Unfamiliar with familiarity

When I first arrived in the UK, there was an enormous sense of unfamiliarity. The streets, the heaths, the air, the sounds of accents. They all swirled together to create a cacophony of unfamiliarity that was overwhelming for my senses at first. My eyes brightened as a double decker bus drove past closely followed by the iconic black cab.

The unfamiliarity was exciting. This was the great opportunity to enjoy the ‘excitement of the unknown’, to tackle living outside of a comfort zone. There was also a reassuring feeling of knowing these streets I was walking down would soon become part of my vernacular. A walk down Marylebone Road, a stroll beside Putney Bridge and the River Thames, a loop around Richmond Park. There was plenty of excitement and wonder, where I would look upwards for street signs attached to buildings and listening for the next reminder to mind the gap on another delayed District line service to Wimbledon.

Over time the unfamiliarity and nervousness made way for confidence and a feeling of familiarity. This was what I came for. I felt a connection to this foreign world, not quite rooted to it but still bound tightly with an adhesive of vindication. A few people over time asked me for directions, and once I even knew where they were looking to go. I felt less like part of the London furniture and more like one of the 270-odd London Underground tube stations, such was the feeling of knowing I had immersed myself and settled into this new journey.

Despite the global pandemic, Brexit and other disturbing realities facing the UK, there remained this sense of familiarity throughout 2020. I walked the same streets, cycled the same routes, made really good friends, explored new horizons and savoured many new memories. I still savour them.

Yet as a new year dawned, an old feeling returned.

I’ll never forget the feeling on New Year’s Day of walking around one area of South West London that I had come to know reasonably well, and not knowing where I was. I knew the road names were the same, but the usual assuredness and confidence of being rooted to the area had reverted to the feeling of unfamiliarity I had erased 12 – no, 14 months earlier.

A more recent walk down my main street was just as eye opening. The accents, the air, the traffic - they were all drowned out by the echoing sound of my mask-encompassed breath. I walked into a shop and could only hear the muffled sounds of an impending lockdown announcement from the Prime Minister, but even then I hadn’t allowed the significance of the news bulletin to set in. It’s not that I couldn’t hear the voices, the cars, the steps – I just couldn’t tune into them out of COVID-induced apathy or fatigue. Maybe this resilience I thought was endless instead had been gorged on over the last 10 months. Maybe coping takes more spirit than I had anticipated. Maybe it still does.

I still go for regular walks on streets I know well here in SW London, and the mental marbling of familiarity and unfamiliarity is at times exhausting. January is the worst month of the year in England, and even moments of snowfall do not thaw what can become an icy time upstairs for most.

As if by some cruel dose of irony, I made this trip to escape the comfort zone I have back in New Zealand. To challenge myself and to almost test my levels of resilience. However, in times as troubling and toiling as the ones we find ourselves in here in England, and have done for months, I’ve realised familiarity is as essential as a hug from my mother and my nana. I’m desperately looking forward to both.

When I return home to New Zealand, I’m sure the streets of Dunedin will inevitably feel familiar, even if they may not recognise me. I return a relatively different person with an enhanced appreciation of friendships and family and just how important they are to topping up my resilience, recharging the batteries if you will. But I will also return ready to embrace a feeling of familiarity that I’ve lost here in the UK and hope to find again soon.