And then there was August (and some of September) part 1

Once again, August threw up a very mixed bag of experiences and emotions. There have been opportunities to rest and reset and some truly joyous shared moments filled with light and laughter ... but there has also been frustration, anger and tears. September looks like it is following a similar pattern.

The more comfortable parts to write about might be the joyful bits, of which there have been plenty, and I will do that too some point soon. But the more necessary things to write about are definitely all the other stuff. All the stuff that is sapping my energy and making it that little bit harder to keep seeking out hope and light in a world that feels increasingly dark. All the stuff that feels incredibly hard to to put into words, but incredibly important to try. So here I am, trying.

Last summer threw up some exceptionally challenging moments: the depths of hate and violence we saw on our streets was terrifying, leaving many of my friends afraid to leave their homes. A year has passed. A lid was gently placed over some of that boiling fury, but, as predicted at the time when there was a failure to really unpack and deal with what was going on, instead of being dampened down, it has been fermenting. Fermenting and ripe for exploitation by those whose agenda is founded on fear, division and hate.

Overall, while we may not (yet) have seen quite the same extremes of violence as last summer, I think there are many signs that we are in a much darker place as a society, and the pace at which we have got here genuinely worries me. There are several things I feel have been more difficult to stomach this year. I have been trying (and failing) for some time to wrestle this post into coherence, so I might just leave it as snippets which don't necessarily entirely slot together in to a cohesive, well-ordered whole but which capture at least some of what I think I want to say. I know it's too long. There's a lot to say.

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It may only have been lip-service but in summer 2024, my sense was that there was at least some attempt to condemn the behaviour of those spreading hate and fear about people who have arrived on our shores seeking safety. There were calls for calm, there were arrests and convictions. This year there has been a stark lack of public opposition from people in power, or indeed anyone who has been given much media coverage. Violence and hatred has been met with the suggestion that these are "legitimate concerns". Protesting outside people homes (if hotels can really be called such a thing) has been completely normalised and seemingly justified. Members of mainstream parties have joined them. Language which was the preserve of the far-right has slipped into everyday political discourse and everyday conversation.   

I remember when I first noticed that the BBC had started using the term "illegal migrants" (but without the inverted commas) for people in the asylum system (quick fact check: if you live in a hotel which is being used as asylum accommodation you are, by definition, in a legal process, and not, therefore, by any reasonable definition, "illegal") and that is just one example among many.

The first campaign I was involved in after starting to volunteer at St Chad's Sanctuary was to ask for those seeking asylum to be allowed to start college without having to wait six months. At the time, it felt like an entirely reasonable and potentially achievable ask. Now it feels like cloud cuckoo land thinking.

I was going to write something about the gradual shift of what has come to be seen as acceptable, but sadly, it doesn't feel so "gradual" anymore. The Overton window has not so much drifted towards anti-migrant sentiment as hurtled there. What once felt well within the range of reasonable now seems to be considered outlandishly radical while what once felt consigned to the history books is making its way into policy. I am not sure how we slow its pace. I'm not sure how we shift it back the other way. I am not sure how we make "woke" into the compliment it ought to be. 

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I am not going to deny that there are people within the asylum system who are not particularly nice. I am not even going to attempt to justify it all away by trauma and circumstances, although that is often a contributory factor. The reality is there will be some asylum seekers who will commit crimes and some who are playing the system. People seeking sanctuary are no more perfect than the rest of us. They are not all heroes any more than they are all villains: they are simply humans who should be treated as such.

The same is true of people of every race and nation. Sarah Everard's murderer was a Met police officer, but no-one is standing outside police stations implying everyone on the inside is dangerous. Harold Shipman is the most prolific serial killer in British history but we don't use that as a reason to spread hate and fear of all GPs. We don't think everyone from Yorkshire should be sent back there because of the Yorkshire Ripper ... 

No crime by any individual, whatever their ethnicity or immigration status should be allowed to justify the demonisation of an entire (tiny) segment of the population. Aside from that, there is zero statistical evidence to bear out the idea that increased migration has caused increased crime. On the contrary, while migration has increased in recent years, serious crime has, whatever the public perception from media coverage may be, been decreasing. 

There is a reason why we have moved away from "stranger danger" messaging: and it is that it has consistently been proven that it just isn't true. If this is really about protecting women and children we need to name the fact that as a woman, you are far more likely to be killed by your partner that someone who has just arrived in our country looking for safety, as a child, you are far more likely to be harmed by a family member than someone who happens to have been made to live in a hotel in your town. We are at far greater risk from those we know and trust. Statistically, if we want someone to demonise, it should be our family and friends. 

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Another aspect of the summer which has felt particularly difficult has been the targeting of the Schools of Sanctuary movement, the movement, and some schools, including of schools we have worked alongside have experienced vicious threats and abuse. Beginning with a Telegraph article and picked up by the far right keyboard warriors and others who have weighed in online. When we left X / twitter, our decision to do so was based on safeguarding as well as ethical concerns. I would like to have been proven wrong but fear we have been proven very right. While neither of the charities I work for have been directly targeted it did leave me deeply conscious of how vulnerable to attack we could be. I know we are not alone within the sector in having to be realistic about the increased risks we face. 

The crux of the criticism was around a valentine's day campaign to write cards of welcome for refugees, but it drew in wider issues, seeking to sew seeds of doubt about whether it is right to educate children about the lives of people seeking sanctuary, whether it is ok to create cultures of welcome, tolerance and acceptance of all. This education, and the specific bit of it I am involved in, facilitating encounters between people seeking sanctuary and the children in our communities feels more important than ever, but also more vulnerable. It is still early in the school year: it remains to be seen whether this campaign will make schools more apprehensive of engaging with the work we do, or make the people seeking sanctuary I work with feel less safe to contribute, less able to voice their stories aloud.

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You have to hand it to the far right: their marketing strategy and ability to mobilise has been spectacularly successful. It has helped of course, that they are backed by very significant resource, but their messaging has also been very cleverly designed. They have been exceptionally adept at playing on fears and discontent and choosing images that draw people in and mobilising them. 

The co-opting of the flag as a symbol to rally behind has been particularly clever. If swastikas had appeared on lampposts across the country, or big signs saying migrants out, they'd have undoubtedly been called out and hurriedly removed. It is much harder to challenge someone for flying the national flag, even if you know the reasons for raising it are not entirely innocent and are aware of the discomfort it is causing. It comes with an easy to parrot defence, which seems to have successfully taken in many 'good' people. It requires a more nuanced response which can't be captured in a social-media friendly three-word slogan.

