My hills, my sea

It feels very good to be back on home turf, up here in Scotland. I was born a few miles North of here and the place speaks to me; it blows sweet nothings in my ear, dazzles me with gentle spectacle and beauty, and possesses an understated grandeur that stops me thinking - it lets me just feel......

The mountains behind me, like the land beneath my feet, are deep in snow. The light is fierce but makes the every nook and cranny stark in contrast. An almost monochrome scene - the only contamination of colour, my car on top this hill ...... except that deep azure sky.



The sea, normally so full of terrible brooding power at this time of year, is nearly flat and the water's reflection is so bright it hurts.

This is my place, my homeland, the land of my fathers for many generations and, although I must now leave it, I feel the connection deeply; so deeply that I know it wont vanish as I travel.

I love you my hills, my sea.

You bring me peace

A Funny Old Life

Time

If you live for the future
You fail to live
Until the futures run

If you live in the past
You will stay there
Until life's passed you by

A Funny Old Life

TRuth

I hear a skein of geese
A plaintive, longing, honking
As they seek their unseen destination
And I wonder if you hear them too

I see the sun set slowly
Low in the winters sky, day ending
In its weird, pink, splendour
I think you might see the same

I see you, when I am out
Time and again my heart leaps
Only to find it's someone
A little similar in height, or type of hair

I hear your voice as I wake
And startled, leave my sleep in joy
Then it fades to silence
No matter how hard I listen

I miss those lips, that noisy hair
I miss those eyes
But most of all I miss
The soul behind them

A Funny Old Life

And so the itinerancy starts .........

Into the wild blue yonder to the worlds of low bandwidth connections, strange accents, scents, flavours, sights and sounds.

Be seeing you out there............

A funny old life

An Itinerant DJs Kitchen

A Haiku, a British Rail virgin and a hat tip to a friend

A friend, I discover, also writes and, as it happens, rather well indeed. A hat tip to you Amaia.

Pestilent City!

Pestilent city!
Grey towers grow about us -
Flowers of winter.

Anais Nietzsche


British Rail Virgin

An amateur philosopher,
I think about hell and train stations.

Five letters –
Down,

Something you do
when you want to be heard...

Shout?

No, I can’t,

Even though the fat man
on the opposite seat is staring at me -

A sticker on the glass
Bans mobile phones and talking too loudly.

Anais Nietzsche


A Funny Old Life

The Stolen Branch - a memory and a hat tip

In the night we shall go in
to steal
a flowering branch.

We shall climb over the wall
in the darkness of the alien garden,
two shadows in the shadow.

Winter is not yet gone,
and the apple tree appears
suddenly changed
into a cascade of fragrant stars.

In the night we shall go in
up to its trembling firmament,
and your little hands and mine
will steal the stars.

And silently,
to our house,
in the night and the shadow,
with your steps will enter
perfume's silent step
and with starry feet
the clear body of spring.

-- Pablo Neruda

The realisation of an ending

Completely alone
In a house full of people
With the realisation that
I will now ever be a man alone

The loss of my sex-drive
Reflects in my behaviour
Women are more friendly, understanding
And totally unattracted

My interactions with women have changed
They want to be my friend, not my lover
And whilst the friendships wonderful
The loss of love bit down hard tonight

I watched the mating game
With all its hesitation, tease and promise
And I realised that I would never
Play that game again

A Funny Old Life

For anyone wondering why I am so happy .....

There is a reason for me putting forward that particular work, TEOTA, for consideration by the judges. More than one, in fact....

I think its probably the best thing I have ever written but it was also necessary for me to enter it since, if I won a place then I knew that the work would be printed. It was important for me to express my love in black ink ......

For those of you not so obsessed with the work of The Bard, and its easy to understand why people get turned off him not so much by how its taught as by the works used, there are works you never seem to get exposed to at school who's abject beauty is apparent to anyone with 30 seconds to spare to read one. I speak, of course, of the Sonnets.

In particular I was referring to my personal favourite .....

It is my belief that beauty of this sort must be shared or the world becomes a poorer place. Please, therefore, even if you hated Shakespeare with a passion: I beg you, please, read what he wrote when impassioned by love.

SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.



A Funny Old Life

A perspective gained

I will touch you again, in this life
When, someday, a sea breeze plucks that pair of stray ringlets off your brow and brushes them behind your ear with a gentle caress, look for me there

I will move you again, in this life
When you, like I do, recall the others face next to ours
In repose, in gentle sleep, smiling

We were drawn together, I still don’t really know how
We clung together when we could but it couldn’t last
There are things we both must do, which cannot wait
We both must do what we need to, to be true to ourselves
And that takes us far apart

Time and circumstance know little mercy

A Funny Old Life

"Kin 'ell!

