Slowing down, unravelling…

I read this post yesterday. It is a very well written account from a photographer called Sammie. She takes her analog camera everywhere to tune into the world around her and document what she sees. In this specific post, she is taking street shots, revealing what lies beneath the veneer of central London. I really enjoyed the combination of her social commentaries alongside her photographs.

Reading her made me reflect on my younger self, roaming around London, like a piece of flotsam. I observed first hand how much a big living organism such as London needs to consume. I’m not talking about the Londoners buying too much junk here – although that’s also true as seen on Sammie’s photographs – I’m talking about how much big capital cities such as London consume people – also as seen in her photographs – feeding off their life force. The vast majority of people are just surviving there. They are paid just enough to be able to live on – or under – the poverty line, but they can never quite manage to thrive, or get out of debt.

I strolled into London as a 20 something young person, my heart and my eyes wide open, ready to embrace all of the Big Smoke’s offerings…. I was listening to the Clash in loop, while floating around London on my own, taking it all in, from Camden town, to Notting Hill…

I loved London so much, I ended up staying, making a small life for myself there.  I took an office job for some big NGO I was volunteering with at the time, doing a job I strongly believed in. Fast forward a few years, I ended up crawling out of London’s ass on my hands and knees, burnt out, jaded, riddled with anxiety, stress, and a London born toddler in tow, covered in eczema.

While I lived there, I spent a lot of time trying to look over the Docklands from the top of Greenwich park, next to the sky observatory, longing for big open spaces, trees, open skylines. I used to push my bike and my luck over the other side of the hill, looking for a friendly smile, a bit of warmth, and kindness every Sunday morning, on Blackheath market.

I was made redundant only a few weeks into my maternity leave. The 2008 credit crunch left no room for new mums in corporate organizations. The founder/President/Super Star of the NGO I worked for called me personally on the phone, to tell me that they were shutting down my department, which consisted of myself and a couple who just had a baby, too. Our kids were born six weeks apart.

The founder/President/Super Star told me in a soft, honey like voice that: “Of course we care about the same things, ultimately, so you will surely understand our decision. I’d like to believe that they have some sort of social care system in place to help you, as you land on your feet. We would be very grateful if you didn’t seek legal advice, like your colleagues, as the money we would have to spend on going to court is money who won’t be spending on doing our work, you understand that?”. And I understood. I couldn’t be dealing with the stress anyway. I was so burnt out. I just wanted to be free from that place.

The founder/president/Super Star once told me, months prior that phone call, that they didn’t like kids very much. So I was warned!

We lived in a squat at the time. With a wrongful landlord breathing down our necks. He lived in Spain, off state benefits and off the revenue on 2 flats he didn’t own in the same building.

Located in South East London, the building had been left empty for a long time until a group of people started squatting it, occupying all the flats in it. Back then they were just happy to have a free place to live, a stone’s throw from central London. The rightful owner tried to take some of them to court, over 2 flats, but he lost. A housing co-op was formed for the court case, and the people in it became home owners overnight, even though the flats belonged to the Housing Co-op. The rest of the flats ended up becoming a mixture. All of the original squatters eventually moved out of London, they had babies or just wanted some fresher air.

One of them handed over the flat to her younger sister who wanted to be a musician. The rest were rented out. An Argentinian family was renting out two flats and they knew they were paying rent to a wrongful landlord, but they didn’t mind, they even thought it was fair.

There was also a single mum strapping her toddler to the bed so that she could go out dancing in clubs, leaving him screaming all night long. And there was us, a young couple, always willing to put their own comfort to the side, trying to do the right thing. At some point we had four dogs with us, as were looking after a pair of beagles temporarily, while their owners were serving time in jail.

They were a couple with two kids, the two dogs and a parrot. They were involved with a group of animal rights activists, who were protesting outside of Huntingdon Life Sciences – an English laboratory known for testing on animals. As they were disrupting the finances of a few big groups by doing so, they were rewarded for their hard work with a raid by the armed counter-terrorism police unit – with all the fancy gear, such as weapons, protective helmets and shields etc. Their house was raided during a Sunday lunch, in front of the kids, the dogs and the parrot.

Up until my maternity leave, I was working a lot more than full time. The commute to work in itself felt like a battle. My days were very long, I always arrived back home way past the official closing hours. No paid overtime, as stated in my contract. No pension funds, no maternity package. No ‘frills’. One of my colleagues took the stance to leave at 5pm sharp everyday, refusing to give in to the unpaid overtime BS… Well, that was really frowned upon. I just remember she didn’t last long in the job, as the director and some of my other colleagues were all exchanging glances, looking at the clock and at her back as she was going through the office door, just working her normal hours as stated in her contract. 9am until 5pm.