I have heard people who I respect, even people who I have campaigned alongside on social justice issues, repeat the line that this is purely a show of patriotism and that communities should be allowed to take pride in their British identity. I have heard many people who see it as no cause for concern. I wish it was true. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are individuals who are making less consciously informed choices, and don't fully understand the agenda behind "raising the colours", but I think we dismiss or justify it as just that at our peril. Michael Rosen's description of fascism has never felt more real, more chilling, more immediate: "I sometimes fear that people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you... It doesn't walk in saying, 'Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.' "

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One of the things that saddens me about all of this, is that it is serving as a very effective distraction from the very real issues people in many of our communities (both those with migration in their recent histories and those without) are facing. Because I am not denying that many in our society are really struggling and feel genuinely disenfranchised and unheard. 

I am drawing something of a distinction here, clearly, between those who, caught up in lives that are potentially far from the ideal ones they'd like to be living lack the energy and the political education to really understand what is going on here, and those who are pulling the strings behind the scenes who know exactly what they are doing and why.

The wealth of our country is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands with the richest in our country hoarding staggering amounts of wealth, accounted for in numbers most of us can't really get our heads around. Technological change is happening at a pace none of us can keep up with or really understand, and the accompanying societal and relational changes leave many of us feeling destabilised. Housing and employment feel less secure while prices of the things we have come to see as essentials continue to rise. With climate change gaining pace, we can't even trust the weather to be its usual unpredictable self.  

When everything feels like it is shifting beneath our feet, it is no surprise people want to find solid ground on which they can come to rest. When everything looks like it has become a grey area, sharp black and white is very attractive. I have spoken often of the need for all of us to find a community, a place were we feel we belong. Looking for easy solutions to complex problems isn't new. Nor is, in the face of things going wrong, looking for scapegoats and someone to blame. Nor is uniting around a common enemy: defining who is 'out' has long been a way to also define that we are 'in'.

But for as long as people are convinced that migration is the cause, they are less likely to fight for the real solutions to the real problems. And for as long as the politicians think that's what will make people vote for them, they will continue to introduce policies that will demonise people who have migrated to our country but that will make no material difference to the quality of people' lives.  

People seeking sanctuary make up a tiny proportion of the UK population. The same can be said of the trans community, another group being consistently demonised. They are among the most vulnerable and powerless. They are a very easy target. 

None of this has, in my opinion, happened by accident. There are people who this agenda suits exceptionally well. They are not, mostly, the people whose own lives have been pushed to the margins, who are, in some ways, as much victims of this ideology as anybody else.

This isn't about letting anyone involved in all this off the hook, but I do think that somehow the solution is in discourse not demonisation. I don't know how we facilitate that. There are a whole lot of people who aren't currently ready to for rational debate, but just angry dismissal, tempting though it is, probably isn't the solution. 

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If the summer has been difficult for people seeking sanctuary it isn't only because of the rhetoric out on the streets and in our social media feeds. It is also because that rhetoric is driving policy decisions in Westminster. There have been so many, one after another, that almost every day I have checked the news in trepidation wondering what hideous new policy or procedure is going to be announced today. Most feel like they are simply performative cruelty which will have no demonstrable benefits but will cause untold harm to the wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable neighbours.  

Don't get me wrong: I don't want people to have to get into small boats across the channel either. Nor do I want people to be forced to live in "hotels". I want policies that genuinely challenge both of those things. I want to be able to campaign against them because we are in search of better options not worse ones. I want climate change to be taken seriously and an end to an arms trade that makes war and repression a valuable business model forcing more and more people to flee their homes. I want safe routes that stop people resorting to ever more dangerous methods to reach our shores. I want decent, community-based accommodation models and faster and fairer decision making processes to allow people to integrate. How do we get there? 

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One of the things I have always said to reassure friends, and perhaps myself, about the anti-migrant agenda is that while it is very real, it doesn't represent the wider British public: that overall we stand for tolerance and welcome. As the summer has worn on, I no longer feel able to be quite so confident in those assertions. I still maintain that there are plenty of people for whom this is the very antithesis of what it really means to be British, what they want the union flag to represent. 

But with more and more people caught up in either participating in or justifying actions which are clearly being orchestrated (and funded) by the far right, with views once the preserve of said far right being increasingly deemed acceptable within mainstream political discourse, with people I thought of as reasonable espousing views which to my mind definitely aren't, and with the very real threat of a Reform government after our next general election, I feel less able to state confidently that these are only the views of a tiny minority. 

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I probably also need to acknowledge that there is a cumulative affect of the ongoing awfulness that I have watched the people I support be subjected to over the past few years. That things feel heavier now not only because, objectively, they are, but because they come not in isolation but in addition to all the stuff that has come before.

The fact that I am 'finalising' this post a couple of days after the biggest far-right anti-migration / anti-migrant march I can remember is not lost on me. The fact that even that has not been met with solid condemnation from all sides speaks, I fear, of where we are. 

But this is not the end of the story, mine, or ours. Part 2 to follow ... I am not giving up.

An examen of the moment

As a student at university I was introduced to St Ignatius of Loyola's 'examen' prayer. It is an exercise which invites you to reflect on things that have brought you 'consolation' and 'desolation' and use both to try and understand what God might be trying to say to you. It is an exercise we shared sometimes at chaplaincy morning prayer, and I often used to struggle to have anything at all to put in the 'desolation' column. I was young and naively idealistic, but it was true: even in things that weren't perfect, I could see enough light, life, learning to hesitate to describe them as 'desolation'.

I would still describe myself as an incorrigible optimist, but I have long since ceased struggling with this. As for this summer, there have been times when the balance has felt very different. Don't get me wrong, I still consistently have plenty to put in the consolation column. But there have been days when the desolation side has weighed far heavier.

I find this hard to admit, to myself or out loud, and I think there are a number of distinct but interrelated reasons why...

By almost every set of criteria, I am incredibly privileged. I am, I like to think, deeply conscious of my privilege, and I aspire for that to drive me to use it well, but that doesn't change the fact of it. I am white, British, well-educated, neurotypical, cis-gendered, middle-class. I have never experienced any significant trauma. I have had amazing opportunities to travel and to learn and to have many beautiful different experiences. I have a comfortable home, am financially stable and get paid to do what I love. I have good physical and mental health. I have a supportive family and an incredible community of friends around me.

