Already Scene

What is that phrase, sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees? Well, In this case it was sometimes you can’t see the plaque for the people.

Recently, while gathering up the last of my possessions from my old apartment I noticed something I hadn’t seen in the almost two years that I lived there. The tree? That, I had seen, but had I known the origin of it I would have seen it as much more than the place I stood beneath, smoking fags and waiting for cabs. The golden plaque on the wall explains; in October of 2001 a tree was planted by the Anne Frank Trust at the edge of Covent Garden, on Garrick Street. Intended to create “a place of reflection and consideration for all the children who have died owing to the wars and persecution in the last century”. Right now in mid-february, the alder tree has no leaves and looks a little forlorn but it is beautiful, as is the sentiment. I was the only person on the street a phenomena which would never have occurred in Central London pre-pandemic but I was still dumbfounded that I had never stopped and noticed it. One thing this pandemic has given us, I think, is a wider peripheral vision and an inclination to make every moment outside count for something.

To give context to my surprise, I was born and spent the first years of my life in a house a couple of streets away from Anne Frank’s House in Amsterdam and the Horse Chestnut tree she writes of in her diary. I simply didn’t expect a reminder of home, next to one of my other ‘homes’. Anne Frank is a name that hadn't really been at the forefront of my mind save for briefly at the beginning of the Pandemic when her name trended on twitter. Crude comparisons between the global lockdown and her own 25 months of hiding were piling up, I am not here to add to that. I disagreed then and I disagree now even as we approach the one year mark of living our lives through the lens of Covid-19.

Now, Antony Gormley and Anne Frank are two people I never imagined putting into a sentence together but the week prior, while again walking at the pace which allows for daydreaming I had another experience of a smaller echo of ‘home’. I visited a man out to sea, having seen him only from afar before. Up close, he is covered in barnacles, rust and a holds serene expression as he eternally looks out toward the horizon. Well, at least until 2030 when his shift is up and presumable he will be wrenched out of the ocean and taken to his new home? The sculptor responsible is Antony Gormley, responsible too for The Angel of the North. Much larger in scale The Angel is an 20 metre high marvel with a wingspan of 54 metres, in the North East of England. The sculpture was completed in 1998 meaning it’s been erected for nearly my entire life and for wandering northerners travelling to visit parents or friends, in the before times of course, it has become synonymous with being on the home stretch.

Ruminating on the meaning of ‘Hometown’ what these happenings have cemented for me is that we rarely just have one.

Instead we have a constellation of hometowns in the night sky of our respective stories. The North East of England is my North Star, having spent half of my life there, followed closely by London. Though I see where I am now as home and home will always be in Holland too. In my case I have discovered or maybe just invented conceptual threads that tie these places together like twin cities. I would posit that you could find these connections anywhere, finding meaning in seemingly meaningless things is something humans are very adept at. The reason perhaps is so that during times when you can’t reach out and touch them you can still feel anchored to the places that make you, you.

These occurrences can act as a reassurance, if you need them to. A nod from somewhere in the ether that the choices you made to get you to that point where the right ones. I had a friend who changed the way I looked at that disorienting synapse glitch of feeling like you have lived through something before – not to be confused with groundhog day. My friend was always relieved to experience Déjà vu, a French phrase which translates literally to ‘already seen’. For her it was the ultimate sign that she was passing through a moment that was meant to happen. She described it “like in a video game where your little figure passes through a part of the game where if they falter in the future, they will go back to that moment”. For me that's how it felt seeing the man out to sea and the tree.. I had “already seen” a version of them before. The thoughts for this piece had started to percolate by that point and I grasped around in my mind for other times this had happened but I drew a blank.

I should have known I didn't need to force it. By 5:00pm I had arrived at St Pancreas International station to return home, I looked up and saw across the concourse a huge Tracey Emin Neon which reads “I want my time with You” Was it a nod to the UKs now diminished time in Europe? After all it sits above one of London’s gateways to the mainland which is likely to have an uncertain future under new rules - The Eurostar train. At the beginning of the pandemic my mother moved back to Amsterdam and because of this the distressing chasm of Brexit can feel particularly acute though I know much of the country is in mourning. I boarded the train headed back to the Kent coast, one of only 4 passengers. I thought about travel, home, family and started writing. Having found threads of connection between all of my other homes and it just dawned on me that now, I had another.

When I arrive in Margate, under the cover of snow and darkness, I will be greeted with another Emin Neon on Margate Seafront.. “I never stopped loving you”. Her love note to her hometown. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Any money generated by this article, either in tips or from Per Read. I will donate to The Anne Frank Trust UK.