Kiran Sidhu always thought of herself as a Londoner. But after her mum died, she moved to rural Wales in search of a new way of life. There she learned that feeling lost was the first step to finding herself
It’s the time of year when the ewes are being separated from the lambs, when their cries and the guttural noise from their mothers can be heard across the valley, a natural amphitheatre for the soundtrack of their separation. Country sounds have become familiar to me; I swapped the city for the country four years ago. But this particular one, the separation of the lambs from their mothers, resonates more than any other. It is the sound of displacement. A sound that, one day, will belong to us all. I lost my 62-year-old mother to cancer in 2014; I’ve been drifting ever since.
The idea of being “found” holds so much importance. It seems our entire lives are dedicated to finding spaces we can nestle into until, ultimately, we find ourselves. A milieu that is familiar, a cave that reverberates our very own sound. Perhaps this is the natural way in life, to gravitate to the things we recognise: who wants to stand alone when there is safety in numbers? But I have discovered something. Standing alone and being lost is a place where many things can be found. Not enough is said about stumbling around in the dark.
