65 Roses and a Trunki

Horizons and Habits

In the shape-shifting world of our imagination, the symbolism of the horizon is anchored, as Roosevelt said, in ‘the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon’. Yet hopes are uncertain, beliefs malformed and convictions swayed by sharp wounds and inclement weather. Faced with these tricks of our imagination, horizons expand and contract our lives, serving both as limits and the absence of all limits, as symbols of pure possibility and the confinement of that possibility within the walls of a prison cell. So, I watched from the beach as my father and Kate disappeared behind a large rock, the sound of their oars cutting through the water, fading into nothing. A little under five years before Kate died, it was a family holiday full of simple pleasures, untroubled by fear. The line that cut sea from sky was barely visible and everything was open, pregnant with the future. Yet, when that tiny rowing boat vanished out of sight and the gentle rolling of the sea swallowed their laughter, I looked into the distance and felt the horizon pressing on me like a limit, a laugh become a cough, living breath become a dead lung.

Another horizon. Ibiza. Eighteen months after Kate died. I finished my A levels and travelled with friends for a week-long celebration. We danced on the beach, drinking, laughing. I turned to raise a glass to the sun when the blue expanse closed like a clam, snapping at my youth, yelling that ...