The same cannot be said for many, perhaps even the majority, of those I share my life with, many have whom have experienced, and continue to experience, multiple forms of disadvantage. 

Over the summer I have been deeply affected by the hostility towards people seeking asylum and other people who have migration as part of their story. But I have also carried a nagging sense of guilt that I *shouldn't* be finding it so hard. I am not the target of any of this hostility in the way that many of my friends are. I am not being targeted by the flag-waving or the hate-filled rants which mis-represent entire communities, nor will I be personally impacted by the endless stream of hostile policies being spewed out of Westminster. When all of this leaves me feeling, to stick to the theme, 'desolate', a voice in my head nags me that, from my position of privilege, I have no right to feel less motivated, to have less energy, to want to just curl up in a corner. That instead I have more responsibility than ever to be a source of light and hope and support for others. And while the guilt may be unhelpful, it also carries truth within it: in many of the situations and relationships in which I exist, I do have a greater capacity and therefore greater responsibility to be the carrier rather than the carried. If I lack the energy, or motivation to do the thing, whatever the thing may be, that almost invariably impacts on someone in a far more difficult situation than I am. 

I guess this links to my other main about this, which is my realisation of just how much my role and my very identity feels tied up in my boundless positivity. As I said further up, I describe myself as an incorrigible optimist and I think that is how most other people think of me too: as someone who is full of joy and recklessly hopeful. I picked up the nickname Tigger at university and the image of irrepressible energy, if not the nickname, have followed me ever since. A fellow English teacher at St Chad's Sanctuary once used me as an illustration / definition to explain the word 'enthusiastic' to language learners. This is who I am, and it is who I want to be. I am, for the most part, honoured that it is what others see in me ... but there is a certain pressure here too. If this is who I am, then what is my role or my identity or even my worth in the moments when those things desert me? Of course I do know, rationally, that my inherent value is not tied up in this, but what we know rationally and what we experience don't always correlate!   

Plus let's face it there's probably just some plain old pride and ego mixed in there too. Maybe none of us like to admit to the things we perceive as weakness or failure.

But while I may not like the fact, and may not like admitting the fact, the reality is my desolation column is overflowing at the moment. I have had days when it has been much harder than usual to identify signs of hope. I have had days when I have felt sapped of energy. I have had days when I have cried. Being as I'm in my forties, I could probably blame it all on hormones and the perimenopause, but frankly, objectively, I think it is all an entirely rational response to the state of the world. I don't think this is the place to go into why (I have another partially written post dealing with that which may or may not see the light of day some point soon if I can wrestle it into some sort of coherent text from the swirl of random snippets of words it is currently!). This is simply about acknowledging the struggle and accepting the vulnerability implicit in doing so. 

I could end there. 

But the wisdom of the examen is that there are always two columns. In a way that I perhaps didn't in the naivety of my youth, I do now understand the value in identifying and naming the desolation. But that certainly hasn't replaced seeking out the consolation. It might take a bit more effort right now, but it is still there, so much of it is still there (a more upbeat post outlining some of this will come soon too, I promise!). 

The general principle of the examen is to aim to do less of the stuff that brings desolation, and more of that which brings consolation, because God wants us to find our joy and to have fullness of life. That isn't always possible. We, I, can't always avoid the stuff which is causing desolation; nor is doing more of anything, even that which brings consolation, always quite the right answer either. But there is definitely a place for making space to intentionally recognise and appreciate more the signs of love and light and life and for cultivating hope and gratitude wherever I can. 

I have recently started using the Carrs Lane Community morning prayer book again. For many years it was the anchor of my days and I am grateful to still be able to return to it periodically. The opening prayer each day is borrowed / stolen from Br Roger of Taize. A couple of mornings ago it started with words which felt very apt:   

God of consolation, even when we feel nothing of your presence, still you are here. Your presence is invisible but your Holy Spirit is always within us. Amen

There is always consolation. I will keep seeking it out. May you be able to do the same.

School's out for summer!

I have written a couple of posts recently, but prior to that, once again, more than a month, in fact almost two, had slipped by without any blogposts making their way on to the page / screen. In fact in general, my blogpost output this year has been significantly reduced: it looks very likely that 2025 will be the year with the fewest published post since I began this whole endeavour all those years ago. There have been a number of different contributory factors, but over the past couple of months, sheer busy-ness has probably been the main one.

With Refugee Week falling in the middle of it, June has long been one of my busiest months of the year. July, which includes our now annual REP performance and Kintbury residential, is often not far behind. This year was no exception. 

Knowing what was coming, and aware that the early part of the year had taken quite a heavy emotional toll, when May seemed to be shaping up to be a little calmer than some months I managed to be quite intentional about keeping it that way meaning that, perhaps more so than in some years, I faced my busiest season feeling very much ready to go. 

I hit the beginning of June looking at a couple of months in which my diary was certainly very full: with both regular commitments and all the extra things to fit in around them. Already full with things planned well in advance, I also knew there still needed to be space for things which inevitably needed to be squeezed in last minute. 

Refugee Week was filled with activities and celebrations: there was poetry and paint, there was dialogue and dancing, there was laughter and love. This year's theme: Community is a Superpower was a fitting reminder that we are enriched by one another when we create a culture of togetherness rather than isolation. Summer generally makes other trips, activities and outings more possible and more appealing and I had a number of fun days out with different groups of people enjoying fresh air and sunshine and a break from the stresses and strains of their everyday. The REP performance, Home is Where We Belong, already has its own blogpost. The Festival of Encounter would also probably need one to do it justice too.

The number of invitations for school visits always ramps up in the summer term, but this year even more so. We ended the academic year having done a rather satisfying total of 52 visits. For comparison, the previous year's total was 34, so suffice it to say this part of my work has become an increasingly significant time commitment. These visits can, of course, be emotionally heavy but they are also a source of great hope. In a society where the hostile rhetoric around migration sometimes seems to be winning, they feel more important than ever.

