elsewhere

I’ve been thinking a lot about elsewhere recently. I don’t know whether it’s simply a periodic bout of overwhelming nostalgia, boredom with here, or just a random path my mind has chosen to wander. But elsewhere is certainly where it’s wandering.

Elsewhere has taken many forms.

Sometimes it’s Islay; the ferry pulling into Port Ellen, the round parish church in Bowmore and the patio out the back of the Lochside hotel, sipping a Feis Ile dram and a pint of ale in the sun, the Paps of Jura in the distance to the north. Then I journey up to the Assynt Peninsula in November, then further to Cape Wrath. The sky’s so low you can touch it; a menacing grey that creeps closer when you’re not looking. The slate sea crashes against jagged black bedrock and explodes into turquoise capped with white foam. Looking out and knowing it’s just the Atlantic for a good portion of the world until you reach land again.

In a blink it’s India. Morning by the Ganges in Varanasi as the sun comes up, showing just how vibrant colour can be. Pungent on the nose. Countless people praying and doing laundry. Hearing the lap of the river against the wooden hull of the small boat, the sound of the world waking up drifting over the water. Goats, pretty much everywhere.

Or I’ll start in Jerez de la Frontera, sitting at the bar in Nono’s, watching him tap a cask of Palo Cortado for my afternoon libation. Watching the pigeon on the bar eat seeds out of a matchbox and sipping a bottle of Cruzcampo, a copa of sherry on the side. I don’t even know if Nono’s still exists. I hope it does. From there I’ll drive down to Cadiz and wander along the sea walls and breathe in the ocean air.

If it’s an evening wander, it’s probably Fenway. Drinking a watery beer in a cramped box seat while munching on a hot dog and spilling pretty much everything as I jump up to cheer as Papi drives one into the Monster seats. More Boston. Walking along the brick-laid sidewalks on the Hill, watching my step where the tree roots have pushed up the bricks like a crooked set of teeth. Grabbing a slice from the Upper Crust on Charles St before wandering over to the Common and noticing again how much smaller the little league fields seem these days.  

And then, out of nowhere, I’m sat out front of the Café Sola in Collioure, drinking a beer and looking out over the bridge towards the Mediterranean. Maybe later I’ll walk down to the pier and listen to water on the rocky beach. It sounds just like rice crispies after the milk’s been added; snap, crackle and pop.

A cocktail at Bramble in Edinburgh.

Brunch at Louie’s, watching the storms come in.

Walking on the wet grey sand in Humboldt, transfixed by the Pacific.

These journeys all cover old ground. I’m not going anywhere new, just revisiting where I’ve been. I don’t know if I’m haunted by my past or if it’s me that’s doing the haunting. Lingering long after the event, looking for something lost that probably wasn’t there in the first place.

Isn't that a song lyric?

 

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bunny lady

There’s a pretty lady who brings a bunny to the small park by the river. She keeps it on a lead and follows it as it hops along the grass, nose twitching at the odd blade. It’s a big bunny; almost a fat hare. Large grey splotches dot its white fur. The small park sits next to a playground, and often children will forget all about climbing on the plastic pirate ship and rush over to the grass to pet the bunny. Their enthusiasm turns to timidity when they reach the rabbit. Parents sing out a chorus of ‘be gentles’ and ‘be carefuls’ as their toddlers crouch down with outstretched arms. All the while the bunny’s nose twitches away and its eyes always seem to be casting a sideways glance. The pretty lady smiles at the delighted children as they pet the rabbit in wonder, and then return to their parents brimming with the excitement of it all.

I’ve never known anyone to take a rabbit for a walk. If it were you telling me, rather than me telling you, I’d have a hard time picturing it. It seems on the one hand quite a peculiar thing to do. And yet, if you have a bunny rabbit, and there’s a nice bit of grass nearby and the sun’s out, why not take it out for a stroll?

 

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wait an hour or so

I used to spend summers in Delaware. It's strange to write that now; it seems a epoch ago. But from 1979 to 1987, my parents and I would pack the car with enough of our material goods to last 8 or 9 weeks and drive from Boston to Bethany Beach, an Atlantic seaside town that claimed, rightly or wrongly, to be the body-surfing capital of the East Coast. We'd eat Chesapeake Bay crab and corn on the cob for pretty much the entire summer. Days were spent on the beach and evenings at water parks or mini-golf courses. If it rained, the family went to the movies. In the summer of '84 it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Ghostbusters. In '85, it was The Goonies. I learned to ride a bike and saw my first snake in the wild, which duly scared the living shit out of me. 

I was allowed to eat the sugary-sweet cereal that my mother usually forbade.

The days at the beach were spent mostly in the water; sometimes with a boogie board, sometimes with raft, sometimes without either - swimming and failing to dodge waves. The lifeguards only had to save me once, I think, which isn't bad over the course of 9 summers. There was some manner of riptide and it pulled me out and before I knew it, I was being pulled back in. The lifeguards were nice to me and my summer friends. We didn't realise they were hitting on our older cousins that would visit us. 

