Reading · Letters from the Edgelands

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The edgelands are the between times: when the old life no longer makes sense but the new ways have not yet been found. They are the places we may want to rush past. But we can’t just “skip to the good part”. We need to journey through the messy middle. These are my letters from the road.

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Picture it…

There’s a burnt-out shell of a car. Windows and doors long gone. The remaining metal frames and springs that once made up the seats look like the broken skeletons of robots left to rust.

The ground is shades of grey: a mixture of gravel, dirt and dust. Dotted here and there are sparse crops of stunted weeds.

The scene is bleak. Abandoned. Disused.

I take a slow step and hear the crunch of stones beneath my shoes. I scan the horizon for landmarks, but all I see is wasteland.

I take another step.

The pineapple weed beneath my feet emits a beautiful scent when I tread on it. I didn’t expect that in this place. I didn’t expect tropical sweetness amidst the grey.

I wonder what else I might find if I look hard enough, listen closely enough.

If I move my attention away from my discomfort and towards possibility.

^{Pineapple weed. Introduced in the UK in the late 19th century, apparently.}

Illness is an edgeland

I’m gradually coming out the other side of a pain flare. It took me by surprise (as they always do), and I found myself caught between fear, distress, and resigned acceptance. I gently packaged my plans in brown paper, wrapped them in string so they were safe, and allowed myself to surrender. This is new for me. Usually, I do my darndest to fight my way through. It rarely works.

But this time, I stopped trying to turn away from the discomfort and turned towards it. That’s when I remembered the pineapple weed.

It’s a real thing (you can look it up), and I’ve always been fascinated by the way it appears, growing through cracks in pavements, lining the edges of tracks and roadsides. Small, easy to dismiss, but tenacious. And, yes, it smells like pineapple.

When I first learned its name, I felt - just for a moment - that the world made sense.

^{Collage zine making: I love that rusty old yellow truck.}

Making sense of the messy middles

We’re bombarded with “success stories” every day. The before and after images. The often sanitised and marketable “If I can do it, so can you” world of storytelling.

But it feels important to share something about the time we spend and the places we visit between before and after, too. When the old ways don’t fit, and the new ways are still unknown. When our very sense of identity is in flux, change is unavoidable, and there is no guaranteed endpoint.

Maybe we can only make sense of the messy middle of our stories in hindsight. I don’t know.

I don’t even know if ‘making sense’ is the goal.

Maybe the invitation here is not about retrospectively applying meaning, but rather about staying with our story before we know the end.

What happens if we tell our stories from that place? What happens if we stay with the unknown, the uncertain, the unexpected? Can we notice the pineapple weed, or are our eyes too full of tears? Can we gently cup grief in one hand while holding hope in the other?

I’ve struggled to put words to my edgeland experiences (- oh, the irony of writing that here). Instead, I see them as landscapes. (The burnt-out car is a recurrent theme.) And I feel them as questions. (Curiosity has always been my superpower.)

I’m exploring ways of telling these stories that aren’t (just) about stringing words and sentences together into a coherent tale. (I’m experimenting with collage, blackout poetry, zine making, meditation, and more.)

I want to play with the feelings in the edgelands - even if I can’t explain why they’re there. I want to lean into excitement whilst allowing space for fear. I want to embrace anger as fuel while also letting myself be nourished by joy.

I want to explore these edgelands as creative spaces of possibility: places where we might discover self-compassion and a new understanding of ourselves and our stories.

At some point, I might be able to make a map of the edgelands - piecing together mine and others’ experiences. But for now, I’m an explorer without even a compass.

^{That’s not a tree… It’s a photo of rivers and watercourses meeting the sea. Cool, huh!}

Are you in the edgelands too?

I have a vision of a bunch of us sharing our stories.

The last time I got a group of people together, we were all writers exploring the question “What happens to your sex life when ‘life’ inevitably happens?"

(If you’re curious about that question and folks’ answers, check out the book Sex Meets Life.)

But I think the Edgelands Project needs a different approach.

I picture us creating stories together.

Exploring our landscapes.

Not to leave a breadcrumb trail for others to follow (because each person’s edgeland is unique, and the crows would eat the crumbs first anyway), but rather to honour these times that are often never spoken about because they are deemed too ordinary, too complicated, or too difficult to explain.

(You might enter an edgeland at times such as illness, bereavement, menopause, changing a home or career or relationship…)

I want to find out more. Do you?

This is a genuine question. I’ve applied for funding that would support me to create The Edgeland Project off the page, as well as here. At some point (if the funding gods are on my side), I’ll be seeking expressions of interest from those who feel called to join in. If you’re already curious to know more, pop a comment below, and I’ll keep you in the loop.

Want to skip to the good part?