Coming up for air Push and pull

A yearning to become someone and no one in the city casts a shadow over the wide skies and open spaces of Caro Giles' Northumbrian home

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I have been thinking about my ongoing desire to connect more with others. I reflect often upon the different needs for human contact within my own family, most obviously highlighted during the lockdowns, when I craved more than ever being physically in the same space as other people. Meanwhile, most of my children were living their best lives, content to socialise only with each other in the familiarity of their home and its immediate surroundings.

Earlier today, I stood in a field above the town where I live. The sea was a blue ribbon in the distance and gulls were pecking at seeds in the soil as I wandered along the hedgerow. The sun shone hard on my face as I turned it up to the sky and closed my eyes. I wanted to talk to another human so badly I almost started talking to myself. It’s not that I don’t have friends here, just that my life looks so different a lot of the time that I’m out of practice in the art of socialising.