I found out today that a piece of my writing is to be published in a small anthology of poetry. Extremely surprised and deeply gratified at the same time. A nice feeling.

A Funny Old Life

A Story

I heard a story today
a little boy
about 3 or 4
his mother wasn't very nice to him
gave him no love or affection
berated his every idea
broke all his child's dreams and the little boy
who was a long way short of dim
learnt to survive
he loved his mother
but she didn't love him
so he learnt to close off
he learnt to read adult books at the age of 7
and devoured books on a twice daily basis
and then, at 9, he found that he must have been really bad
for he was sent away to school and left there
so he learnt
he grew apart from his sister
whenever she hurt him in play.
So he had the lesson repeated many times
when you love anyone, especially a woman
they are going to hurt you
the little boy felt angry but powerless
the boy grew up
he coped
he tried
but the man he had become had forgotten about the little boy
and the little boy now held power in the man's thoughts
a nudge here
a tweak there
and the little boy brought the man much pain
and then
one day
when the man's life was mostly run
he heard the voice of the little boy
and realised
what had been happening
the man sought help
in turn it brought him to a counsellor
very highly recommended by a very good friend
who made the little boy tell the story
as the man listened
and thats when I heard the story
of the little boy

I was the little boy
and I was then the man
and now I am me
who has both of them in him
and knows it

I missed a bit
the little boy
when he read his books
and didn't approach his mother
was praised by his father for his behaviour
"Your mother is a little excitable, son."
middle class euphemism
for mad as a spoon

A Funny Old Life

Truth

Don't miss her every moment of every day?

Who the hell am I trying to kid

Untitled Quote

“I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maya Angelou

Random Musings on Beauty

A perfect half moon in the only gap in a mountainously cloudy winter night sky, bisected by a single contrail and surrounded by a halo of stars.

Glancing from a speeding vehicle, en passant, at a particular hotel room one autumn evening, noting that the lights were on and the curtains were drawn: smiling and hoping that that the current occupant was as happy there as I had been during my stay.

The hug of an old, old friend - after many years apart.

Probably the best love I have ever made and being in the company of the woman I loved most in life for the first time: a day unlike any other.

The sight of lovers standing: each seeing only the eyes of their love.

The warm glow of red brick when painted by the sunrise of a cool spring morning.

The smell of my two-month-old grandniece’s hair: she is just so gorgeous.

A mid summer leafed tree overhead.

There is a season for love

Its called Life

Change and time

Time, the great anodyne healer, has moved on.

Every day I miss her terribly but I no longer miss her terribly every moment of every day.

In some ways thats incredibly sad but its also a huge relief. I have quite enough to cope with ......

A Funny Old Life

Continuance......

My journey continues elsewhere....a link will be posted presently

A Funny Old Life

Last post on this blog?

As the months have rolled on, many changes have taken place.

This was my journey and was mostly centered around my emotions for one person, someone I can no longer speak to and who no longer speaks to me.......

This blog appears to have become simply a dead end introspective therefore....

......... maybe its time to stop

After all, if no one reads a blog, does it really serve a purpose (other than as a notebook and I have a more portable one of those.....) ?

Put the past in the past......

I look back over the last 2 years and wonder where it all went terribly wrong. This time last year I was free, in love, in good health (apparently) and terrifically positive about my life and my future.

I am still positive about my future but it appears to have changed shape, somewhat, over time.

I am in love, but it appears to be of the unrequited variety and my health is not what it was. I am tied to healthcare. The progress of this disease under treatment is an imponderable - effect and duration varies so much, but this variety of prostate cancer is extremely aggressive. I simply have no way of knowing when it will strike me for the next, and probably last time.

My friend/business colleague and my wife are now "an item". I see much less of them and some of his actions have been rather, shall we say, insensitive and cruel - especially with regard to their timing.

My son is leaving home....

I have really no support group to speak of.

I must therefore learn to rely wholly and solely upon myself for my physical, mental and emotional needs.

It is definitely time to leave Rugby. The place has some pleasant memories but these seem to remind me even the more of what has been lost. The rest of the memories associated are not so pleasant.

The house is being cleared next week. The skip(s) will be here the week after and I will dress it for sale. It goes on the market the week after. Hopefully it will sell quickly.

A Funny Old Life

The things you ponder.....

Someone very dear to me gave me a present, ages ago. It was in a bag of other goodies and its a very simple thing. A drinks coaster.

It has that famous quote from Georges Sands above a too cute picture........:

"The only happiness in life is to love and be loved."

I have love for many but it seems that it is returned by few.

Who wants a man whose life expectancy is not terribly long?

The prospects for love do not seem to be huge.