Lunch tended to be of the packed variety. PB & Js with a healthy dose of sand. Those awesome flip-top bottles of Grolsch that had been rinsed and filled instead with homemade lemonade. Damn we looked cool; a bunch of ten and eleven year-olds drinking lemonade out of vintage beer bottles. We fucking swigged that lemonade, man. 

And then came the wait. Full of sandy sandwiches and lemonade, all we wanted to do was jump back in the water. Lunch was nice and all, but most days it seemed like an annoying break from the relentless, joyous pace of play. But worse than the sandy sandwiches was the parental directive that followed it; we had to wait an hour before we went back in the water. The hour took seven in our heads. Every five minutes we asked if we could go in yet. It was the are-we-there-yet of the days at the beach. We wore Jams and had that weird zinc shit on our noses and under our eyes. We were neon-and-pastel-adorned kids in the eighties and we wanted to go swimming no matter what time it was. 

We could've built sand castles or played paddle ball. There were volleyball nets. But no, we wanted to do what we couldn't. The threat of cramps didn't scare us. But wait we did, disgruntled and impatient. 

This morning I made an espresso and poured myself a big bowl of cereal. I watched highlights from last night's baseball games and read a bit. And now I'm writing this post and remembering those summer afternoons because I can't quite go for my run yet. I have to wait a few hours after eating before going for a run. I'll feel quite ill if I don't. So I pace and fill the time and bounce on my toes to keep my feet and legs loose. 

I'm less petulant about it these days, but not by much.

 

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bst

It's usually around this time of year that I do a big wool wash. All the winter jumpers and scarves go into the machine, I double check the detergent to make sure it's the wooly one, and then double check the setting on the machine to make sure it's the wooly one, and away we go. I'd lay them flat to dry where I could, but usually just draped them on a drying rack and hope they didn't get too deformed. Once they were dry, I'd put them away for six months or so. They weren't needed anymore. Spring and summer were for cotton and linen, not wool. 

The clocks went forward in the wee hours last night and it's British Summer Time now, in name only. It's too cold to wash the woollens and put them away for a couple of seasons. The sun's out and glorious, but brings little heat.

I came down with another cold. Or maybe it was the remains of the last one, come back to haunt me. It knocked me out a bit, seemed to put everything on pause: it's still winter; there's still writing to finish. 

Instead of the wool wash, I tidied the house from top to bottom. The sort of thing writers do to not write. As well as the house, I tidied my desk, finding too many card receipts for too much money from too many bars. I chucked all the loose sterling change into a jar and piled all my Euro cents into neat stacks for the next to trip to France, whenever that may be. I have no idea where I've put my US currency, nor do I know when I'll need it next.

I like writing at a tidy desk, but I can write at a messy one, if needs be. Vonnegut rails against the idea of 'perfect writing conditions', and he's right. All you need is a certain loneliness, and the need to fill that void with words. No other conditions really necessary.

Except maybe a pen, paper, or a computer. 

 

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where i left off...

March 8th came and went and still I'm trying to finish my first draft. Instead of one deadline, now I have a few, scattered here and there and making a great deal more sense. I do have a table of contents of sorts, with the bits that need finished adorned with a tick next to them. There are a lot of ticks. 

In the meantime, I've been to France with some mates. We ate, drank and were merry: wine, beer and inordinate amounts of VEP Chartreuse. And whisky. It was colder than anyone ever expects France to be, and I shall long remember the violent flurries of snow that came and went in the space of a minute while we walked along the vines in Puligny-Montrachet. 

Part of me is still hungover.

London's welcomed me back with rain and gales, in some sort of poorly executed impression of Scotland. The cat's been delighted to see me though, and I can hear his strange snores from the comfy chair as I type this. 

 

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counting words

Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain seems to go down quite well while writing about Catalan country. I switch my phone to airplane mode and turn off the wifi and data on my iPad. In the back of my mind I remember my undergraduate dissertation and the mountain research that needed distilled into a mere 10,000 words, handed in so late that I was just given a passing grade for it. Then there was my novel, 77,000 words written in fits, starts and then gushing flows, the manuscript still sitting in a box next to my desk. Of course, there are my blogs and whatnot; I've not bothered to count all the words I've posted since January 2005, but I imagine it's some count. Nearly 25,000 tweets over the last 4 years, which when viewed as such could be counted as a tremendous waste of time as well as a tremendous amount of words. Regardless, I to need to write quite a bit more. 

My writing partner at the moment is the cat. He sits on the chair next to my desk and sleeps while I type. Not the trumpet from the speakers nor my fingers on the keyboard seem to shake him from his snooze. Just the odd time when I get up to get some water or a cup of tea does he look up and sometimes follow me, hoping that my mission might be in part to feed him. When discovers it isn't, he narrows his eyes disdainfully and returns to his sleepy perch. 

