Seafarers - II (2022)

The photograph on the front cover is one my mother took of me aged four, standing in front of the enormous rhododendron bush in my parent’s garden.

I don’t remember the photo being taken, or what I was feeling, but I suppose I was on the cusp of change, about to begin school, make new friends, gain new responsibilities, and fade away into adolescence. Now that I’m 30 I often look back at where I’ve come from and feel like I’ve lived so many different lives, in different places, with different relationships, urgencies, and needs. Perhaps when I write I’m trying to get back to these past lives, to inhabit the memory of the person I once was. I feel so far removed from the boy in the photo, it’s funny to think we’re the same person.