An Ode to Cardiff
12/10/2017 - Write about Cardiff
'My first day as a student was a vastly different experience to my first ever day in Cardiff. For one part I didn't get lost, my phone didn't run out of battery, but I did get separated from my mother again. The same feelings of anxiety and alarming freshness bubbled up from my stomach, shaking my arms and fingers. You have to keep your eyes open. Back home I can walk down the open lane with my eyes closed. I can hear the cars coming a mile off, and I know the curve and dips of each road. In Cardiff, everything is in disguise. I don't feel at ease here, nor do I completely know exactly where I am at each moment, but I am getting better. The noise still surprises me, but I'm getting used to it. I have learnt that it is easier to sleep at 9pm than to try at 1am. On my first day as a student my bedroom was the only place I felt I could go, now it is my safety bubble, but I have bubbles in other place too now.'
A little piece of prose I wrote on my first Creative Writing seminar. It's wild to think I once felt this way about the city I have grown to love, to know, to call home. I'm home with my parents between work and desperate to hear the noise I once wrote about hating, the seagulls so many vent about, the roads with their twists and turns and car horns. The uneven pavement and constant scents of food. Weaving around slow walkers and groups stopped in unhelpful places. The student who moved to Cardiff wasn't used to any of that, she missed the empty fields of Stafforshire, but not anymore. I'm back in my middle of nowhere, in my silent home with blackout curtains, and all I want is to be woken by the bin collection, the seagulls, and 4am partiers going past the window.
Cardiff - I love you.
With love,
Ellen Victoria
'My first day as a student was a vastly different experience to my first ever day in Cardiff. For one part I didn't get lost, my phone didn't run out of battery, but I did get separated from my mother again. The same feelings of anxiety and alarming freshness bubbled up from my stomach, shaking my arms and fingers. You have to keep your eyes open. Back home I can walk down the open lane with my eyes closed. I can hear the cars coming a mile off, and I know the curve and dips of each road. In Cardiff, everything is in disguise. I don't feel at ease here, nor do I completely know exactly where I am at each moment, but I am getting better. The noise still surprises me, but I'm getting used to it. I have learnt that it is easier to sleep at 9pm than to try at 1am. On my first day as a student my bedroom was the only place I felt I could go, now it is my safety bubble, but I have bubbles in other place too now.'
A little piece of prose I wrote on my first Creative Writing seminar. It's wild to think I once felt this way about the city I have grown to love, to know, to call home. I'm home with my parents between work and desperate to hear the noise I once wrote about hating, the seagulls so many vent about, the roads with their twists and turns and car horns. The uneven pavement and constant scents of food. Weaving around slow walkers and groups stopped in unhelpful places. The student who moved to Cardiff wasn't used to any of that, she missed the empty fields of Stafforshire, but not anymore. I'm back in my middle of nowhere, in my silent home with blackout curtains, and all I want is to be woken by the bin collection, the seagulls, and 4am partiers going past the window.
Cardiff - I love you.
With love,
Ellen Victoria
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