I'd forgotten the loneliness of writing somewhat. It isn't there all the time; it's like falling asleep and just waking up. When the words come, it's like dream time and there needn't be anyone else there, not even the cat. But when getting started, or drawing to a close, there's too much awareness of where I am, that I'm the only one here and the only one that can be here. A solitary dropped pin. And the only way to escape that is to enter dream time again, to lose myself in the writing time and time again. Not counting words but writing them, because that's the only way they'll ever add up. 

 

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due date

I can fill my lungs without doubling over in a fit of coughing, which can only be considered an improvement. I've run 40 miles in the last two weeks. Winter's grip still holds tight, and snow floated about in a lazy fashion this morning in West London. It's an early wake up call tomorrow; a trip to Manchester to show some folks some wine. 

I decided out of the blue to restructure my book, Salt & Old Vines, this afternoon. I don't even remember how the idea came to me. I think I was choosing a playlist for getting started with writing and was thinking about some of the troubles I was having with some of the bits and not really knowing how to tell the whole story and then I had a moment of clarity. It startled me somewhat, because I wasn't really worried or thinking about structure at all. The structure seemed obvious from the beginning. And that's probably why it bored me. 

So I dropped my publisher a line and was like, um, I'm changing the book structure. 

And he asked: how?

And I told him and he was like, um, well, if it still works?

And I told him it would be better and so he didn't respond to that because obviously I had utterly reassured him.

With my deadline for a first draft March 6th (or 8th - it could be 8th… can it be 8th?), I'm mildly panicking. I finished the first draft of my novel on New Year's Eve 2006. I didn't want to go into 2007 still needing to finish it. An enormous party, great Champagne and friendly adulation accompanied it. Fireworks burst above a house in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and I went to bed drunk and knowing I'd written a whole book. 

That book is sitting in a box at the moment, changed but still needing a rewrite. 

This book won't have fireworks on completion, nor will there be '85 Dom Perignon to slurp in celebration of emailing it to the nice chaps at Unbound. I'll just hit send and set about rewriting what I know needs changed already. I might crack a beer or two while I edit. But getting it finished is just the beginning of something else. Something I'm not familiar with and quite looking forward to.

 

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hubris

It serves me right. I was getting cocky. Oh, sure, I knocked on wood when I mentioned it, and rolled my eyes in the I-hope-I'm-not-jinxing-this kind of way. But I thought I got away with it. I believed this winter would leave me alone. But no. I'm on the lemsip and sudafed. My chest feels of sandpaper and sinuses are gripped by a vice. I've not spoken yet today, but feel I'll be all Louis Armstrong when the words come out. 

I'm still going to work. There's wine to taste. Just hoping I can taste it. 

snow puddles

So last week I read from my book at The Arts Club on Dover Street. I've seen my fair share of grandiose establishments, some even by invitation, but this place pushed the boat out a fair bit, I won't fib. Unsurprisingly, the crew of Unbounders were sent down to the bar in the basement to peddle our wares. I'm better at reading Shakespeare than my own stuff. There's a character to be when reading something else. I've not worked out how to do that with my own words. It's just me reading me to people who don't know me and that's a lot of me out there. Still, they clapped, seemingly of their own free will. Afterwards we went to a far less posh club and drank and ate and folks fell into the last tube/cab home debate. Most took cabs, but I wandered from Soho to Green Park to grab the N9 night bus, which could be described as the Piccadilly Line for the damned. 

Work is busy in the way that things get busy when you think things are sorted and they aren't.

As a sort of follow-on to my 'writing in the mornings' post, I'm running in the evenings. I carry a flashlight. Last night it was pointless, as the puddles of melted snow were too large to dodge, so I just ran through them. I got home caked in mud to my shins and fearing frostbite. It took 15 minutes in the warmth of the house to feel my feet again. It still felt good.

Tonight I'm getting a massage because I need one. 

 

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words in the morning

I’ve been up early, but to write instead of run. I read somewhere about a pulp writer who didn’t allow himself his first pee in the morning until he’d written a thousand words. That’s dedication my bladder won’t allow, I’m afraid. I fear it may lead to a somewhat strained and impatient prose style, as well as the odd mess.

It’s just me and the cat at that hour. The house is quiet but for the cat’s impatience. Not content with my lap, he’ll leap to my desk and cross in front of my laptop as I try to type. I throw him aside a couple of times and eventually he gets the message.

The words come though, some mornings faster than others. I don't know where they come from. My legs don't even work yet, and my fingers couldn't tie a shoe, but they find their keys and letters and words and phrases and sentences appear. Hemingway said to write drunk and edit sober. I'm having a go at writing while still asleep.

My editors are going to love it. 

Or kill me.

 

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