In between times, my regular commitments continued: running regular sessions for both Birch and Stories and offering support around the edges to lots of different individuals. The days when my hotel sessions felt like light relief of 'just doing some fun stuff with kids' are long gone: over time they have become increasingly complex and involved, and while often characterised more by what I can't do than what I can, I continue to believe that friendly presence and a listening ear are a valuable contribution to a sense of welcome and wellbeing. As for the Stories group, as well as building towards the REP performance, we've been working on a writing project the outcomes of which I think are going to be incredibly powerful and which I am looking forward to sharing in due course.

I should possibly add that it wasn't all about work: there were plenty of other non-work things, including chances to host visitors and catch up with friends, that also contributed to my over-flowing diary ... not that there is always a clear boundary between work and play in the way I live my life, nor do I want there to be. 

And so here we are in August and despite the fact that June and July were, by any objective standards, a bit bonkers, I reached the slight lull of summer admittedly rather behind on admin, and conscious of big questions to reflect on about capacity going forward from here, but generally feeling like I am in a good place. That's partly because despite the weight of the stories and the state of the world, much of what I have spent my time doing over the past couple of months is, without wanting to underestimate the cost, stuff that gives me life and energy and hope. 

The school summer holidays always mark, for me, a shift in rhythm and routine as well as the ending and beginning of a new year. There is plenty to look back at (and catch up on!), as well as plenty to look forward to. A new diary is waiting to be filled. I am ready. 

Home is here, but it's also there

It is a couple of weeks since Stories of Hope and Home once again took to the stage at Birmingham REP theatre with their latest performance. We have done this enough times now that when, several weeks out, we have lots of ideas but no real form to the script, and when only a couple of weeks out, we still don't really know who the cast will be, I am more able to genuinely believe it'll all be alright, or more than alright, on the day. And as ever, of course, it was. 

For the past couple of years our starting point has been the theme given to us by the REP: after last year's "Love and Rebellion" I didn't think we could possibly be gifted such an appropriate theme again but as it turned out this year's theme "Home and Horizons" was also an excellent fit! Apart from that, we start, in about January, with an entirely blank canvas, with no preconceived ideas of structure or content. And then the conversations begin, the ideas emerge, and slowly but surely, something starts to take shape. It is a genuinely collaborative experience and a process I actively enjoy. The fact that each performance has been so very different in scope and style is testament to the many different people who have been involved in devising, writing and performing each piece: to who they are, individually and collectively, and to what they want to communicate.

One major difference this year from previous years was that we had all of the cast speaking live on stage, something we have never previously attempted. They were, or some at least were, palpably apprehensive, understandably so: but it worked, better even perhaps than they or I might have hoped.  The content was also quite different: while last year's piece focused exclusively on life in the UK asylum system, this year's also drew on the other places our participants call home, as we explored the shared experience of so many of the group of feeling partially at home in two (or more) places, but fully at home in neither. I told someone in advance that I thought it was also less overtly political than last year's piece, but after watching it, they questioned whether that was really true.   

For all the differences each year there are also significant similarities: each year I watch people support and encourage one another, achieving together something many of them didn't think they could do, each year I watch people grow in confidence and find their voice and new ways to express themselves, each year I watch an audience be educated and moved by the stories they hear, each year I watch people get a glimpse of just how amazing this group of people are, each year I am immensely proud of what this wonderful groups of people produce and perform. Above all, each year I watch people who are enjoying the process and having a whole lot of fun!   

"Home is Where we Belong" ended with the performers weaving together ribbons while reciting this poem, itself woven together from words and phrases from the group. It tries to capture much of what home means to them, what it feels like to always be stuck somewhere in the middle, as well as how, when our stories weave together, we can create something beautiful. 

Home is a meal and all those who share it,
Home is the flavours, home is the sounds,
Home is the joy, the dancing, the laughter
Home is the people by whom we've been found
Home is the love of all we call family
And the table we gather around

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong

Home is the cold I'll never get used to
And my skin warmed by African sun
Home is a language that sings in my ears
And one that still tangles my tongue
Home is a place of childhood nostalgia
The things that I've seen, the things that I've done

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong

Home is a place where all is familiar
But a place I was forced to flee
Home is a place that is still slightly strange
But a place where I feel safe and free
Home is traditions I've known forever
Home is where I can truly be me

And home is there, but it's also here

A heart tossed and tugged and torn

And home is here but it's also there

A heart in two places at once

And home is this space in the middle

Where strangers can soon become friends

And home is this space in the middle

Where we each find a place to belong

What's in a name

As of a couple of weeks ago, I am formally divorced. This is a story only snippets of which have been told here, for a number of reasons, not least that it is only partly my story to tell. But it is certainly true to say that, just as my marriage shaped my life over many years, my recent history has been impacted and shaped by its ending. The final order, confirming we are divorced was, in many ways, a mere final formality, but it nonetheless marks a line in the sand. An ending, and as with all endings, a beginning.

But that's not really what this post is about. 

Since we separated, I have been asked by various people whether I will be keeping my surname: so for those who are interested, the answer is yes, I am. I can, of course, understand that for many people, a different decision feels right and appropriate, but for me, for now, this is the right choice. For my own benefit, as much as anyone else's, I decided to try to explain my reasoning.

On a purely practical level, I don't think I can face the administrative hassle of changing everything! But while the sinking sense of dread at the idea of all that paperwork might be a factor, that's not really the reason because of course I could do so if it felt right to. My decision to stick to the surname I have used for the past twenty years actually feels like a much more positive and intentional one than that. 

Having married straight out of university, I have had my current surname for the whole of my adult life. The vast majority of people who know me, whether personally or professionally, have never known me by any other name. And even for those who have, it was a very long time ago. While it may have started out as me adopting "his" name, twenty years on this name is definitely also "mine" in my own right. For me, and for everyone around me, it is my current name which is instantly recognisable, which trips off the tongue. I don't think our names define us, but I do think they are part of our identity. For myself, and for almost everyone I interact with regularly, this, with the name I have, is who I am. 

I tend to think it is significant that our names are, primarily, gifted to us: an acknowledgement that our communities contribute to our identity. (I say this not, of course, to cast judgement on anyone who, for different reasons and in different circumstances, chooses their own name) In a sense, of course, it was a choice to change my name when I got married although it was, to be honest, one to which I gave very little thought. Even twenty years ago, I think there was much more of an assumption (from me as much as anyone else) that I would change my name. I suspect, if I was marrying now (spoiler alert, no, its not something I'm considering!) it would be something I would give more consideration to: But on balance, I don't look back and wish I'd done so at the time. 

