Some silence for a birth

It's been long enough to gestate a human

Hi, friends,

I’m writing this week to say that I won’t be writing for a little spell. Likely a few weeks, maybe a month.

I started writing these letters nine months ago.

Long enough to gestate a human!

(I haven’t gestated a human.)

But I do feel that something new is trying to be born right now. And that it can’t if I’m narrating the process.

Back in September 2022, when I started writing to you, I was still white-knuckling this return journey. I’d been back in England for a year, after 11 years abroad, and I still had no idea where I was going to land, who my people would be, or what life would look like. I was living out of a suitcase, and had been for two years by that point.

I knew I’d learned a lot, but I didn’t know what any of it meant, or how to use it, or whether it even had a use. Whether it served anything at all.

Over the past nine months, I’ve found my people and my part of the world, and started to build a home here. I’m no longer living out of a suitcase. All my books are under one roof, for the first time in well over a decade. (They’re currently in boxes stacked against my kitchen wall, propping up a sofa standing upright on its arm, but never mind that.)

Best of all, I think I might be groping my way towards the purpose of all that lostness, all those years of getting broken.

But I can’t put it into words. I’ve written the paragraph ten times and I still can’t get it right, can’t seem to express what I mean—which is a sure sign that I need to stop trying. To shut my trap for a bit and simply experience, without rushing to make sense of it all and language it.

So I’m going to stop my wittering and just be. I’ll be back in a month or so. And I know I’ll have lots to tell you.

I’ve been so moved, over the past months, by all those of you who’ve written to say that you’ve enjoyed the letters because you’ve been lost too. Before I pop off for a bit, I want to remind you that your lostness is a gift. That we all need your bravery.

Thanks so much for reading, these past months. And please stay subscribed, and add this email address to your safe list, so that we can stay in touch when I’m back.

Love,

xx Ellie