I was in Vancouver, in the final days of shooting an American television show, when news of the virus started filtering through. Vancouver is a busy place for film production; the downtown area plays host to a number of film crews on any given day of the week but, this particular afternoon, word began to spread that productions were shutting down left and right, sending everybody home. Then, filming on the production I was working on was also cancelled; the show would not “go on”. Everything stopped.
I was still able to fly to Barbados, to film a documentary on the origins of my name Harewood, and its links to the slave trade and Harewood House in West Yorkshire. Though I had been to the island many times before, this was a unique and unsettling trip. I spent my time uncovering uncomfortable truths relating to the treatment of my people – but it wasn’t the first time I had found myself confronted by difficult and painful facts.
A couple of years ago, I took part in one of a series of films about mental health, in which I investigated my own psychotic breakdown at the age of 23. I had forgotten most of what happened, but the documentary brought back the disturbing thoughts and feelings I had experienced all those years ago. It really rather frightened me, and I had gladly scuttled off to Vancouver once filming had ended to forget the emotions it had stirred up. But this time, after my trip to Barbados, I found myself returning to the UK mid-lockdown, walking through a deserted Heathrow airport, heading to a house I had bought five years earlier and barely lived in. Four months into the pandemic, I realised it was the longest period I had spent sleeping in my own bed in nine years.
Alone with my thoughts, I had time to consider my life in a way I hadn’t before. I think a lot of people found themselves in a similar position and quite a few struggled with what they found. Relationships foundered, marriages ended and stress levels went through the roof as people discovered the difficulties of being cooped up with their families.
When George Floyd was murdered by a US policeman in May 2020, it set in motion a huge conversation around race and inequality that reverberated around the world. And yet I had the feeling that, in England, there were voices proclaiming racism to be an American problem, something that didn’t really exist here, as the Sewell report had concluded months earlier. And in that moment, I grabbed my computer and started furiously writing, jotting down my life story in a brutally honest fashion. I took all the uncomfortable truths I had learned early on in the pandemic and placed them into form and chapter. Five months and 80,000 words later, I had my first book, aptly titled Maybe I Don’t Belong Here.
The past two years have given me time to take a deep look at my life and I’ve found that being honest about my vulnerabilities has allowed others to openly talk about their insecurities, too – and, in doing so, find new strength. We now live in the strangest of times: people will tell you that up is down and that criminal, foolish, buffoons are actually political geniuses rather than dangerous, self-obsessed charlatans. I look around and wonder, am I part of the same reality? Those of us who have spent the past couple of years figuring ourselves out now sit and watch the world around us unravel. All we can do is keep shedding a little more light, in the hope that it’s enough to keep the darkness at bay.
David Harewood is an actor and writer. His book Maybe I Don’t Belong Here is published by Bluebird (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
