Pins and Needles

Pins and Needles

Claudia Bullmore

Artwork Anna Morrissey

We have all forgotten how to talk. Are often the words of reassurance running through my mind as the world begins to open up. Introducing yourself as the name of the person who had just told you theirs is a relic of past social fumbles, trumped by the interactions of people who have not seen each other for months. I was speaking to my Grandad a week after my grandparents had come round for dinner, something they had not done for 6 months, and he confessed to me that it was the first time in his life that he had felt shy. He is 91, and from what I gather he has never struggled to talk to anyone. In many ways the conversation that followed was like so many that I have had recently, ones characterised by solidarity in the vague bewilderment felt towards the world we were so eager to re enter.  

I spent the first lock down with two relatively new friends. There was no bedrock of unconditional love that has been used to explain to me the sullenness of others who found themselves living with their parents again. By the end of our 5 months, every single point of the conversation was exhausted and we had come to some thoroughly debated conclusions. Ranging from nature versus nature, how long our hair really had grown, whether or not we acted as our sibling rank instructed us to or if you could truly criticise China if you did not properly scrutinise the West. What was quite frustrating was that the other two were obsessed with the hypothetical. In hindsight, I think it was a generous position to take as housemates rather than, as I read it at the time, insufferably dull. A low moment was when they spent a remarkably long time discussing whether they thought that advertising was going to go bigger in its imagery as a rejection of lockdown or double down on ideas of the local. I think it would be bold to claim that unconditional love had been established at this point but, following the group’s ‘lead’ discussion I did carry out an impressive silent protest of about an hour and a half. We developed a language coded by the mundane and we re-entered the world as quasi Frankenstein mosaics of each other. The pace and dynamic of life switched as I walked through a pub door to join friends I hadn’t seen for months. Engulfed by a ricochet of voices, the topics that had filled our empty hours didn't quite work in this new climate. 

I find consolation in the joy of the overheard. Whether it is walking behind a child who when told not to wave at the people sitting in the window of a cafe retorted that ‘strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet’ or the finalist calming down a panicked First Year who in a blushing fumble had spilt his coffee over both of them; the novelty of out of context snippets has not worn off yet. 

Perhaps this stage is like pins and needles; I stubbornly wear cowboy boots that are three sizes too big for me so I have become quite familiar with the feeling. It is a tingling that tells us that the numbness of our limbs is coming to an end, life slowly flooding back. Not strictly a bad feeling, sometimes even comic, but as sensation is being restored there is an undeniable relief that it is about to be over.