defeating. I can do something for now because it's fun and interesting and it makes me happy for the timebeing. The problem is that most of what I'm doing doesn't make me happy, it just passes the time. It's like reading magazines in a waiting room waiting for the doctor to call you in: sure, it's better than the alternative, but I'd much rather be doing something else entirely.

So I write. Even without spark, I write. I've been writing an average of 1000 words per day (not counting any writing I do for my job). I don't like what I write, and it's no good, but it's better than not writing. And at the very least it's not just a quarantine hobby. I enjoyed writing before, and I enjoy writing now. My dad asked me what I was working on the other day. I didn't give a detailed answer but I guess the answer would be a fantasy novel about a brother and a sister, and their mum, and the brother's daughter. Or maybe that's not the answer at all: it's a novel about a city called Ísmeta, blessed by the gods, the city of the six temples (it used to be seven but ugh, that was too much of a pain, they may get reduced further). It's also about revenge, and love, and betrayal. About being true to oneself. And I've been working on it for years and it's honestly going nowhere. But I'm having more fun with it than with anything else that I've tried to pick up since quarantine started.

When I get bored of that I write about being trapped in space and being unable to breathe. I like the image, a human just floating, possibly in their last moments? Or maybe just before they're picked up by a ship. Cold, but still alive for a bit longer.

But sometimes I just write about myself. About what I'm thinking and feeling right now. Because it's a form of therapy, a bit like keeping a diary. And it feels more authentic for some reason, like it has a little bit of spark at least. It's tethered, it feels real. So I guess I'll keep writing, even when it's no good. As procrastination and as practice. Or just because I enjoy the physical act of typing, or the feel of a pencil on the page.