Katy Hamilton

Those of you who read my post a couple of weeks ago about being reunited with my piano with know that I have recently moved house. In fact, I have also moved counties – from Greater London, where I still spend several days a week working, to the land beyond the M25. The sky is blue, the fields are green, the rent is considerably lower… and for the first time in my life, as a result of said actually affordable rent, I am living on my own.

I’ve always been very happy in my own company. Perhaps it comes from being an only child. Or perhaps I’m just naturally rather hermit-like – certainly my holidays, for the last few years, have involved taking myself off to the coast and spending a week in a small cottage by the sea where I am required to speak to no one at all, can ignore all electronic communication, and tend to end up chatting to shopkeepers and dog walkers instead. It’s been blissful every time.

But now, it’s not just for the holidays. Now, it’s just me, in my own flat, all the time that I’m here. As the months roll by, I’ve no doubt I’ll start to get to know people better in the town, and go to concerts, and perhaps even do some talks for the regular community classes scheme. Still, I am Home Alone in the most literal sense.

It’s been, I have to say, a fascinating few weeks as a result. To start with, I was acutely aware of the silence. I bought a radio. I watched DVDs of an evening, as much to distract me from the lack of other noise as any real desire to follow plots through. I wondered whether, when the unpacking was finally done and I had no Reorganising of Things left to distract me, I would come to find it all a bit too oppressive.

Gradually, though, these feelings faded, and I found myself acutely aware of having given myself something I had been unwittingly denying myself for years: real time. Not just enough time to get things done, and have a quick break, and move on to the next thing. Not a stream of constant distractions so that my brain was ‘on’ all the time. Just… time. I’ve gone for long walks. I’ve sat quietly on the sofa and read for hours. (Something I used to find almost impossible in London – reading was for public transport, when nothing else could be achieved because of tunnels and dodgy phone connections.) I look out of the window and watch the squirrels playing in the back garden.

And I am not only calmer for all of this – I am also more productive in a much more sustainable way. I still have a lot to do, of course, from lecture prep and research to programme notes and practice. But now I can do it without any part of my brain wondering what the other people I live with are doing, or being distracted by street noise, or dodging in and out of the house to libraries and archives because I’m in London for heaven’s sake, and there’s no excuse not to check that thing RIGHT NOW. Now I plan my library research days better, use my time more effectively, and get more done. London is close enough to be very convenient, but just far enough away not to be immediate.

This lifestyle wouldn’t suit everyone of course, and I’m certainly not suggesting that we all abandon the capital upon the instant. But there is no doubt that there is a London bubble – in terms of culture, funding, and societal norms, and ‘being busy’ is a very important part of life in that bubble. There is productivity of a different, and sometimes deeper kind to be found in a quiet space where there is room for your own thoughts, and a lack of instant access to absolutely everything. My days are full and varied, but I’m not sure I’d describe them now as busy, even though I’m probably getting as much (if not more) done per 24 hours than I was six months ago. ‘Busy’ is just not the right for it any more, because the sense of cheerfully frantic conveyor-belt productivity is no long what my work days feel like. And for research, above all – the kind of work that needs immersion, and time to process and digest, and room to throw answers about and test them – is a complete pleasure now. Because suddenly I find myself able to offer my brain all the time and room it needs.

Yes, this says a lot about me, and how I work best. And yes, it takes a bit of getting used to. Still, we in humanities research work on our own a great deal, and peaceful, creative spaces are of paramount importance. I look back now on my PhD years, many of them spent living in a room in a three-bed flat where my desk – inescapable, looming in the bay window and just a brief stumble from my bed, so that the piles of unsorted paperwork could glare reproachfully at me all through the day and night – looked out onto a road piled with speeding cars and squealing ambulances… and I wonder how on earth I got anything done. There is great benefit in distance, whether that distance is from your bed to your desk, or your home to your work, or even your resources to your office. We live our lives through logistics such as these. If you can put a quiet spot onto the map of your comings and goings, I would highly recommend it.