Welcome to Changes with Annie Macmanus.

On human roosters..

Howrya! My name is Annie Macmanus. 

I write novels. I DJ. I interview people. I’m interested in how we change. 

 Let me begin with a story. 

Last month I went away with two friends to the port of Soller in Majorca for the weekend. We rented an apartment half way up a hill at the quiet end of the bay. This was our view from the balcony.

On the Saturday morning I woke early and walked down to the beach for a swim. It was a warm windless morning, the water was calm, the swim was glorious. Afterwards, I sat on a sun lounger to dry off. The strip was empty apart from a handful of people sitting eating breakfast and a man doing yoga by the waters edge. He was ebony skinned, large-limbed but lean, wearing tiny speedo shorts and a head wrap. He moved with a grace and intentionality that I found mesmerising to watch.

After the yoga display, he waded into the water. He glided rather than swam, completely at ease in the water, past the yellow buoys at the edge of the swimming zone, past the bobbing yachts and all the way to a large red buoy in the middle of the bay. After a moment treading water, he reached up and grabbed the top of the buoy with his right hand and with the flat palm of his left hand he started to whack the buoy. The buoy worked perfectly as a drum, vibrating the thwacks into big booming sounds that echoed around the bay. As he banged, the man threw his head back and emitted a piercing howl, high pitched, and stretched out - 

“YEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW”

Oh here we go, I thought. This guy is not well in the head. This is going to be awkward. 

But then the most strange and joyous scene played out. A distant reciprocal howl came from the direction of a balcony behind me. Then a screechy yowl came from the direction of the yachts moored in the bay. Half way up the hill on the left a man shouted GOOD MORNING as he walked out onto his balcony, raised his hands to the sky and waved to our man in the sea. 

Our man waved back and the noise grew, with more and more voices yelling and shouting and howling like wolves, from inside the docked boats, from the shore, from the balconies of the stacked apartments behind me, the whole bay woke up and declared themselves to our man in the water. They knew he was coming. They were waiting for his signal.  

It couldn’t have lasted more than a minute. Somehow in that time the sun emerged through the clouds and stretched its light in a long shimmering stripe across the water. The man glided back to shore and continued his yoga moves at the waters edge and I sat on my sun lounger and laughed.

This man was a human rooster. He made it his purpose to officiate the start of the new day, to claim his space in it, to declare himself alive and wild and free within it. And this town collectively responded. And the noises they made! The howling and hollering!  I felt like I had witnessed something rare and precious, something primal; a distillation of everything it is to be human. To shout HELLO, HERE I AM, and have people shout HELLO back? That’s the essence of it. That’s what we need to feel seen, to feel whole in this world.

This man was deeply affecting for me because I too am a human rooster. I have been shouting into the ether in different ways for the entirety of my working life. I spent decades broadcasting on BBC radio; yeoooooow  IT’s FRIDAY NIGHT, DJing in clubs and festivals; YEEEEOOOOW LISTEN TO THIS SONG, writing novels; YEEEEOW FEEL FOR THIS CHARACTER, and the last four years have been spent making my Changes podcast; YEEEOOOW HEAR THIS STORY ABOUT CHANGE. Each medium has been my version of howling, banging, relentlessly seeking that feeling of being connected to the people around me and searching for a response. 

And now there’s a whole new way for me to call out to you. Welcome to my Substack page. It’s called Changes with Annie Macmanus. 

Maybe you have listened to me on the radio, or read my books or danced to my DJ sets. Maybe you have listened to my Changes podcast. Having spent the last four years interviewing brilliant guests about the biggest changes they have gone through in their lives, I can vouch for the fact that change as a theme is as rich and unending as you would assume. But I would like to do it differently to how I have done it up to now. I want to make the conversation less linear, more interactive, more collaborative, more ALIVE, and that involves you.

I would like to know you and for you to know me. I would like to build a community together. 

I am interested in how we change both personally and collectively. On a personal level, I’m forty six years old and feel completely in flux, corporeally and psychologically. I feel both young and ancient, desirable and disgusting, I struggle with my identity as a mother and as a wife. I am constantly conflicted as an Irish person who lives abroad, away from my family. My son has just started secondary school. I feel like I’m in a new phase of adulthood that I’m unprepared for. I have learned from over thirty years of journalling, that the best way to understand myself is to write. 

 I promise that in the spirit of our human rooster in Soller, I will swim out to my buoy and I will bang it often. I will communicate with you in as pure and unfussy a way as possible about the changes I’m going through in my life. I will write regularly but sometimes I will send you a rant on a voice note instead. Sometimes I will ask you questions about how you are changing and sometimes I will ask other people to contribute so we can learn together. There are so many ways to change and so many ways to connect. 

You can subscribe now for free to receive occasional written pieces. If you want to be part of the Changes community and receive the videos and voice notes, join the discussions on how we are changing together, then you can start a paid subscription. If you can’t afford a paid subscription message me and I will do my best to comp you. Listen, we're only getting started. There’s so much to learn. But just to say…

yeeeeeeeeeooooooooooow

THANK YOU for being here. 

Cock a doodle do lads. It’s a new day.

---