Living at the Edge of the World

There’s something deeply reassuring about living at the bottom of the globe, on an island nation that more often than not doesn’t appear on world maps.

From down here, the world’s louder dramas arrive slightly disheveled, as if they’ve had to cross several time zones and a stretch of ocean before landing in our news feeds.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not immune to the global shit show. We trade with it, vote locally with international cautionary tales in mind, argue about it, and scroll through it like everyone else. But geographical distance provides a thin, useful illusion of space.

It’s summer here. The light is long and unapologetic. Cicadas scream like they’re unionized, and the sky mostly performs its usual blue miracle. Sunshine does wonders for perspective. It’s harder to spiral when you’re squinting into the glare of a perfectly indecent day. Sunlight also frightens the cockroaches away.

Not permanently. They scatter. They regroup. They hold press conferences that most ignore, and where they lie through their teeth and selectively invite those who’ve actually earned their medals. IYKYK.

In the middle of last year, I put a project on the back burner because my head simply wasn’t in the game. Every time I tried to step into it, reality shoved its foot in the door. Lately, though, I’ve been slipping sideways into it again. Parallel universes are like that in that they don’t insist you solve this one before entry.

Turns out a fictional world chock full of gods and goddesses is a spicy distraction as well as being a bona fide survival strategy. My alter ego—Minky St Anne—is currently editing the first in the Nyphrazi Bridge of Realms series, with the plots already set for the other five.

It’s going to be a wild ride.

So, if you’re struggling with the challenges being faced by many, remember that sometimes the most radical thing you can do is tend your own patch of sunlight. Write the story. Take the swim. Ignore the shouting. Let the noise stay noisy somewhere else for a minute.

Living at the bottom of the world has its advantages, but if you’re in the thick of it up north, take time to build a snowman or lay down and create that snow angel.

PS: There’s something therapeutic about building a snowman in the likeness of someone you’re not fond of and then taking it out with a broom. Just saying.