Well that was all on paper but I was never home before 8 or 9pm and I would systematically get shitty emails if I missed my train and arrive at my desk at 09h05am. Clearly the three to four hours of unpaid overtime I did every evening didn’t make up for my train getting in five minutes late in the morning.

That kind of office atmosphere was soul destroying. I went from being a free lance photographer, working for the surf industry, living in the south west of France, to being trapped behind a desk, forced to adhere to strict rules, surrounded by miserable people. That’s what was deemed ‘having to grow up’, I guess?

Even with my pay, living in a squat paying relatively cheap rent to a wrongful landlord, I still didn’t manage to make ends meet. I was always borrowing money from my next pay. All my colleagues lived on their credit cards, which I didn’t have as I had only lived in the UK for a few months. The reality of living in London for me, was seeing none of it, working really long hours, with no extra pay for the required overtime, leaving no time to do anything else. I couldn’t afford it anyway, most of my wage was spent on…. commuting to work and back, as my monthly travel card was extortionate..

I worked really hard throughout my pregnancy. I couldn’t afford more than a few weeks of maternity leave, as after 3 weeks, your pay is slashed. I had saved up all my holidays, so that I could cash them in all at once, to spend more time with my new baby. I stopped work 4 days before my due date, and even then, I was still expected to be available over emails and phone calls. I was also asked by a director from the US office if I would mind taking English classes during my “time off” – my 3 weeks of maternity leave – to try to erase my accent and improve my pronunciation. I’m French. The US office were often struggling to understand my accent during meetings over the phone. The UK team, where I worked, didn’t seem to mind it.

The redundancy threw me in a very precarious situation, but it also felt like a huge relief. As I was thrown in the deep end of motherhood and postnatal depression, the last thing I needed was to go back into a stress inducing work place.

I spent the following couple of years being ignored at toddler groups, because I wasn’t English or because my toddler had eczema all over his face and the other mums feared it may be contagious. They never addressed me directly, but instead they asked the staff to approach me on their behalf. I stopped going. I couldn’t take it. I felt a lot more lonely in these groups where I was invisible, than at home.

Everywhere I went, everyone always seemed to know each other “from before”. From antenatal classes, which I didn’t have time to take as I was working long hours, or from some Yummy Mummy groups where they all hung out, to have over priced coffees and go to yoga together (I couldn’t afford either). I was very isolated. Apart from my husband and our two rescue dogs, I didn’t know anyone. I never had the time or the money to go anywhere, so I only knew my work comrades, who by then, were all scattering in the wind, to find better jobs, with better pay, moving on. So I was just stewing in my post natal depression, attending appointments at the job center with my baby in a sling, which was met with “Oh, it’s one of these…” look.

I took up knitting, and started baking a lot.

We all craved a slower pace. Then we finally found a way out. We managed to escape into more rural parts of England to slow down, marveling at the beauty of Ashdown Forest.

I vividly remember that first winter after leaving London. It had snowed and I walked in a small patch of forest. Everything was covered in snow, the world fell silent, it felt like it was holding its breath. The woods looked so majestic. It felt like walking into a cathedral. It was such a profound, deep peace.

After some years of recovery, I started to go back to London, occasionally. I absolutely loved visiting for a day. As an outsider, I watched the chronic stress of city living turning regular people into demons, especially on the tube – shoving people out of the way, calling them names, because they aren’t going fast enough up the escalator, or slamming a door in your face.

It has a certain pace to it. It’s  hard to keep up.

I have noticed that only thoroughbred Londoners – those who truly sprouted out of a crack in the pavement of London – can actually keep up and not be affected by it long term.

Like weeds or urban foxes, London born and raised humans can adapt, move amongst all the litter, chicken bones, used condoms, broken needles, empty takeaway wrappers, used toilet paper… without seemingly noticing any of it. It’s just a normal part of the landscape they navigate everyday. They were born in that giant living organism and they know their way around it. They rule the streets of London with such ease, just like rats rule it under ground.

The reality is that regardless of income or living conditions, the majority of urban dwellers do exist within the realm of poverty. The pace of the city takes a toll on those who are not conditioned to it, a traumatic slow burn which can take years to recover from.