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September 21 Two Gifts The World Gives UsIt was sunny here today, which made people stop in the streets and gasp in wonder - what was this thing?
For the whole of August it was away from us, except for a day during my visit to Scotland when it filled the valley with light like butter in a bowl, illuminating the sheep, energising the thistles and bringing Nessie to the surface of the loch to sport and gamble. I would have had a photograph of him to show you except that I found when I got there that I had only one shot left on my camera, and I'd already spent that on a particularly attractive ewe. Two things came to me while I was away, that I've thought about since. Two Gifts the World Gives us.
When people knew I would be travelling alone, they split into two camps. Those who sympathised as if some terrible calamity had come to pass, and those who just said, 'Oh.' Now I like to travel alone. I like to be alone (not lonely, that's when you have no choice). I liked rambling about pleasing myself, syphoning up sushi without having to ask if someone else liked it, watching the Olympics while dropping gravy down my front, and when I got there, strolling up the lane talking to myself and chatting up the locals (those short horns have very nice wool too.) I wondered what it must be like for people who don't feel at home with themselves, until I remembered exactly how that feels - rather like a liferaft with a slow puncture.
As wanderers, it's nice to find a home in someone you love. Long ago when we pattered across the planet perhaps we developed the habit of carrying a little bit of those we love, and who love us, in our hearts, rather like a backpack, or a handwarmer, so that wherever we are, we are not entirely alone ever. Gift one is the gift of home that we carry with us.
And then there is Sleep. While I was in Scotland, there was, in the evenings, an abundance of whisky and beer and after partaking I would go outside, halfway down the lane in the darkness to stand on one leg and 'phone home' after which I would walk back, warm with this, and fall into my bed where I sunk into a swift and deep slumber like a warm pool. Normally it takes me hours to get to sleep, but not then. Like an otter I dived and the waters took me down and rolled me gently in a tide swell until morning. Gift two is the gift of sleep that heals and soothes.
Here's Bryn to sing you a Welsh lullaby:
And here's verse one so you can sing along:
Huna blentyn ar fy mynwes Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon; Breichiau mam sy'n dynn amdanat, Cariad mam sy dan fy mron. Ni cha' dim amharu'th gyntun, Ni wna undyn a+ thi gam, Huna'n dawel annwyl blentyn, Huna'n fwyn ar fron dy fam. September 02 No EndIt was not a nice night. Mid winter; cold and I had school in the morning. The place was the fifteenth floor of a block of partially abandoned flats, the scene was one I have mentioned before - a room without heating, lit by a few candles, with three men sitting on broken chair cushions on the floor. One heating heroin in a spoon, one shooting up into a vein on his ankle, one already having done it, floating in a wide blue yonder all of his own.
I wondered, not for the first time, what I was doing there, and why. I was about 14 or 15 - why didn't I just go home? I suppose, in these days of personal responsibility, it was my fault. I didn't have to be there did I? No one had strapped me to the back of a camel train and sold me to the city of ruination. Didn't I go there myself?
Didn't I just get bored with being a bright, articulate, happy kid who wanted to be an archaelogist and had a rock collection and a telescope, and thought saying 'bloody' was a terrible thing worthy of being publicly denounced on TV.and decide it would be more fun to throw rocks rather than classify them and wrap them up in tissue paper?
That's what they told me anyway. What other possible reason could there be? Well. The fact is that someone introduced me to all these lovely folk when they should have been looking out for me, just for starters.
Hell's teeth, did I just say that? Did I just suggest...... no. Can't be.
Isn't it absolutely fine to have your world turned upside down and shaken like a toy farm - all the pigs and ducks falling into the combine harvester, the dogs and chickens into the spiky end of a plough, the secret disease research centre cracking open and releasing all the toxic waste into the silvery stream and burning up the fishy-wishies; absolutely fine to become a cross between a piece of tin on an anvil and a unwilling twink being hugged just a little too tightly by the piano teacher; fine to become the one person with the key to Bluebeards secret - keeping the happy wife from opening the door while getting the blame for never leaving the keyhole for fear she might look through and know what you know.
Oh wrap it up for Pete's sake (who is Pete by the way?) or let's just sell tickets for a flaming matinee.
Ok. Let me explain:
I really don't like to be a whiner. It's just been twice in a month now that I've found some things just won't leave you alone. The first time was just sad and I blogged about it then wiped it. This time, not sad - disturbing in the extreme.
I was out yesterday when I heard that someone was trying to get in contact with my bro. Maybe wanting something I don't know how to answer. Someone who also knows what's behind Bluebeard's door, who might need me to help clean up the axe blade. Well, I don't want to.
For the first time, I felt fed up. I mean, when you think you've nailed the door shut, that should be it right, as much as it ever can be, but it isn't. Ever. It's not only made me in some ways, someone I don't want to be, but I'm tired of playing George from 'Of Mice and Men.'
I realised in the few seconds it took to realise that - this time, I didnt' want to be put off my pitta bread and humous - that none of this was actually my fault, that really, I'd been up to my neck in some other farmer's manure heap and was still smelling it. That really, I'm owed, not in debt; need an apology not a clip round the ear; need a thank you for keeping my finger in a dyke way bigger than I was, not a hundred lines for having a dirty pinky finger.
Do I sound whiny? Boring? Pathetic? Well, maybe I do, but tonight I don't care. Tonight, I'm wondering what to do about this voice from the past who won't get his answer either. Realising I might have to deal with some fall out, hoping I won't have to, and wondering whether I should have another drink, because ever since yesterday, I've been replaying a conversation I once had, that no one would want to have, certainly not at an age when you just don't know what to do, and - 'Promise you won't say....Promise...tell me what to do..' - that, under those circumstances then, you could only go away and wonder about; about what might result from the things you had to keep silent about. Had to. And now, maybe I know.
But I guess, I made some sort of progress because It suddenly came to me what a stonking kid I was. It's just a shame it's taken me this long to run screaming into the night with my rock-hammer and my telescope, because I lost both of those things a long time ago. And that was a damn shame. It was.
Thanks for listening, if you made it this far. |
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