I will remain open to the world, will force myself to do just that, striking out on my own on the water with nothing but a hull and a laptop for company in the hope that it may bring some perspective, some peace, some time for healing of all sorts.

Once my son has gone there will be nothing for me here.

A funny old life

A funny old life....

So what do you do after you have coped with your NHS administered death sentence. Once you have picked yourself up, accepted the premise, tried to unstick your melted head and deal with the people around you (badly as it turned out in my case) - what do you do.....

You try to find purpose and reason to continue to get up in the morning.

You aim for things that you will be able to do soon, and push yourself until you can. You aim for other things, further away in time, more ambitious.

You lose your fear of death........

I one sense, this is a liberating opportunity, a chance to go and see things, meet people, that I would not otherwise have been liable to make the time to see.

Unfortunately, my support group has exploded.

My son is leaving home soon, as is right and proper - he has his own way to make in the world.

My ex wife is now with my best friend (or the man I thought to bestow that title on).

I must sell my house. I shall buy a narrowboat and live on that, spend the rest of my time out and about, abroad.

Of all the mistakes I made over the last few weeks, an email sent on the 3rd of September is probably the worst. I cut off the link with someone I loved, someone who loved me. There was little chance, it seemed to me, that anything material would come of it that would benefit her - who needs to be in love with someone who is going to die soon and who cannot be with you, it just makes it harder - so I bit the bullet, pulled the plug, called it off. Better for her, I thought. The right thing to do, my conscience told me.

Stupid bastard.

A Reflection, An Oath, An irony

"Be careful what you wish for", is a thought that has struck me many times recently, when recalling the following monologue:

"TEOTA

A perfect profile in the dim lamplight, she sleeps. I take a picture with my mind, capture the moment.

The scent of the rumpled sheets, the sight picture as a snapshot, the feel of the skin of her smooth cheek on the back of my hand, her hair spread like a fan of red snakes on the pillow, a faint smile upon her lips.

A taxi, tears, a hurried goodbye, not wanting to prolong the pain that both feel. She is gone, my lover no more.

So I turn, run. On and on. To the top of the hill overlooking the river, in the sight of others, where we never walked hand in hand together, as the sun beams down. My tears glinting highlights, reflected in the expressions of the passersby, some dismissive, some frightened, some compassionate at the public display of emotion.

Stood, wide stanced on a park bench, the land spread out before me – dog walkers glancing at the obvious foreign madman as he greets the sun of a new day, arms outstretched, face to the sun, tear tracks gleaming.

An airliner, trailing white appears out of the top of the church spire overhead, far up

It will miss the sun but not by much.

The song ends.

I walk back, breathing deeply.

Life – you will give me more or you will end me. No other choices. Mine are made. I am alive"

Early morning sunlight

I sit here in my greenhouse, cheating slightly with a small heater, watching the world in the early morning light.

The sky is a piercing ice blue, a few contrails litter it but most are fuzzy, dissipated - the effects of man's hand disappearing from sight.

The bricks, where sunlit, are warm, red and radiant. They lend their hues to their shaded cousins who wait impatiently for the gentle caress of infra red.

There is still much that is green here and the light shows it to good advantage, the now huge fuchsia continues to bloom like mad, light pink droplet like flowers carpet the patio.

There is joy to be had in in the world. Which is why I spend my mornings out here, when I can.

A Funny Old Life

Its been a while......

Its been a while since my last post.

It is autumn now, the leaves are turning.

Many things have changed. Horizons and hope have closed in and need to be pushed back out. The world no longer seems so hopeful or fecund or rich in possibility.

I will post when I have something more positive to relate.

A funny old life

Light

This morning has a magical light: walking my dog at sunrise was an outrageously uplifting experience. 

The blues and pinks of the sky lit the greens of the new leaves into a vivid declaration of the renewal of life. 

The slumbering buildings, their brick warmed by the pinks, looked as though they were considering their slow lives through rose tinted glasses: slightly smug and not the least apprehensive of a potential future containing bulldozers. Even the run down upstairs garrets at the top of the houses of the old town seemed optimistic.

The church spire, piercing the blue cloudless sky above it, seemed like a declaration of an ancient intent of slightly vulgar, if dated and fading, ascendency.

It reminded me of another park in another year and then I felt sad for a while......BUT

This is a new year, a new season. There are new things to learn and old things to rediscover, life is rich and fecund. Hope is Spring.

A funny old life

Time

1 year

1 week

1 day 

ago

I lost my heart 

12 Weeks

6 days

11 hours

13 minutes

ago

dxxxxxxxx last came to call

8 weeks

1 day

14 hours

7 minutes 

ago

She could not look back 

I had to drive away

Now I have a friend

Why do I feel so sad?

