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Ergo I will go

Last night a pal came round for a cup of tea.  He had read the blog but was not too sure how or why the running away would help, nor could he get his head around my unchanged feelings for someone he considers abandoned me.  I tried to explain:

I do not want to paint my relationship with my lost love as only a bed of roses.  Don’t misunderstand me, we had our ups and downs due to a host of different stresses we both individually had on our plates over the years, but from my perspective, I remain to this day only grateful for the time we shared.  I am at least in posession of a tableau of colourful memories and lost dreams.

Insofar as the last seven+ months are concerned, they have been extraordinary and difficult for me to cope with.  The time has however, had its uses in terms of reflecting and just trying to make sense of the enormous changes that have occurred since Dad passed away in September 2008, after which I was not myself as anyone close to me will testify. I was caught up in a spiraling world of distracting nonsense.    

When I say I have reflected, I have seen myself and all I see is ugliness. 

I am full of remorse and regret that during that period I neglected my loved ones in the way I did.  Life just overwhelmed me.  Why I took on more nonsense, and ignored my love – my best friend, I cannot reason.  Maybe it was just a diversion, a way of coping with the reality of seeing my last parent going.  I really cannot explain.

So many lost moments where I could have been more present but was so preoccupied that I hardly recognised them as moments at all. 

In any event, on my mother’s birthday (July 30th), my love asked to meet me in the Railway Hotel and by the end of a pint of beer, my love was lost.

By September and October 2009, I was completely barking.  It was clear at that point that I had lost the two people who I had spent the most time with over the last five years; my love and her brown eyed boy.  Up until the time I met her my life had always felt like an unanswered question; a string of days and nights waiting for something to happen.  I didn't know what.  After meeting her I assumed that we would be part of each others lives until the end of my life certainly (bearing in mind the likelihood for chaps to die before their spouse), that our lives would be irrevocably entwined.  In this respect, I was wrong. 

Sure, there were differences in the things we liked, but we liked playing similar games, declaring obscure items as treasure (like matress frames, rusting things, like shells and stones with holes in them, like glass worn smooth by the sea, like spiders webs and dew drops), we both liked peeling signs of a bygone age and things that had lost their lustre. 

I tried to just see her and her boy after her attention was somewhere else, but it was not positive.  My lost love was distracted and I, although pleased just to spend time over a cup of tea, was equally torn apart and destroyed with tremendous grief whenever we parted.  I suppose one can only take so many goodbyes.  I decided that at least for the time being I cannot cope with the new reality and that I needed to stay away.

It's the small things that pain me the most; that I will not hear her sing child ballads again as she tries to get her little boy to rest, that her little boy will not hold my hand again.  It's strange but I did not realise, in so many subtle ways, how she and her son defined who I am, what I do and what I think.   They made me real. Things I discovered I would share with her and her reaction would very often inform my thoughts on a given subject.  This sharing of ideas I miss and her humour.  Making her happy made me happy. That's how I knew I wanted to be with her forever, because simple things shared with her were the highlight of my week; like positive puctuation marks in a landscape of grey.

Understanding a little about the importance of meaningful occupation to distract one from the dark black holes that can easily become all-consuming, from October, I threw myself into obliterating the brown in my house. 

All brown furniture changed colour to a couple of Farrow and Ball shades of either light cream or pale green.  Even the fish tank stand now matches the rest of the newly painted house.  It looks alright and when friends have come, all have said it’s an improvement.

An occupation like painting furniture provides lots of thinking space, time to reflect and the opportunity to take stock.  After stripping away all of the vanity and vexation of spirit, and after all the repulsiveness and ridiculousness has either gone for good or been packed away, probably never to be looked at again, my Christmas Eve conclusion was correct.  The only meaningful reasons I had to go on in this house, in this place, in this life have gone.  Ergo I will go.

This does not explain my undiminished love for her.  No it doesn't. 
The truth is that from the Kings-mile event, I knew that I
loved her.  I loved her then, I love her
now and I have loved her every day in between. 
I am sure I will always love her.

And if there were a chance to meet again?  Well, only time will tell.  Hope springs eternal and stranger things have happened, to use just two more cliches. 

No one said love was rational.

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The day I ‘nearly’ joined the army

I remember looking through the window, trying to work out what job I
could do to earn a similar amount of money I was on, when a soldier
came to the door in camouflage garb and invited me inside the shop.

I
was outside the army and navy shop, just off Trafalgar Square, and I
was killing time after having arrived for work in Endell Street a
couple of hours early.  It was in summer in the year 2000.  Vince the
admin guy working in the hostel had suggested I take a walk and attempt
to kill time before my 10 hour shift.  It was during the impromptu
meander that I found myself looking at ads in the window of the
services shop.

The guy was nice enough and after
sitting behind his desk he asked me for some basic details.  He finally
asked me to explain what had motivated me to look to the army for
career options.  I recall laughing and explaining to him that my shift
was to start at 3pm and that I had arrived at work early – that was the
limit of my motivation!

The poor recruitment officer
filled in the forms and finally after finishing the cup of tea and
biscuits I had been given, I signed the completed paper on the dotted
line, confirming that the information contained was accurate.

