A Love Letter to the Endz: #2
Home sweet home, a love letter to the ends
I know the cracks in the concrete like the lines in my palms. I know the streets of Newham like the back of my hand. I can direct you through the Greenway without a map. I can tell you what Rathbone Market used to look like, where the old West Ham stadium used to be and point towards a decaying, closed Balaam Leisure Centre. I can tell you about the times we would chill outside Canning Town McDonald's or The Hub and would smoke on the steps of Yellow Flats. I lived in E15 and used to go to school in E16 and I had friends who lived in E13 and friends who lived in E6 that had friends who lived in E7, and they had friends that lived in E12 - everyone is connected. I wrote about Stratford Shopping Centre before Westfield, and the marshes before Olympic Village and I existed before the latter. My best friend and I frequently reminisce over Percy Ingle’s Tottenham Cakes and the old Canning Town Library. I often think about Carpenters and the people who used to live there and how they must feel being so far from home. My dad and I used to go on walks around Upton Park and watch a sea of football fans outside Queen’s Market on matchdays – people watching but the footy version, I guess.
When I was younger, I could not wait to grow up and leave Newham, I thought I would never look back. It was an area I had associated with most of my struggles, and I just wanted a better life outside of it. Now, I am older I realise it is possible to find comfort in the place that birthed my deepest fears and my wildest dreams, it is possible to belong in somewhere I once felt like I hated, somewhere I once wanted to leave.
Belonging doesn't have to be instant it can be gradual. Sometimes gradual belonging can feel even sweeter and more meaningful.
We can leave home but home never leaves us, it will always be waiting for us even when it looks unrecognisable, or it has been a while since we last saw it.
Home is like a parent waving you off to a university a few hours away confident in your return. Home is like the seasonal vegetable that we wait all year round to embrace.
It loves us even when we don't love it back. It remembers our tears and the echoes of our laughter.
How could we not possibly belong in the places that remember us in ways that no human could?