A sense of belonging

Alinah Azadeh has found connection among the rolling downs and chalk cliffs of Sussex.

‘Imagine all those who have ever been here before you, over the millennia; our ancestors from the Middle East, Africa and across Europe, travelling over the land bridge to this island before it split apart from the mainland, escaping environmental disaster, war or persecution.

‘Imagine us all with our tap roots, reaching down into the depths of the estuary channel, connecting with the families of hawthorn, amidst the moist genius of the mycelium networks.

‘Imagine us all becoming more than human in the chalk, the soil and the mix of spring, river and seawater below …’

(From ‘Taking Root’, part of We Hear You Now, new stories for the Seven Sisters and Sussex Heritage Coast.)

As much as I love time spent indoors writing alone, there is something uniquely inspiring about taking my notebook outdoors, up onto the South Downs. The previous quote comes from a story I began to write on Exceat Hill, up from the Seven Sisters Visitor Centre. It was initially triggered by an archaeological find – the discovery in the 1920s of an abandoned village, wiped out by the Black Death – and it cycles through history to the present time, amid the current renaturing of the area by the South Downs National Park Authority, for whom I was writer-in-residence, 2020–2023. On a listening post attached to the gate at the top of Exceat Hill, you can hear ‘Taking Root’, one of 14 We Hear You Now audio stories by fellow writers set around the six-mile coastal stretch between Seaford and Eastbourne.

Past and present

As well as an awareness of human history and deep time as I walk the chalk, the present moment inspires my senses; ears wrap around the joyous raving of skylarks, eyes widen as I notice a bee orchid or the violet spark of a round-headed rampion in the grassland. I feel the crunch of chalk under my boots on this path, which bounds the Cuckmere Valley, with its silver flash of meanders on the right, and then meets the South Downs Way, carrying me up onto Haven Brow – the first of the Seven Sisters cliffs – on the left. Exceat is not the path most travelled by visitors to reach the sea, yet it is my favourite, swiftly elevating walkers above the entire area. It is also now much more accessible since off-road scooters – and support – have been made available from the Seven Sisters Visitor Centre.

I myself wasn’t always able to reach the hill, with long periods of time of restricted movement due to foot injuries, Covid and ongoing health issues still affecting my capacity for long walks, so I still pace myself. As neurodivergent, directional dyslexia means I easily take a wrong turn if alone, though I have learnt to see getting lost as a creative opportunity! For those who will never reach this spot, the We Hear You Now stories are all online, evoking our writer journeys over the chalk, amid the beauty of the changing seasons and in the face of extreme shifts in climate so visible along this coastline.

Beyond borders

So much of my creative meandering takes place ‘in company’ and I have been taught so much by writers, ecologists, local residents, rangers, activists, heritage and climate specialists. Yet even when outdoors solo, I simply never feel alone. I know I am in a creative process with the more-than-human world around me. As I pause to rest and write, my body relaxes, ideas start to cross-pollinate. I open to the scent of sea air, the curl of a distant cloud, the outline of the coastguard cottages at Seaford Head; all this texture, visual delight, sensory magic, offers itself up for poems, story – or just exquisite sound (for my podcasts).

In all this co-creating, like many artists of immigrant heritage, I have developed a sense of belonging to landscape that goes far beyond any definition of nation, race or citizenship. It sees no borders, mirroring nature’s own boundlessness. For three years on programmes I led during my residency, I did this alongside 35 writers with heritage from over 20 countries; we ‘made belonging’ as we walked together, in joy, solidarity and connection. In our work, the imaginary blends with the real to open a different lens on deep time, climate change, legacies of empire, and more hopeful, imagined futures – if we can only sustain ways to collectively care for this land, and each other. For me, there is no environmental justice without social justice.

Time to breathe

I now continue my landscape-inspired writing and podcasting online via my Substack and outdoors, including a commission for the 100th anniversary of the Towner art gallery in East Sussex; if you walk up towards Beachy Head from Eastbourne from next spring, you will encounter my verses carved into four new artist benches by Will Spankie, set around Warren Hill dew pond on the South Downs Way. Invocations evokes fragility, loss and yet hopeful renewal of landscape and deeper connection to ourselves and others through these difficult, uncertain times.

And again, it’s set in one of my favourite kinds of South Downs spaces – a place to pause and breathe … with an extraordinary view.

About the author

Alinah Azadeh is an artist, writer, performer and cultural activist. You can listen to her podcasts and read her work here. To hear all the audio stories and poems by Sussex-based writers from the We Hear You Now project, visit sevensisters.org.uk/we-hear-you-now/explore-the-work.