I had mentally stashed away a couple of bits of writing on love long before I knew if I wanted to get married or not. For some people it’s about the dress, or the song, or the venue, or the flowers. For me it was the words. Perhaps it was listening to the same chunk of Corinthians doled out at other ceremonies. Perhaps it’s because words help me make sense of the world. Turns out I wasn’t alone: my husband had something in mind, long before he knew if he was going to get married, long before he knew me. On this measure, at least, I suppose we got something right.
One of the readings we chose nearer the time, though, was by Caleb Azumah Nelson. I’d encountered Caleb’s writing a year or so before, when his debut novel Open Water was in proof. It was a grim time: that bit of winter where Christmas was cancelled due to lockdown measures. I settled in with a stash of fiction that was being released the following year and devoured Caleb’s heart-wrenching story in a matter of hours, then told everyone I could about it. Fittingly, for an author who writes scenes by envisaging memories or moments, I have a flashbulb memory of reading Open Water: in my bed, by lamplight, in the long dark nights of that lockdown winter.
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