Life-Writing of Immeasurable Events

We are survivors of immeasurable events,
Flung upon some reach of land

Rebecca Elson

Life-Writing of Immeasurable Events (LIVE for short) is named after a line from a poem by the late Rebecca Elson, from her collection A Responsibility to Awe. Elson was an astronomer whose scientific research into dark matter took her to the boundary of the visible and measurable. Her poems, too, make inferences and speculate, always from meticulous observation, undeterred by how little we can know of the universe. 'Facts are only as interesting as the possibilities they open up to the imagination,' she wrote.

With this project we aimed to open up possibilities to the imagination by encouraging people to share what they were doing, feeling, experiencing, in those strange times, through life-writing. We released regular creative prompts, which people were free to interpret as they wished, and we collected anecdotes, poems, journal or diary entries, essays, any form of life-writing really that anyone sent us, short or long. With the permission of the writer, we selected some contributions to feature on our website. You can view them on the LIVE Writing page. 

Every single human is carrying the burden of unprocessed feelings and stories, and each of us is reviewing our lives on a moment by moment basis as we contemplate the meaning of our histories and our mortalities.

Professor Brett Kahr, Senior Fellow, Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, London, and Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health, Regent’s School of Psychotherapy and Psychology, Regent’s University London.