Fragments That Finally Found Their Place.
Photo by Eddie Hawort... Watching the tide carry old stories into new waters There are moments that return without warning, not to drag me backwards, but to remind me that some parts of a life refuse to stay buried. A smell, a sound, a half‑forgotten street can pull a thread loose, and suddenly I’m standing in two times at once: the man I was, and the man who somehow made it through.
For years, I kept moving across countries, jobs, communities, and versions of myself. Movement felt safer than stillness. Stillness meant remembering, and remembering meant facing things I didn’t yet have the language for. It took decades, and the slow, stubborn work of writing Crackmask, before I realised that the memories I’d spent a lifetime outrunning were the very ones that shaped the work I ended up doing with others.
What surprised me most wasn’t the pain itself, but the clarity that came with finally turning toward it. I began to see how the places that broke me also remade me, how the people I met along the way left marks that were far kinder than the ones I started with, and how a life can be rebuilt from the inside out even when the foundations look beyond repair.
And I know I’m not alone in that. Most of us carry things quietly. Most of us learn to survive long before we learn to understand what survival has cost us. Sometimes it takes a single moment, or a single question, to shift the direction of a life. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes a book.
For years, I kept moving across countries, jobs, communities, and versions of myself. Movement felt safer than stillness. Stillness meant remembering, and remembering meant facing things I didn’t yet have the language for. It took decades, and the slow, stubborn work of writing Crackmask, before I realised that the memories I’d spent a lifetime outrunning were the very ones that shaped the work I ended up doing with others.
What surprised me most wasn’t the pain itself, but the clarity that came with finally turning toward it. I began to see how the places that broke me also remade me, how the people I met along the way left marks that were far kinder than the ones I started with, and how a life can be rebuilt from the inside out even when the foundations look beyond repair.
And I know I’m not alone in that. Most of us carry things quietly. Most of us learn to survive long before we learn to understand what survival has cost us. Sometimes it takes a single moment, or a single question, to shift the direction of a life. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes a book.
As I move toward the publication of Crackmask in June, I’ll be sharing more of these fragments: the memories that stayed with me, the ones that surprised me, and the ones that only made sense once I finally stopped running. There’s more to come, and more still settling into place.
If you’d like to follow this journey as it unfolds, you’re welcome to join my mailing list.
’ll share occasional updates, new writing, and the steps leading toward Crackmask’s publication in June 2026, nothing noisy, just the things worth passing on.
’ll share occasional updates, new writing, and the steps leading toward Crackmask’s publication in June 2026, nothing noisy, just the things worth passing on.
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