The post below was completed all of two months ago but left to stew in the hope that 'depth' may be added. The reality is that it is now past its sell by date and aged considerably.
I have not changed what was written, partly for posterity and partly because I am supposed to be cooking dinner and have done nothing about it. Nonetheless, the relevance of below is not wasted, time has merely passed, as it tends to do, and I now find myself 'looking back' at a first chapter complete. The below, an early passage or paragraph of the chapter 'London: 2022'. I am pleased to report that I will be let back to give 23' a go.
I never thought of myself as someone that conforms to 'rites of passage' but, based on recent events, I have been forced to reexamine this assertion. The conclusion, I am most certainly a conformist.
For the purposes of this, I have looked up the dictionary definition of rites of passage and post it below for readers' ease:
an official ceremony or informal activity that marks an important stage or occasion in a person's life, especially becoming an adult.
These rites of passage thankfully differ culturally but here lies the Irish version claimed by Gen Z:
Irish College
Leaving Certificate Holiday to a destination similar to Magaluf and/ or its inappropriate rechristening generally done by inserting new letters in place of the first....do try this at home.
The J1 working holiday visa-- generally taken after your first year of college
The gap yah--Irony is intended in this spelling but its appeal is no less strong
The move abroad--For a while it seemed that Ireland may have shook this pattern of emigration but as young people shockingly want the option of owning their own homes in the future (government, do take note), it seems the trend is reemerging.
Consulting this incomplete list, I have completed four out of the five and sit writing this in an attempt to process number 5; the latest of my 'rites of passage' and the one that probably tipped me well and truly into the category of 'cliché twenty something year old'.
The visible change that this has given my blogging and working pattern is a new view....I sit on my desk, looking out a window and face a large lime tree (or is it a hazel?). Beyond this mystery tree is a 5 storey block of flats built of brick and sporting rows of PVC windows demarcating each new floor. Perpendicular to this block of flats is another out of the same factory. Most curtains are closed (white, lace, doily style) and one window, in an ode to what came before and a reminder of a universal experience , has a sun faded paper rainbow with 'stay' and 'safe' painted in wobbly letters onto two clouds. The sun is hot sitting behind my personal PVC and concentration is lacking.
Another notable change, this time not visible, is my identity from 'young professional' or, as my former flatmate described it, 'test tube artist' to 'student'. This, so far, has meant a dramatically different pace of life. Something I perhaps did not expect when moving from Dublin to the vast, bustling intensity of London. For now, at least, this disconcerting calmness may be put down to the intial 'finding of one's feet' and, more tangible, 'struggling to find a part-time job to do while I study which pays sufficiently, is related to my course but won't completely overwhelm me when energy needs to be put into 6,000 word essays'.
For now, I will attempt to put some tangible form on this new identity by preserving it on the page:
I am a student of Applied Theatre in Goldsmiths University, London. After much debate of the apparently contested term in my first week of studies, I will chalk it down as an 'umbrella term' for Theatre or theatre practices taken outside of theatres (i.e. those posh buildings that we go to watch actors play) and brought into different social contexts.
I am living in Peckham; an area in South East London, a fifteen minute cycle away from university and described by different people in different ways....
It resists gentrification
Is dirty
Very 'hip and happening'
The home of Joe Lycett ( I don't think this is fake news as I have seen him jogging along its crowded pavements)
Regardless of how you might position yourself on above, I have, as someone helpfully noted on a night out in my first week, 'landed on my feet'. Certainly, given the shit storm which is currently swirling around Great Britain, I am very aware and grateful of my feet avoiding the turds for now.
In a strange parallelism I am currently reading a journal on rites of passage for college (sorry, 'uni'); according to Van Gennep one must go through 3 phases:
1. Separation
which represents the detachment of the ritual subjects (novices, candidates, neophytes or “ initiands”) from their previous social statuses.