In a statement that comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody, I have quite a community orientated view of life. In getting married, I joined not just a husband, but his family: and I was welcomed into a new family with open arms and open hearts. My surname is also a connection to them. There are a myriad of both jokes and horror stories about in-laws but I have said from day 1 (though maybe not out loud often enough) that I am incredibly lucky with mine. The changes and turbulence of recent years have proved it even more so. I know that connection is not created by, and would not be broken by, a name. There are plenty of people I consider part of my family with whom I never have and never will share a name, but I think it is appropriate to acknowledge that my continued sense of belonging is a factor in why my name still feels like a good fit. I know I will always have a place in my biological family, I am lucky enough that I am confident I will always have a place in this family too. I guess, strictly speaking, that final order bit of paper means in "law" is no longer strictly true, but those who know me, will know I am not one to think that either biology or the law gets to have the final word in who we are allowed to call family.

The people who gifted me my childhood names helped shape who I have become. Those who gifted me my married one, no less so. I am not in a place where I want to in anyway deny how significant my married life has been in shaping the person I am today. I realise it is a privilege that I can still say this. While there are of course unbroken threads running through, I know I am not the same person as the 23-year-old me who first signed a new name. A multitude of different experiences have contributed to that, not all of them directly related to being married, but all of them lived out with the name I have now. Reverting to my maiden name just doesn't doesn't seem the right fit for who I have become as a result of all that I have lived in between. Simply put, that name just doesn't really feel mine, any more, in the way my current one does. 

All of this might make it seem like I gave a huge amount of thought to deciding whether to keep my current name: which is not strictly speaking true. As with changing my name at the beginning of my marriage, keeping my name at the end of it came down to the fact that it instinctively just felt right. This is just me subsequently musing and working out why. 

An island of strangers, and of friends

In announcing the latest "let's see which party can do the best job of blaming migrants for all the issues of late-stage consumer capitalism" measures, Keir Starmer made a speech in which he stated that we risk "becoming an island of strangers." 

On one level, he's not wrong. 

We do risk becoming an island of strangers.

But it isn't because of migration.

We risk becoming an island of strangers because, with our heads down and noses buried in devices we don't see the people around us. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are allowing algorithms to choose what we hear and who we interact with. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are surrounded by messages telling us to focus solely on ourselves and trying to convince us that it is consumption rather than community which will make us happy. We risk becoming an island of strangers because we are constantly being told to be afraid of anyone who is in anyway different to ourselves or to a perceived norm. 

I am not denying there is a problem here. The impacts of rampant individualism and of so many individuals drowning in isolation are significant for individual health and wellbeing, for the fabric of society and for the very future of our planet. 

But it isn't because of migration. 

On the contrary, if we let it, I'd argue that migration has the potential to be far more a cure than a cause of this isolation. My own experience tells me so.

We do not become strangers because our neighbours are from different countries or cultures: we become strangers because we lock our doors and do not ask their names. And when we dare to unlock our doors and speak to each other? ... We find ourselves living instead on an island of friends.

Of all the places I have ever lived, (and there have been quite a few!) Birmingham is the place I feel most at home. Initially, that took me by surprise: excited as I was by the opportunity that brought us here, one of my hesitations was that I wasn't at all sure how much I'd enjoy living in Birmingham. Those doubts have long since been dispelled. I have now lived here for longer than I've lived anywhere else and find it hard to imagine ever moving away. I describe myself, confidently, as an adopted Brummie.

The map on my living room wall shows the countries of origin of everyone who has visited my home 

If my itchy feet have more-or-less stopped itching, and I have reached a point of being content to put down at least some kind of roots, it wasn't because I lost interest in learning about other cultures and meeting new people: it wasn't because I was ready to retreat to an "island". It was because I came to rest in a place where staying put continued to allow me to feel connected to the world, for my story to be interwoven with and enriched by the stories of so many others whose lives look different to mine. 

Birmingham's diversity, and the communities I am privileged to be a part of which are made up of friends and chosen family from across the globe are definitely a core part of why this place is home. I am deeply grateful for the colour and culture and conversation these friendships have brought into my life. Oh and food, did I mention all the good food?! Far from making me feel like a stranger, migration has played a huge role in me finding a place where my life feels vibrant and fulfilled, a place where I feel I belong. 

I know I am, against all the odds, an incorrigible optimist ... but I am not naïve. 

I know there are people from every wave of migration who have, for a wide variety of reasons found integration incredibly challenging and have turned inwards into segregated groups, and that this does need to be addressed. I know resources are stretched thin and public services have been stripped bare by the systematic concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, which places pressures on communities for which we need to find genuine solutions. I know there are issues around community cohesion that need to be faced head on. 

But I also know that more and more restrictive migration policies, and a rhetoric around migration that presents it as problem rather than gift is not the solution.  

I know this both intellectually and emotionally. I know it to the very core of my being. 

I know it, because I live on an island of friends. 

Reflections on Hope

Sometimes I have found a way to do Lent well; other years, not so much. I was short on inspiration this year, so as it approached I asked various people for suggestions about how I might mark the season. One of the responses was "write a poem every day". After quite a difficult start to the year, I was by that point, in a better place but I knew that I certainly still wasn't in a space where I was going to have the energy or creative spark to write a poem each day. It did, though, prompt what I actually decided to do which was to write, about hope, for three minutes, everyday. 

The three minute timer made it feel manageable: and I kept it up, almost every single day. The odd days I missed I caught up on the day after; at least until I went away for Holy Week when it fell by the wayside entirely.   

Sometimes ideas teemed and I could have filled three minutes several times over, other days I felt like I was forcing words onto blank white pages. Some days, I guess you might have called what I wrote poetry, of a sort. Other days, not so much. Some of the thoughts or words or phrases might turn in to something else at a later date. Others almost certainly won't. 

