Julia Armfield

It’s just another way of thinking you’re special, the way everyone does when they’re a teenager. You think you aren’t able to love, except that of course you are. You think you aren’t able to love correctly or the same as everyone else, except that of course you are, you just haven’t had a chance to do it yet. You’re not special, you’re just waiting.

I’m aware, by now, that this kind of talk isn’t really meant for me, but is simply a conversation she can’t help having, the result of questions asked in some closed-off part of her head

Did you know that until very recently, more people had been to the moon than had dived beyond depths of six thousand metres? I think about this often – the inhospitableness of certain places. A footprint, once left on the surface of the moon, might in theory remain as it is almost indefinitely. Uneroded by atmosphere, by wind or by rain, any mark made up there could quite easily last for several centuries. The ocean is different, the ocean covers its tracks