I do not have a room. I’ve never not had a room before, but for the first time in my life – I’m without one. I live mostly in the clouds, cyber-island hopping from one charging point to another amongst a mess of cables, chargers and portable tech dropping into and out of shared multifunctional spaces. I plug in, recharge and am off elsewhere. I’m also without a project and it never struck me before that there might be a link between these two states.
Last year, I was coiled and ready to begin another book, about to go on a period of study leave to get me started. (There is a link between having had three periods of study leave in my career and the fact that I’ve published three books). At the last moment, the leave was withdrawn meaning the project could not go ahead. At the same time, despite having just been promoted, myself, my colleagues, along with people across the industry, were facing the likelihood of job losses. With a ravenous mortgage, and a need to minimise risk, we sold up to live more cheaply elsewhere.
A few months later, the city shoebox was sold and during reading week we were on the road to live temporarily while we looked for something permanent. The search for permanency lasted the rest of the academic year, with most of my books in a storage unit. Books, the proscenium of creative work, the source of it, were gone. Days passed, then weeks. Ideas forged on the event horizon were slung into black holes from which they were never heard of again. Teaching was done into cameras whose only gleam of life was a little green light that indicated that someone might be there. E-texts took the place of books and were ram-raided rather than read. And all available resources fuelled only keeping going. I couldn’t buttress myself with books. The chair that I usually worked in wouldn’t fit under the table that I would sometimes use as a desk. On that table were unused Post-its to scratch down the ideas that I wasn’t having – a pen with its nib exposed and ready in case inspiration struck. And as I looked about me, there were trackpads, mice, keyboards, some wired, some wireless, some with broken keys, and all slowly discharging because like me, they had no permanent home. Every day boasts its impermanence, but it always looks like this. “You can’t create creativity, but you can create an environment in which it’s likely to flourish”, I once said. I was right; this isn’t it.
Vybarr Cregan-Reid is Professor of English and Environmental Humanities. His most recent book is Primate Change: How the World We Made is Remaking Us