‘iridescence from iris, the goddess with rainbows’, by Hannah
By: Jaleh Brazell
Tags: Thanksgiving, Berkeley, Big Sur, Lockdown, Hannah Kirwan

‘From Brockwell to Berkeley’ is an ongoing series of snapshots from life on opposite sides of the Atlantic. It’s written by two close friends: Hannah (who moved from London to California in August 2020 to study overseas) and Jaleh (who remains in London).

Today I am sitting at my computer feeling sleepy. On Sunday I will fly home. There are tiny birds in the plum tree outside my window, flitting/dashing, making tiny high-pitched sounds. The sky is covered over with clouds because winter is now really here. There was a wonderful lot of rain at the weekend and I had forgotten how good it is to listen, from inside, as it falls. I have spent the past few hours reading through every notebook I have, from all the months I have been here. Now that I am about to leave, I am reflective, and seeking words to hold my reflections: casting about for the way to write them, somewhat lost. This is consequence of exhilaration that is now exhaustion; weariness that is still slow wonder.

Over Thanksgiving, we went to Big Sur. The drive was two hours and beautiful; we literally listened to Sublime in the car as rolling Martian hills (dusty/red/globular) became pine trees and Pacific coast. We stopped to see the view: the water was crystal, azure, mazy; swirls of blue and white. We found a Whole Foods on the way that was open; we bought supplies and had everything we needed. We hadn’t booked a campsite and in the end it didn’t matter. We stayed on the beach until sunset (I spent most of the afternoon delighting in the sea, playing in the waves) and found a place in Monterey. When we drove back into Berkeley the next morning, I bought lilies and once home, napped briefly in the sun. Everyone came over in the afternoon for a Thanksgiving meal and it got late and was lovely.

This was all sublimity, this weekend. Since, things have been smaller and still good — spontaneous delicious meals in the evenings, and I have now received (for my birthday last week) so many thoughtful and perfect gifts. Yet we are technically in lockdown, have been since Monday, and the end of the semester comes with a real crunch. Last week we had to present papers at a conference; writing mine felt like pulling teeth. This week is a matter of getting final work done, and then getting on that plane.

Until I do, I will continue to savour every aspect of this place. There is part of me that — still — can’t quite believe I am here, that I have been here, that I will continue to be here. Reading one of my notebooks, which began as a lockdown diary in London, in May: I see how this life has been so much of everything I wished for in that particular time. It has been nothing I could ever have imagined, in that particular time or even before. It feels like a fragile, precarious, beautiful thing; mirage or hologram; a dream. How will it look from the other side of the Atlantic — distant, glimmering? I cannot wait to see my friends and my family, to be in London again, and if I am lucky enough to get there, with them, and then get here, in January — what great, good, unfathomable fortune.

Read the rest of the posts in ‘From Brockwell to Berkeley’ .