Here are a few snippets: 

• "In the painting over my dining room table, hope is depicted with a candle and a signpost. A light, albeit a flickering one, and a sense of direction. In the background is the image of an anchor. The holding firm, the holding still. Can hope be both the things that hodls us still and steady as well as the thing that points us forward, urges us on, shows they way?"
• "Hope is the voice that still sings, even as the tears fall unexpectedly, it is the voice that reaches for the tune even when it struggles to catch its breath, hope finds its way, even when it can't find the words"
• "Birthpangs. Miracles. Struggle. And Hope."
• "I was given flowers today: a bunch of tightly closed daffodils, bursting with potential and possibility, but at the moment looking like, well, not a lot really.... but we look at them and know. There is colour to come. This is hope."
• "There is no doubt in my mind that if hope was a person, it would be a small child ... a child who reminds us that when the pressures of life and societal expectation are stripped away, people are, at bottom, good. We are born capable of great compassion, empathy, love." 
• "Sometimes I find my hope in dreaming big dreams, making plans, creating a vision. But not always. Sometimes hope is found in an organised jobs list, in making manageable chunks, in jobs ticked off. In the little things."
• "Hope can seem soft and fluffy, as substance-less as the clouds ... that slips through fingers, turns to nothing when you try to grab hold of it. But I'm not so sure. I think there is something hard and strong at its centre"
• "There is something about waiting for the fun to start. A sense of anticiation. The quiet cup of tea. the calm before the chaos. Tinged with hope"
• Hope is in many ways the heart of my work, of my faith, of my life."
• "Sometimes hope comes in the form of a phone call"
• "Hope is green, like the fresh shoots of spring. Hope is glittering and golden like stars in the night sky. Hope is bright white, a pinprick of light at the end of a tunnel" 
• "Sometimes hope is found among friends. And sometimes, hope is a friend in its own right. A friend that shares in our joys, that looks towards the future, that cheers us on. A friend who sits by our side in the darkness, holds our hand and whispers, don't give up."
• "Sometimes hope is in the fresh-faced new beginnings. The fierce belief you can make a difference. Perhaps this hope is naive at times. Perhaps its exuberance feels misplaced. Maybe it talks too much, treads on the toes of the careworn. But all of us would do well to hold on to this, even overlaid with doubt and cynacism. And just as importantly, how can we nurture it, or at least not crush it, in one another."
• "Sometimes the right choice is to take off your shoes and socks and paddle in the sea at sunset"
• "I am pleased I planted so many spring bulbs because spring flowers bring me so much joy. There are signs of new life and new growth everywhere. And yes, some of those are nettles and tangled weeds. And yes, there is probably work to be done ... But such is life."
• "I wonder how much even a tentative and uncertain hope in the 'after' impacts how we live in the 'before'?"
• "On days like this, when the sun shines, when the birds sing, when there is community and friendship and love and laughter, and spontaneous trips into green spaces, and trees to climb, and conversations ... on days like this hope feels closer, easier to grasp, more tangibly present. It can be sought at other times too, of course, but I am grateful for days like these

It was a helpful discipline and I am glad I did it.

Aunty Mary

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had started the year with two bereavements. It was a privilege to be invited to give the eulogy / tribute at my Aunty Mary's funeral last month. Whether or not it is of interest to anyone else, my blog is also the place I keep a record of many of my thoughts and reflections so it feels appropriate to share it here: 

Mary Carmel, or Aunty Mary as I knew her, was born in 1942. Of course, I didn’t know her at all for the first half of her life and have only fairly hazy memories for a good few years after that. I have also never lived close at hand. Others among you probably, in many ways, knew her better. But I’m not going to try and speak about all the bits I don’t know, I’m simply going to share something of the aunty Mary I knew and loved. We hope that, in the course of the day, you will have the chance to share your own memories and stories of the Mary you knew too. Fundamentally, though, I suspect the Mary we all knew was very much one and the same.

Perhaps the thing I most associate with Aunty Mary is her consistent generosity. When we were kids, and came down to Dorset on holiday, she would decamp to Grandma and Grandad’s, leaving her flat for us to stay in. As a small child, I entirely took this for granted as just what happened. Now, as an adult with a home of my own, I can appreciate the incredible generosity of something she did seemingly without a second thought. On one of my very last visits here, I came with very dear friends of mine: people that Mary didn’t know and had never met. Her generosity, instantly, unquestioningly, extended to and included them too. It was clear that it had never occurred to her that it wouldn’t. I could, but you’ll be pleased to hear won’t, give many, many other examples.

She was fervently committed to her faith and to the church, which played a huge role in what she did, who she knew, who she was. My living out of my Christian faith looks very different to how Mary lived hers, but throughout my life she has been a witness to what it means to have an unwavering commitment to God, and to living out your faith with and for others.

Mary was an extrovert in the true sense of the word: she loved to be around people and, ideally, at the very centre of things. Not in a “look at me” kind of way, but in an “I don’t want to miss out on anything” kind of way. I suspect, know even, that in later years she was sometimes frustrated by things her health and mobility forced her to forego. And more than once, in my recent experience, she overdid it probably more than was good for her. I guess she figured exhaustion was better than the FOMO and if there was any way she could be there, in the midst of it all, she was going to make sure that she was.

She loved people, and put effort into building and maintaining friendships and relationships across time and distance. She was appreciative of any time or contact we gave in return. Even when I hadn’t seen her or been in touch for a while, there was never a hint of complaint or disappointment: I always felt she was genuinely pleased to see me or hear from me. She loved us, her nephews and nieces. She loved me, I never doubted it.

Over the years, she was genuinely interested in and reliably supportive of my many different adventures and projects.

Growing up, she was one of the few people I knew who had been to all sorts of interesting and exotic places: perhaps, subconsciously, that fed into my own love of discovering the world. When I was on my gap year at 18, she came to visit me in Belgium. I suspect that had she been younger and fitter she might later have flown out during my year in the Philippines too.

More recently she has been consistently supportive of the projects, causes, and charities I have worked with and believed in. She cared about the things I cared about, partly, I’m sure, because she genuinely did, but also, and perhaps more so, because she cared about me.

Obviously, I will remember Mary for smaller, more incidental things too: her love of word puzzles and of cheap cola. Her collection of pigs. Quite a lot of poorly-framed photos with people’s heads cut off. Helping her to fix some bit of technology … again. Eating fish and chips. It is wholly appropriate that one of the last photos I have with aunty Mary is of us eating fish and chips on the harbour wall in Weymouth. It is one of many such pictures taken over the years.

There’s a line that says something like “everyone has an aunty Mary”. I am very lucky that I had mine.

Answers (11)

This is it, we have reached the final instalment of the Q and A, the "to answer" jar is now empty so these are the last 6 answers...

