saturday morning notes

I didn't bring any wine or whisky back this time. My train was early, and goodbyes at this point seem as clichéd as commenting on the weather, or asking whose round it is. I thought maybe while I was up there I would set in stone a date for my return, but I didn't. There are possibilities, some quite close, but nothing solid. Like a spun out yo-yo, there's nothing yanking me back up. Well, nothing except nostalgia and missing my mates. 

We ate at the local last night. My oldest sister's over from Ireland, and while I'm sure she's still crazy, it was lovely to see her. The pub was warm and all the tables seemed happy with their respective company. It was loud and lovely and the food, beer and wine all tasted great. 

The future's a little clearer. Well, parts of it are. The book and the books that follow are no longer mirages in the distance. Slowly, potential new adventures take shape. 

It was raining earlier and now it's not. Instead, a grey Saturday with puddles to dodge and closed umbrellas. Might go for a run. From downstairs I can hear the espresso machine pushing out coffee and I think maybe I'll have a cup first.

The last of the coloured leaves cling to the branches, holding on to the autumn and refusing to let winter blow them away. 

 

Buy My Book. Please.

april showers

Last night was the Red Sox's first night game. I swore I would only watch the first inning and by the fifth, I finally called it quits. It was two am, so it could have been worse. We were trailing 2-0 to the Blue Jays. I knocked on my wooden headboard as I rolled over to get some sleep, wishing them luck for a comeback with my last conscious thoughts.

Baseball is not the only indicator of Spring in my life. It's mild outside with persistent rain. There's more white in the fridge than red in the rack. The light wakes me just past seven, and the cat makes sure I stay that way. I see flowers, as much as guys do.

Job-hunting and book-writing continue apace, but I find it hard not to look out the window for that little bit longer, to watch as the world wakes up and enjoys the new season.

central heating and nostalgia

Last night the St Louis Cardinals won the World Series and today my flatmate turned the heating on. The leaves and lack of frost suggest that autumn has itself a few more weeks, but I'm suspicious. Already my thoughts have turned to winter, with all of November still to come. I crave stews and chilli and roasts and deep red wines that stick to the ribs and crunch like kindling mixed with dry leaves.

At last count, I have about six unwritten projects and one large item to edit. There's a script, a novel, a novella and scattered blog posts that may not seem like priority, but still serve the important role of keeping words flowing. I'm out shape, you see. The words are not flowing. They are a tumult in my head, of course, but I'm not getting them out to where they belong. All my blogs have suffered, my writing has suffered and with them both perhaps a bit of my sanity as well.

Such frustration requires escape and often I find myself lost in old photos or old scribblings. Sometimes both. Nostalgia strikes hard when the future is obscured. It clarifies the past and polishes it as well, giving every little nugget of memory - every warm moment - an added sheen. Because it seems so clear, so close, so grows the illusion that things were clear at the time. So follows a belief in the past's inherent innocence, as clarity quickly becomes purity in the mind's eye and soon you look out and see behind you a perfect narrative. And as soon as you see it as such you begin to wonder where it changed, how did such a perfect past lead to an imperfect and mostly uncertain future?

The radiator's kicking off a nice heat and the cat sleeps atop a pile of my jumpers at the bottom of my bed. The wind isn't howling, yet. The clocks go back in an hour or so. Tomorrow I'll run and bake bread and try, with some effort, to write.

not quite back to school

Small piles of leaves grow in the nooks and crannies throughout the town at the moment. There are no fireworks yet. The early fallen tend to be a dull shade of yellow or simply faded green. The fireworks won't be for awhile, yet. A month, maybe longer. I noticed the leaves just as I noticed I needed a jumper and something waterproof to wear over it.

As a kid I remember my clothes suddenly being different. My shorts and t-shirts would move to other drawers, if they still fit. Often they didn't. Blue jeans and khakis and sweaters and my faithful barracuda jacket would come out for the autumn. My barracuda jacket was navy blue and I wore it until the first snow. What with growth spurts and the like I'm sure I had more than one during the course of my childhood. I'm pretty sure that as well as a navy blue one, I had a khaki one. Probably during my Indiana Jones phase.

That phase hasn't really ended yet.

I remember the autumn stationery frenzy. How excitement for the new school year centred around new pens and pencils and pencil cases and notebooks and trapper keepers and backpacks. The crisp sheen on new paper, a new favourite pen, that perfect point on a pencil that only came from the first sharpening, and never afterwards.

Seeing everyone for the first time and trying desperately to make your summer sound better than theirs. Hating anyone, even your best friend, if they travelled further and did more. Loving the look in their eyes when your stories of summer adventure brought a wide-eyed hush, followed by an onslaught of incredulous questions.

Then classes started and everything stayed the same. Everything new became old and used and tethered to the mundanity of grade school routine. Summer quickly fell into the shadows of memory, with little need for recall. Someone else was playing in the World Series.

Autumn had its own adventures. I remember sitting in an upturned apple crate, eating an improbably large cinnamon and apple cookie, having just ridden on a tractor through an orchard, staring out towards the rows of trees and the fireworks of the forest just beyond. I don't remember what I thought at the time. Probably just how fucking awesome that improbably large cinnamon and apple cookie tasted.

I used to kick the leaf piles that grew in the nooks and crannies of Beacon Hill, listening to them scuffle and scrape along the brick sidewalks.

In Scotland this year they're too wet to kick and memories of the summer are simply mourning for a lost season, a season that never came.

Instead of new stationery, I have a new suit. And nothing really seems to be the same.

It's familiar.

But not the same.