When Louise Kenward asked me to contribute to the Moving Mountains anthology of writers living with disability or chronic illness, I was initially cautious.
I didn’t feel qualified, not ill enough to have the authority to write about such an important topic. In my forthcoming book, The Volunteers, I write about chronic fatigue but I have learnt over the years to manage this condition and pace myself, however, then I thought about migraine. Thankfully I only suffer from these every few years but when they do come they are a werewolf howling at my door. Life, effectively ceases while they are around. I become dependent on support from family and friends and only hardcore drugs can stop them….eventually.
In response to Louise’s request I wrote; The Thing I Fear has Found me, an account of being caught out in the countryside with migraines and the unexpected source of support I discovered among the volunteer group I had recently become the leader of. You find out who your friends are when you are ill and I found out that day that I had more friends than I’d expected.
Other writers in the anthology have taken the brief and worked magic upon it. Many of the writers talk about how, living with their illness, brings them a unique perspective on nature. In A Quince in Hand, writer Nic Wilson talks about plucking ‘Autumn made flesh’ from her garden in the shape of a quince. Her observations are made from a place of closer connection to nature created by inhabiting a less than perfect body. Dillon Jaxx captures perfectly the reality of being confined to bed, staring out at the sky as daylight fades and the outside world tucks away in their piece, My Body is not My Country. While Sally Hubbard in Field Notes talks of the experience of being awake in the early hours bringing the unexpected gift of watching Arctic terns hunting for moths over a meadow.
This book is a collective voice, a unique perspective and a mantra of hope even in dark places.
Moving Mountains, edited by Louise Kenward is published by Footnote Press and can be bought here
