On wanderlust and the need for space.
Is it just me or are all writers (artists) driven by a need for experience, understanding and change?
Having resided in Spain for three years now (four separate addresses!) I got that crazy itch for movement, new shores, new people and traditions…more things to write about and dissect/devour when I have a plethora of ideas, characters and events still wanting to burst onto the page! There´s a time and a place, but they´re getting impatient. And so was I.
I am descended from gypsies: my grandma lived in a gypsy caravan up until she died at the age or 100 and something (the details here change depending on who you speak to). Like my father I am very creative and suffer from wanderlust, but is it to do with genetics or creativity that makes you thirst for more?
The wanderlust comes alongside a sort of freedom and anonymity also. The need for space to think, breath, just be. Without being something to someone for a little while. and so like a special gift came a Spanish bank holiday (Thursday 28th Feb) where everything is closed and you are forced to relax. And so…the result?
I had a fantastic writing day this week in Estepona – a little town in the Costa del Sol that is still Spanish. Just me, my notebook and some money had a date with the beach – we laid on a bench outside a church atop the hill and constructed a poem on wanting always what is out of reach called Restless. We ate pata negra ham in plaza de los flores, and some unknown spiky seafood in a boat on the shore which is used for barbecuing fish during the summer whilst composing a poem entitle periwinkle.
We also chatted to a clearly mad one legged man who believes he writes scripts for Stephen Fry and started out with an English accent and ended up with a Glaswegian one. interesting… (an hour of my life, a cheap sangria and three poems later…could one be called Mad Mike?) I gave him my website address – he may read this. Who knows? But that little bit of solitude and freedom to let the mind wander seems to have cured the wanderlust for now.
Kind of. I have the basis of around 10 poems from that day and so this week I am going to stay in Estepona town in a hostal and write in the mornings before work (pre 8am), evenings after work (post 6pm) and eat tapas/walk on the beach in the breeze somewhere in between. Some people I know think this is bizarre behaviour – but surely it keeps you grounded? I´m lucky to have two very understanding cats and one extremely impatient yet similar boyfriend who is happy to acknowledge my whims to keep me sane. Hopefully, he gets a good read out of it at the end.
But tell me – is it just me or are all writers driven by a need for experience, understanding and change? I would like to know.