49) What is your greatest regret?

I'm struggling to think of an answer to this. Obviously I have made choices that possibly / probably weren't ideal. Of course if I put my mind to it I can think of conversations that could have progressed differently, relationships I could have nurtured more, actions I possibly ought (or ought not) to have taken, places I perhaps wish I'd been. I am sure I have unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) made decisions which have not been in my best interests and which have also negatively impacted on / hurt others. But while learning from our mistakes and misjudgements is of course incredibly important, dwelling on regret seems particularly unhelpful. We cannot change the past. We are shaped by it, and we can learn from it, but we can not rewrite it. It is easy to look back at decisions or actions we have made and judge them by the standards of the person we are today ... the person we have only become because of the things we did then. For sure, some of the choices my younger self made I might not make again as the person I am now ... but had I not made them, I wouldn't be who I am. So it is in all honesty that I write that I don't believe I am holding on to any really significant regrets.  

50) Where does happiness come from?

I consider myself immensely privileged to have found happiness, but that doesn't mean I have found the answer to where it comes from. Of course I experience all the other emotions too: I get sad, and scared, and frustrated, and lethargic and overwhelmed and ... but at some deeper level I know myself to be happy. I know that this is a privilege, one which I trust I never take for granted. I can identify some of the things that contribute to my happiness, but I don't think I have a universal answer to where happiness comes from: I wish I did. I have met so many people who wrestle with deep sadness and struggle to find true joy: if I knew the answer to this and could gift it to them, I would do so in a heartbeat. 

51) What is the weirdest thing about you?

Obviously I looked up a definition: apparently weird means "very strange, unusual, unexpected or unnatural." I suspect there are probably quite a few things I could choose for this one. In many ways I am an entirely conventional product of my culture and upbringing, but I also acknowledge that there are aspects to who I am and how I live my life that perhaps aren't entirely typical. Some are fairly superficial, others perhaps more fundamental. I guess some people find it weird that I honestly can't remember the last time I wore make up. I know quite a few people who think it strange that I have never learned to drive. Some might even think me liking marmite is weird (but they'd be wrong). I know, or at least hope, that some of my values and principles and choices are at least a little bit counter-cultural... but I hesitate to call them weird. 

To be honest, I think I am entirely normal, so this is probably really one other people need to answer for / about me!  

52) Who is your greatest hero? 

Google tells me that the definition of a hero is "a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities."  I can't possibly pick out one individual. I am privileged to meet people every single day who meet that definition: People whose resilience and capacity to hold on to hope, whose ability to keep loving and keep laughing through unimaginable trauma, is nothing short of heroic. 

53) Is love a feeling or a choice?

I guess my answer would be that it is a combination of both. I do think feelings come into it: we have a natural affinity with certain people, often times in ways we can't really explain and which may seem entirely illogical, even to ourselves. There are people we click with, and who we naturally feel at ease around, or want to spend time with, or ... 

But love is more than that too. It is, most definitely, also a choice that we make and remake. Love is beautiful, but not effortless. It is about having in mind another person's wants and needs, and responding accordingly. It is about showing up and being there for each other when it is easy, yes, but also when it isn't. 

54) What's your biggest dream?

I honestly didn't plan it this way, but it seems fitting to end on a dream. I have mulled over for a while all the things I would love to see and trying to choose the "biggest". In the end, though, I think they all distil into one huge, but really quite simple dream. I dream of living in a world where we all, genuinely, see one another as fully human with equal rights, dignity and worth. I genuinely believe that if that dream were fulfilled, if we truly, genuinely recognised one another's humanity, everything else of which I dream would also fall neatly (or to be honest fairly messily) into place.  

Death is something, after all

There is a very famous poem by Henry Scott Holland which begins with the words "Death is nothing at all". I understand both the intention and the sentiment. I am sure there are many who have found it a great comfort and, of course, I do not intend to cast judgement on anyone who has found solace in it. There are lines within the poem that I like and with which I don't disagree.

But it isn't, in fact, true. And for me personally, it doesn't really feel comforting either.

Because death is not nothing at all. Generally, I think it is probably healthy and helpful to acknowledge that death is, in fact, very much something. When someone dies, even the language we use so often dances around the reality. How often do we hear people speak of loss, of passing away, ...? But refusing to name death doesn't make it go away. Shying away from acknowledging the enormity of it doesn't make it disappear or make it easier. Having had some involvement in such things recently, I can confirm that even on a purely practical level, death is certainly not nothing at all; on a social and emotional level, even more so.

Death is not nothing at all, because life is not nothing at all either. And our relationships with those around us are one of the things by which our lives are most enriched. Whatever our beliefs about what happens after death, however much confidence we have in eternal life and whether and how we might meet again those from whom we have been separated by death, to suggests that death is "nothing at all" feels like it denies just how much our relationships matter in life. It should be ok to acknowledge that death is painful, confusing, strange. That in their dying, as in their living, our relationships, with all their beauty and their messy complexity: with the light and the laughter, with the relief and the regret, with the poignancy and the pain: are most definitely not nothing.

Recently I have experienced the deaths of two people I knew and loved.

One of those deaths was sudden, and shocking. A friend who it had definitely not crossed my mind, the last time I saw him, that we would never meet again. He was one of those people who you'd not even realised you'd assumed would just always still be there ... until they aren't. He has left a gaping hole in a community which will probably never be entirely filled. A community which is still reeling. Whatever his death was, it was certainly not "nothing at all".

My aunt, meanwhile, had what can only really be described as a good death, at the end of a good life. She died after a short illness, well looked after and with family at her side. I have described her death to several people as sad, but not tragic. But it was not "nothing at all" either.

Over the past couple of years I have watched several other people I know struggle with the grief of the deaths of people they loved too: in some cases at the end of a long life, in others much too young, much to soon. None of these deaths were "nothing at all" either.

So in a similar vein to Caitlin Seida's response to Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a thing with Feathers", here is my response to Henry Scott Holland's poem:

Death is something after all, Henry.

Death is something, after all,
And while there may be times 

When it seems 

You have only slipped away to the next room

With a sharp jolt

Or a gentle whisper

We remember

You won't, in fact, 

Pop your head around the door frame

To interject

To take up where you left off

And if we call you by your old familiar name

Putting no difference in our tone
It hangs in the air

Unanswered

There is an echo to this emptiness

And silence does not fill the space

As the stories once did

We will, indeed,

Play, smile, think of you. Pray for you.