Missing one of my limbs: the flatmate whom I lived with for a year and a half. This cohabitation was in a flat not big enough to swing a cat and encompassed a period when socializing with anyone outside of the household was frowned upon or, at times, illegal. Our lives became enmeshed to the point of synchronicity and a living arrangement as comfortable as if we were an elderly couple about to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary. A great platonic love affair giving birth to some controversial banana curries, strangely obtuse words in jars (our 'peaches and pits'), red footprint milestones (which took literal form by coating feet in red paint and parading up and down a strip of newspaper), fingers in pies (with some in the skies), badmington nets, a garden that grew (often weeds), kitchen raves and a friendship of the forever kind. Leaving Oaklands Crescent and waving goodbye to her retreating car, chest heaving in between sobs, showed me how truly wasted I am as a 21st century Protestant: 'Professional keener for wakes and funerals' should be front and centre of my business card.
2. Transition
“ margin” or “ limen” (meaning “ threshold” in Latin), the ritual subjects pass through a period and area of ambiguity, a sort of social limbo which has few (though sometimes these are most crucial) of the attributes of either the preceding or subsequent profane social statuses or cultural states
Arriving back to London Euston from a weekend in Dublin and about to embark on my 2nd week as a London resident. I text Lily--old friend and new flatmate--to inform her that I will "get back to yours in circa an hour". A nudging response reminds me gently "*ours*"....
I begin a period of furious room redecoration; callously kicking out a previous wardrobe which I had taken a firm disliking too and moving in my preferred clothes rail. The process of making a room ones own is an endeavor to be taken seriously. Walls of the bedroom reflect a shrine to a time gone by but a leather couch on one side sports a cushion with the London Underground rail system emblazoned boldly across its front. Like its new mirror (found on Facebook Market Place for £10--proud) the room, for now, seems destined to reflect its inhabitants transition--'recent emmigrant' may well be stamped across my forehead.
3. Incorporation
includes symbolic phenomena and actions which represent the return of the subjects to their new, relatively stable, well-defined position in the total society. For those undergoing life-cycle ritual this usually represents an enhanced status, a stage further along life’s culturally prefabricated road;
An email sits in my inbox: NatWest welcoming me to my new bank and student account. This feels consequential as the process had taken over three weeks of uploading, waiting, re-uploading and repeating multiple times for them to finally accept my proof of address. I am now, in the eyes of a bank, a UK resident. I am 'incorporated'. The reason for the thwarted attempts? My documents were in black and white. Reasoning with a bot that "every letter is in black and white so this should not f**** prove or disprove that I live in the address I say" was futile. The solution? Shtick a coloured stamp on it. I have decided that this is a good omen; Black has never been my colour and NatWest agrees. Other small but helpful events to cement my incorporation?
-The undeniable poeticism of the statement 'Living with Lily'. As well as rolling nicely off the tongue it also produces a happy side effect of being extremely well-fed. She cooks better than Jamie Oliver, has an amazing selection of coats and has agreed to enter into a triathlon with me in July. In other words, she's pretty cool. Mates in Sociology undergrad to flatmates in the sociological wonder of London. She also possesses the uncanny skill of robbing my phone without me noticing and taking photographs of things like the inside of the bin, a toilet brush or a clogged up sink. A photo series entitled 'disgusting items' has now taken up residence on my phone.
-I attended an incredible one man show in the local Theatre Peckham and found that I was eligible for 'Peckham Local' tickets. In this case, a proof of address was not needed and an amazing show about a young man who has also gone through a transition period, albeit of a very different kind.
I'm not sure my status has necessarily been enhanced but if more letters after my name is what does it (along with a vast repertoire of games to play in workshops) then yes, come September, I'll be 'hanced.
The obvious ending to above should perhaps be '#grateful' but I will sign off instead with the less nauseating and timely phrase, 'Happy Christmas'. Regardless of whether you're a conformist or not to its traditional proclivities and rites of passage, I hope it brings some gifts and an appropriate amount of brussels sprouts.
xoxo
Rite of passage, write of passage, Right of passage
Spiffing Stuff.