It’s just one of those things, isn’t it? When everything happens all at the same time. You go for months and months of groundhog day, and then, BOOM.
Landslide.
The ground shudders and moves. Things which were static begin to move like an old man patting his kneecaps and saying “right!” Rock twists, takes that first step, and whether you like it or not, you are coming too.
July was a busy month for reasons which I’d planned and reasons completely unexpected. There are just some times in your life where things lurch forward with upheaval and change, full of good things and bad things and happy things and sad things.
I think being in your early 30’s in particular is like being in a landslide (no, I am not going to reference Fleetwood Mac in this newsletter). Things start to happen in a way which seems irreversible. Marriages, funerals, births, moving towns. I think the last time I felt this change on such a general scale was when I was a teenager, writing in my diary about how I was scared that Christmas wasn’t gonna feel like Christmas anymore. Oh god!!! How sad!
Alright, let’s lighten things up. Landslides. (picture me giving you a thumbs up)
If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ve probably fallen down a hole of watching natural disaster videos. I do fondly remember one evening with my Dad when we were debating what film to watch and then ended up watching two hours’ worth of landslide videos on Youtube.
Landslides change the landscape. Soil moves like water. Coastlines get rearranged. And sometimes this happens on a massive, massive scale.
I wanna tell you about a series of three slides named the Storegga Landslides. This happened under the sea, off the coast of Norway, between 8,000 and 2,000 years ago.
Possibly caused by an earthquake and either a sudden expansion of gas, or a build-up of sediment deposited by melting glaciers, the Storegga landslides occurred beneath the ocean surface, and moved around 3500 km^3 of sediment.
I’m trying to get an imaginable for you on 3500 cubed kilometres, and the best I can do is say, hey, can you picture Luxembourg? Like, the country? Okay, now cube that. And then add on a thousand more cubic kilometres. Yes, now you probably have a very accurate idea of how much 3500km cubed is. It’s cubed Luxembourg, but more, baby!
This Youtube video gives you a good visual of what one of the Storegga slides would have looked like. The sea floor moves like milk bloooomped into a cup of coffee — rapid, spreading out, then settling.
And then comes the wave.
The initial tsunami waves from the biggest Storegga slide were about as high as 80 metres — just a shade taller than the Statue of Liberty. And they moved so fast, if you were standing in the way, you would have been, as they say in France, instantely dismembèrede*
The really cool thing (apart from instant dismemberment) is that there’s evidence of these landslides in Norway, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and even really close to (my) home because of these tsunami waves. In Montrose there’s layers in the sediment which geologists have discovered come from those tsunamis.
The thing about tsunamis, landslides, about all of geology basically, is that there is no good or evil processes. They just do what they do. The Earth is always moving, completely on it’s own, and it really has no mal intent as it shoves a piece of dirt the size of Luxembourg around.
Back to being 30 and having too many life changes going on simultaneously. You and your friends and family— it feels like everyone is moving on somehow. The world slips from under your feet and carries you to a strange new place. The ripple effect stretches out beyond you in ways you don’t yet understand. This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife! This is not my beautiful… continental shelf!
But it’s just another Storegga slide in a series of metaphorical landslides which will always be happening, somehow, somewhere. You just gotta ride the waves and learn to love the landscape you see before you.
things i liked
✶ the image i created above was inspired by these embroidery samplers from the days… of…. yore? (to be accurate) i really love them and the weird mish-mash energy they have
✶ a guy on the tube who was very high and was asking everyone what Tom Cruise film Lady Gaga did the soundtrack to (he was very thankful when I said “Top Gun?”)
✶ the person who was wearing a great outfit which included a kilt and told me “It’s a fashion kilt. Fashion is my heritage.”
✶ to be honest, a mountain goats / slipknot concert would be very, very cool.
✶ i went to see a play yesterday called ‘Spoons’ which is on at the Edinburgh Fringe this month. A funny one about marriage, dogs, and of course spoons.
✶ love these composition sketches by Sue Heston
This newsletter comes to you slightly late as I was very tired when I started drafting this! I am looking forward to a non-eventful couple weeks which may happen… sometime… in the future…
But, we made it. You and I. And now we get to click the heart and win our prize!
May you fare well with your own personal landslides,
Olivia 🌋
*they do not say this in France