And I promise we will 

Laugh as we always laughed

But we will also

Cry

And sometimes 

We will laugh through tears

Or cry through our laughter

For there will be light

But there will also be traces 

Of the shadows it casts

And

Your absence will change us

Just as your presence did

For this is love

There is absolute unbroken continuity

But things are not the same

So you see 

Death is something, after all, Henry,

Because so is life

But you are also right...

That all will be well.

Resolutions

I am not a great believer in making new year's resolutions. I think all too often they can risk being just another pressure we put on ourselves to perform or achieve. Having said that, there are certainly times when I have found it helpful to reflect on those things that I know I want as part of my life that I have been neglecting and want to make a point of reprioritising. January is as good a time to do that as any. 

2024 was filled with many, many beautiful moments, shared with lots of very special people ... but it also threw a good many challenges my way, and more than once I only just stepped back from the brink of burnout. 2025 will undoubtedly have its own challenges. It will also be filled with many, many beautiful moments: but for that to be the case, I need to make sure I put in place the things I need to live it well. I know they include, among other things, time with others and time alone, spending time outdoors and away from a screen, a routine of prayer.

I also know that, when I make the time, space and energy for it, I value doing various creative activities. So I set myself not so much a resolution, as a challenge to put a bit more creativity back in my life. I decided that, for the whole of January at least, I would try to do something creative, however small, each day. I am not setting myself the target of keeping that up for the whole year. My hope is that, by cementing it into my routine at the beginning of the year, it will become sufficiently embedded into my life again.

I've discovered digital colour by numbers as a much better activity than doom-scrolling to keep me occupied on the bus; done the odd bit of painting; drawn, coloured and doodled. Some days I have set aside proper time, but more than once it has been a quick little scribble last thing at night. I have not produced any amazing works of art ... but that was never the point. 

So far, so good. For the rest, let's wait and see.  

Joseph is Missing - Christmas poem 2024

The Stories group Christmas party was a magical afternoon: Christmas dinner for 40 people, home-made cake and traditional Eritrean coffee, hilarious and highly-competitive games of pass the parcel, a visit from mother Christmas, music and conversation and laughter. There was a lot of noise and a lot of mess and at times utter chaos: but there were also plenty of people who by the end had helped restore some level of order. There was a whole lot of joy and a palpable sense of being community. 

At some point during it, Joseph went missing from the nativity scene.

A couple of days earlier, I'd had a smaller (all things being relative) gathering of ten for Christmas eve / day which had been also filled with so many beautiful moments, and during which the nativity scene had been augmented by home made shepherds and sheep and a wide variety of other toy animals. 

Another few days later we had another party ... one of the group had told me she had never had a birthday party or birthday cake so we were determined to give her a celebration to remember: another houseful (though only 33 this time!), more good food, more silly games, more music and dancing and karaoke and disco lights. Joseph did not reappear. The angel has now disappeared too.

In between times there were other lovely smaller gatherings with friends and family, and quiet days to myself with lots of preparing, sorting and tidying to do, but also space for the gathering of thoughts and space to rest and relax. 

I have often (last year being an exception) written a poem for Christmas and if I was going to write something this year, I really wanted it to capture the beauty of these Christmas celebrations with all these wonderful different people who I have in my life. I wanted it to capture the chaos and the joy, and perhaps a little of the in between downtime too. I wanted it to capture that this, for me, was a most fitting celebration of the incarnation and the kind of celebration Jesus would approve of and want to be in the midst of. 

The thought that "Joseph is missing" was a starting point which might capture some of that began to flicker around in my head. That, gradually became this, and as I am fully embracing the idea that the Christmas season lasts until Candelmas, I don't think it is too late to call it a Christmas poem.

Joseph is Missing

Joseph is missing
And the elephant, 

Yes, the one from the nativity scene,
Has lost a leg

He might turn up

But he wasn't under the table
With the widely-scattered popcorn

With the biscuit crumbs and sprinkles

Nor, seemingly, on the draining board

Or in a kitchen drawer

Put away 

Helpfully, unhelpfully, 

In the wrong place.

It's unlikely he's been eaten
But you never know

There was so much food

Which I'm sure tasted better 

Than a wooden Joseph
But nestled in the branches of the Christmas tree
A half-eaten bauble, 

Souvenir of another party,
Suggests others have different taste

He might turn up

Tucked amongst the tinsel, perhaps, 

Or at the bottom of a box

With the toy cars and the lego bricks

With the pencils, the pompoms and the plasticine

Or down the back of the sofa 

The one where Santa sat 

And inner children were embraced

He might turn up

But there's a pretty high chance
That as the music played

And the chaos reigned

He was bundled up, 

Helpfully, unhelpfully,

With the pass the parcel paper
And thrown away.

The elephant has, 

Definitely, 

Been thrown away
Sharp edges didn't pass the risk assessment to stay
But the zebras are still here
Worshipping the Christ-child
With the cows

And some time later
When the chaos has calmed
Fairy lights still twinkling like stars
The magi also arrive

And Joseph is still missing

But I can't help thinking
That looking out 

From this unconventional nativity scene

Jesus is smiling.

Reading List 2024

Having done it in 2022 and 2023, I guess it is now tradition that I collate my reading list for the year here on my blog. 

This year's again includes some books which I have really appreciated and enjoyed, but it is noticeably shorter than the previous two. This doesn't in the least bit surprise me, given how this year has been, but is perhaps something to deliberately work on for next year!

• On Heroes and Tombs - Ernesto Sabato
• Memphis - Tara M Stringfellow
• Absolutely and Forever - Rose Tremain
• The Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak
• Songbirds - Christi Lefteri
• The House of Doors - Tan Twa Eng
• The Bread the Devil Knead - Lisa Allen Agostini
• Wed Wabbit - Lissa Evans
• We are all completely beside ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler
• My Father's House - Joseph O'Connor
• An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison
• Brotherless Night - VV Ganeshananthan
• An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher - Hilary Mantel
• Why I'm no longer talking to white people about Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge
• The Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee
• Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum
• Mothers Boy - Patrick Gale
• A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters - Julian Barnes

I have just started "An Equal Music" by Vikram Seth, which will start off next year's list, but I am very much open to recommendations as to what else to add!