visiting rights

A somewhat barren and grey autumnal England gave way to some sun north of the border and white horses riding the waves of the sea to the east. I have two small rucksacks with me and that's all I'll be bringing back after this brief visit to Scotland. Both may be laden with wine, but there won't be any more baggage. What's there will just be heavier. 

This trip was planned awhile ago, before I left the last time with a van full of all my stuff. I knew I would be back for this. I'd sorted out a place to stay, two lunches and a nice bottle for my host. As of yet, though, I've no return planned. When I leave Thursday morning, that's it until next time, and I don't know when that next time is.

 

And that's a little strange for me.

Posted with Blogsy

back on the path

The following was written Sunday, 11 November, but I thought the Vonnegut quote more apt to post that day:

It rained last night. Quite a lot, as it happens. It woke me up in the wee hours and I got up to shut the window. The cat wasn't too bothered. He thought maybe for a moment that I was getting up at 4 in the morning to feed him, but then he's not very bright. He's just a cat, after all.

It had stopped by the time I rolled out of bed. I put my running kit together without too much of a problem. Everything where I left it over a month ago. I wore a hoody over my t-shirt because it's November. I selected the short run playlist on my iPod. 

It was muddy, damp and crowded. My legs felt caked in rust; muscles, tendons and joints shrieked in discord and disharmony. Two miles in and my lungs got used to it, at least. It felt wretched. Every other runner was faster, and seemed a great deal less on the verge of death.

I tripped at one point, and somehow managed to right myself with out careening head first into the mud. Ninja-like reflexes revealed themselves that have never been there before and I doubt will appear again.

I reached the end and staggered through my cool down walk. Armies of runners passed me; fitter, faster. 

But I made it. And I'll do it again. And it will get easier. 

Or that's what I keep telling myself. 

…and all music is"

From Kurt Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions' - 

"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

And all music is."

There are some quotes, some pieces of writing, that I cling to; that I clutch in my head and heart and hold tight. I call on them to remind me of the beauty and truth of great writing. This seemed a good time to share this one.

away from it all

I woke up with a bit of a start this morning. The cat was delighted, thinking my purpose was to fawn over and feed him. Instead I rolled out of bed and checked my phone to see the results. Getting info like that from Twitter is hilarious, because often the 'news' tweet is lost in the endless stream of reaction tweets. You don't find out what's happening, just what people think of what's happening. 

I voted over a month ago. Scoured the web regarding all the little, poorly written amendments to work out what they actually meant. Checked the record on the judges up for reelection and whatnot. Tried to be thorough and make an informed enough decision. Some of them required more research than others. 

My home nation seems a very different place these days. Some different for the better, some different for the worse. It's never not strange to be so detached from it and yet still be able to look in. To watch The Daily Show, read the NYT, Boston Globe or Washington Post. To see the news as it happens, to watch the thoughts of millions pouring out into the internet and yet not be in it, not really.

To feel a sense of pride, but from a distance.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

 

long goodbyes

So I've had a couple of those goodbyes recently. They were simple and short. In no way commensurate to what was said goodbye to. There was beer; whisky. So much more left unsaid than said. I've run out of fingers to save the pages of all the chapters of my life I'm moving on from. 

stagnant

I've not gone for a run this morning. It's been about three or four weeks, and that was just a four-miler. It's driving me slightly crazy. I feel myself getting that little bit unhealthier and more out of shape every day. It's sort of like writer's block, in a way. The further I get from doing it the more I forget how easy and natural and right it feels. The more it seems impossible, and fraught with effort. I set my alarm early but it was so dark, I just chickened out. It was just so easy to hit the snooze button this morning and climb back into bed. I have a running light. I even have a headlight, though I'm not sure how to wear one of those while still wearing my Red Sox hat. I've run in the dark before, lightless. This shouldn't be any different. It isn't. 

Tomorrow. Honest.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

rainy sunday

I wished for a rainy Sunday and here it is. Boxes and bags to be emptied and arranged and put somewhere properly. I've not started yet. I've no idea where I'm going to fit it all. I've also the sense that it shouldn't be unpacked for very long. That sooner rather than later it will all be packed again for some yet undetermined location. 

Last night was beer and burgers and old friends. Birthday toasts raised and loads of chips covered in Parmesan and truffle oil consumed. I headed home in the cool London night. For some reason I thought cocktails would be a good idea on the walk home and conveniently one of my new favourite cocktail bars was right there. So I popped in. 

A last orders Old Fashioned and then one of their new concoctions on the house. I don't quite remember the walk home, but I do remember not having a whisky before I went to bed because that would have been foolish. I cherish these small triumphs of decision-making. They are rare in my life. 

Before I unpack there are some errands to run in the rain. Convenient excuses are as rare as triumphs of decision-making these days.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

in storage

I pulled in with the van just before ten on Tuesday and unpacked it into my parent's garage by myself. It took awhile, but nowhere near as long as loading it did. I put the heavy boxes on the bottom and the few light ones on top. While I dread moving again, and want a bit of a break, I hope they're not in there too long. 

The small amount I did bring into the house is still packed. That's a job for a rainy Sunday.

Last night I walked to the pub before going home. It was quiet and candlelit and both the fireplaces crackled in the dim light. The staff were a touch too chatty, but it didn't matter. I found a small corner and wrote and thought. From where I sat, the pub could have been empty, which is just what I wanted. I was going to go home after two pints, but a good song came on so I stayed for a third.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

forward momentum

Writing is more important than packing, I'm sure of it.

We sat on the balcony last night and drank Ardbeg. The sky began crystal, and Orion's Belt twinkled above the sea to the east. Jupiter shone just above it. The moon loomed high in the south. The night was bright, lit by the moon and the stars. It was cold, too, but the whisky warming. We spoke more about the future than the past, which is for the best. It clouded over, seemingly from nowhere, and we finished our drams and threw the glasses into the sea. The last Braydram at Shorehead.

I'm so ready for this chapter to finish. I'm moving on. But my finger's still saving the page.

Posted with Blogsy

books in boxes

I slept in the extra hour this morning. My phone reset itself, so I wound my watch back. The clouds hung low, a grey ceiling over St Andrews that suited the waning days of October so well that I didn't miss the sun at all.

I started with my books. There are many. It's a healthy balance of read and unread. I hate putting them in boxes. They do no good there. Placing Chandler and Faulkner away where they can't be read feels like betrayal, or censorship.

My paperwork came next. Endless statements, bills and scraps. I keep them out of some sort of fear that were I to burn them, I would immediately be required to produce them again for some manner of desperately important Bureaucratic necessity. I all but poured the contents of my desk into one box, including the annotated draft of my unpublished novel. I labelled that box as 'not for the garage'. That big purple binder needs to be on my desk again as soon as possible.

Amidst all these bits and pieces are the memories that come with them. A piece of paper from a tasting four years ago, the host now dead two years. It comes back with perfect clarity; a dinner in London, a lunch the next day. The food; the wines; the measured, wise conversation. The company.

I'm no hoarder by any means, but that's why I keep these things. Bits of paper that unlock so much more than what's scribbled on their tattered leaves. I'm packing memories away, but taking a long, lingering look at them beforehand.

Because I've no idea when I'll see them again.

Posted with Blogsy