A funny old life

The Unmerrygoround

I have now dealt with, or at least understood and accepted, those things in my past which have caused me so much pain and, over the years, influenced too many of my decisions. I want to move forward now. My fear is that I may have simply left it too late........

I keep returning to the same old problem.

Loneliness

I have no friends local to me whatsoever. The "friends" I did have turned out to be selfish and manipulative individuals - I am better off without them.

The difficulty is simply this - how to acquire a social life.

I need to make contact with people, gain acquaintances, make friends - real ones. I have joined a local writers group but it meets but once a month and I will not attend my first one for another three weeks. The exercise I take is solitary, I have always detested team sports and sports clubs are far too competitive.

I went to the pub last night, somewhat in desperation of some social contact. Fortunately some neighbours were there and we chatted, inconsequential stuff - they were fairly drunk and holding a conversation wasn't easy or terrifically satisfying. I had two pints of beer (which made me feel awful all of today) and I left when they did. There was no one else I knew, no one else with whom I could reasonably strike up a conversation.

I just feel so dead-ended. I promised myself that I would escape and get off my face tonight, after finishing the work I had to do but, in the end, that is just a false escape and I lie here, sober as a judge.

I cannot see a way up and out of this predicament. I will keep trying, keep smiling, keep breathing but right at this moment all I feel like doing is curling up and dying.

I felt I was making headway last week. I bought a 2nd CDJ (its still in its box). I also bought about 30 classic vinyls, tunes that I really love. I have tried to play them. They leave me cold. I cannot even find a release in music.

I no longer know what to do.

This is the core problem and I am finding it intractable. I am lonely. Contact no longer seems to touch me. I feel divorced from it as though it is unreal (which of course much of it is).

I fear that I will just grow older, more lonely and eventually wear a groove in my life so deep they will be able to bury me in it.

The real underlying problem is one of contrast, expectation and longing.

For decades, throughout my childhood and my marriage, I thought that life was just supposed to be largely without affection, without love, without passion. I grew to accept the little that I did get as being the most that was possible.

Now I find that most of my life has passed by without great amounts of these precious things. The difference is that I now KNOW what they really feel like.

I want and need more. And I don't see a practicable way to enable myself to become open to finding them.

(Not such) A Funny Old Life

Working title

A towel, abandoned, draped over a bathroom door

A pillowcase that still carries a faint scent

Books of poetry, a tube of shampoo, some coffee

And a deep and abiding sense of love

I try to lock the door on these

Until such time as they can be properly explored

A time beyond fear and trepidation

A time beyond deceit and exhaustion

Things, objects, can be hidden, locked away.

Out of sight and on their own they are defused

If only emotion were so tractable........

How can I lock away my reawakened passions

For good poetry

For smiles and happiness

For love?

I make myself another cup of excellent coffee

To remind me of this task

As I weep at the huge, dimly lit structure in my mind

Its large and old and crumbling in areas

Its bound up in metal bracing upon which,

tacked on as if in afterthought,

is written "Love"

A funny old life

On freedom, choice and the pleasing of others

In order to enjoy life I think it is necessary to have friends. 

It is not uncommon to think that friends have expectations that we should satisfy as part of some social contract, or for the keeping of the peace or simply to please someone that we feel we ought to please. We sometimes, in this manner, act against our own best interests (as we might perceive them to be selfish), as a result of a sense of duty or out of guilt. 

I seek to demand nothing of my friends. I want no-one I know to be conflicted by a perceived expectation that I want something. All I ask for is a modicum of respect (e.g. "dont take the piss TOO much").

In this undemanding way I find life much more rational. I no longer, as I did in my youth, pursue the validation of others. Still, the opinions of those I like and love are important to me but here is the difference: the people concerned are all a bit like me - undemanding of their friends for the most part and not principally driven by the need for attention or validation.

I have made it my rule not to be judgemental, excepting of course when someone is deliberately hurting another where this is avoidable: holding dear the principle of "do no harm" is the only criteria by which I judge someone's morality.

I suppose that those that harm deliberately are just extreme in their individual belief in their sense of entitlement. Last time I checked, most of them are schoolyard bullies writ large. Its just an upgrade in the bullies demand from "Gimme yer chocolate!" to "Bleed/Suffer/Pay/Take That ya (insert derogatory expletive of choice)!"

It does not matter whether a person who makes an unreasonable demand is doing so in the setting of business, partnership, friendship or a mugging (in the playground or in the street): once you have given in, they wont be satisfied with less than compliance without at least a little conflict. 

I make a point of deliberately declining such demands, usually in good grace but certainly with significant assertiveness. I suppose it might be my father leaning over my shoulder, with me acting out the active part of the "I want doesn't get!" script but I don't think so. 

It feels more like self preservation.

A Funny Old Life