I left the shop to start my work that day and thought no more about it.

A
few weeks later I received a letter confirming with me that my
application for the army had failed.  My medical records had been
checked and due to my having suffered from 'atopic eczema' on my finger
when aged 8 years old, the army just could not take the chance.

I
empathized with the recruitment officers since to the best of my
recollection the affliction had mainly lingered on my right hand
trigger finger.

Although not a serious career option,
I was a little sorry to hear that I had been rejected as a grunt. 
Notwithstanding that, I have kept the letter of rejection safe, for
what it is worth.

Note: I would like to stress that
although I treated the whole 'near miss' of being part of the services
with a certain degree of ambivalence, I do have an enormous amount of
respect for people who commit to a service as a career and, in
particular, respect for those people who sacrifice themselves in the
defense of their country. 

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Making life simpler

A couple of days ago, I spent time going through all of the direct debits and standing orders I no longer needed or rated.

For
years I had systematically joined a host of institutions and societies
which I thought gave me some sort of 'respectability'.

I stopped going to meetings back in August and in some cases downgraded membership to a 'country' status.

Most
of them were useless and amounted to at least a third of outgoings
where I saw no return.  Sure, they sent journals or magazines through
my door, but ultimately, what did I have to show for it?  Nothing.  All was vanity and vexation of spirit, as they say.

Ultimately
as I have found out too late, self respect and happiness is all that
matters.  You can have all the memberships in the world, but if your
alone and miserable, they're less than worthless. 

So out went the spaghetti alphabet of nonsense, except for the Royal Geographical Society.  Of all, the RGS may now be useful.

We will see.

For more information on the Royal Geographical Society (CLICK HERE) 

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New Year and Snakes Blood Soup

I have never seen in the New Year in Scotland.  I have been there
for the period between Christmas and New Year lots of times, but
generally drove back down for the night itself to be spent in Calais
Gate with chums.

Last year was spent in with the lost
love. So soon after Dad going, it was not really a happy occasion. In
fact I recall I went to bed early despite there being an Elton concert
televised.

This time my sister telephoned me in
early December. She said that a charity swim was being organised at
Inellan down the road from where she lives. She asked "would I join in?"

"Of course!", without thinking, I confirmed that I would do it.

As
the weeks went by and the day approached I became a little hesitant. As
I drove from home to Scotland through the snow I watched the outside
temperature fall from a balmy 0°C to -6°C.

The
days wore on and my trepidation increased. As I have explained before,
2nd Christmas was great, but between Christmas and the dip, only time.
Even that's not entirely true, since we went for walks, and played Lego
so diversionary activities were plentiful.

My
sister confirmed a few days before that Old Years Night (as our Nan
calls it) would be spent at a dance organized by a local dairy farm in
the Toward community hall. It turned out to be great and ranked as
highly by me as a barn dance wedding I once attended near Brighton. The
best ever wedding of a friend I have ever been to, but that's another
story.

The New Year dance was great. A bloke with a
synth and a mic, sang a range of songs including some traditional
Scottish dances (which is always a good laugh so long as you can follow
the people in front) including 'stripping the willow,   the dashing
something and something else'. It was a real laugh.

New Year came, balloons fell from the ceiling, my sister and brother-in-law danced.

2010 was here! Hoorah! Gone was the back-end of the worst period in my life.

Then came morning.

For
Christmas my sister had bought me a "Keep calm and carry on" t-shirt
and we decided to wear the same as a uniform. I had found my sun hat
from a few years ago and we both had blue shorts on.

It
should at this point be explained that we knew a few people who had
borrowed wet suits for the dip, but for some reason, we decided that if
you are going to swim in the freezing cold, you might as well do it.
"Wet suits are for wimps", we chanted!!

The support
crew (brother in law and nephew) were both carrying the cameras and
'snakes blood soup' (which tasted remarkably like tomato?) was poured
into the Thermos flask.

My sister and I ran next door
to gather some more troops (successfully getting swimming agreement
from two with the rest of the family in support – G looked particularly
fragile but was in fine spirits).

Then the time came. 
A hundred or so strangers lined the beach at Inellan and a few other
people were in fancy dress with wings like 'arctic fairies' ready to
take the plunge. In all I estimate that 25, or so, of us were there for
the swim.

Having duly signed the obligatory health and
safety disclaimer and paid our £5.00 entry fee, a wonderful fancy
statue of liberty started the countdown.

We were off.

My
sister and I had already agreed to swim further out than any others and
that swimming was not confirmed unless total immersion had been
achieved.

I was proud to say that my sun hat floated at least twice straight from my bobbing head.

We
gained our footing and both stood up. Shaking hands to the sounds of
shrieks and screams of the natives running for the shore we calmly
chatted for a bit and agreed to go in again one more time. This time it
hurt!

We got out and waded in as controlled a fashion as we could into shore.

Warmed by towel and snakes blood soup, a shot of whiskey was passed to each of the swimmers by the organisers.

We all congratulated each other and having got dressed, proceeded to get back into the car and return home, triumphant!

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