Wednesday 7 May 2008

Nothing Much In Particular



Tis the English summer come. The month of May, when the fans come out, offices sweltering, tempers frying. Olive skinned girls, their curls settling on their soft silky shoulders have multiplied like the flowers.

Even the traffic seems slower, calmer. It glides along the roads as if the sun has cooled the heat of the drivers. The beeping horns and the frayed tempers of driving home in the dark suddenly dissapated. A cool beer in the garden behind the local pub awaits, not a gloomy evening in.

I stand on the step outside smoking and thinking. The teenagers congregate outside the off license as usual, as they do all year round, sometimes five, sometimes thirty. They drink cider, they smoke pot, they even copulate in what is supposed to be our backyard. And they'll be doing more of the latter now, I suspect.

As long as they don't vomit on my windows, I don't much care.

The birds are singing, and that's unusual. Birds sing at four AM round here, evensong is something they seem to avoid. It's a May thing, this sunset chorus, this late sunset.
We're in for a sweltering summer, I suspect. They call this a cold wet country. They must be mad. Or never been here. There is nothing stickier than an English summer, the sweat clinging to your face, your underwear soaked daily, the sky almost ultraviolet with the intensity of the sun. Rain? Oh we can get it all day sometimes, but I really think we must come fairly down on the list of rainy countries, truth be told.

I stub my fag out.
The flat is quiet, eeriely so. Still not used to it. D's cheery 'All right, Chick, you eaten yet? How about a Pizza, my turn to get it?'

Chicken grillsteak and onion rings. And I've run out of brown sauce.

Can't be bothered to put the TV on. Not in the mood. Sometimes I like it on in the background, though I rarely actually look at it- except when I'm actually eating. Can't actually eat WITHOUT the telly on. Forty one channels and nothing on.

A four day week. Nearly there.

In fact nearly June. Halfway through the year. Another year gone, another year closer to the grave.

And I reflect that today, I wish the day would come sooner, rather than later. Because today, I feel tired, exhausted, drained, weary.
Not miserable, just empty.

Totally empty.
As if there's nothing, nothing at all.

As if I've run out of life.

It's been done. Well done mate, hoped you enjoyed it, there were some good times, that was your shot.

My Dad used to tell me that everyone had been given a finite amount of words, so I should think carefully about using them, because I didn't want to grow up and find I was mute.

Yes, I was a pretty talkatative child. In fact, I suppose I was lucky I was never abducted really, I used to go and talk to total strangers.

Excuse me while I go for a fag.

The Moon looks beautiful tonight, the Diana of the hunters in truth, a slim slivered crescent, with the rest of the disk showing blue. I think, as I always do, of how soon it will be before we go back. Would I want to go there? I guess so.



I had lunch with my mother this weekend. That's three times now I've seen her since Christmas. We talked mainly about the exciting features of my work and some of the inside secrets of the British food industry- mainly agriculture and it's increasing industrialisition. Gone Farmer Giles and his sheepdog. Enter the Farm Manager and production lines on site. Though we also talked about the local elections and Boris' victory in London. For once, topics I don't like to talk about with my mother- as in, me- were mercifully avoided.
As I said goodbye to the dogs she said 'You should come by more often- Kip could go any time soon. You may not have much time left with him.'

I wonder. Was that her way of saying 'I wish I saw more of you'? Or her knowledge that when Kip dies, I will cry like a little girl?

He doesn't roll over on his back for play fights any more. I miss that.

I go over everything, over and over.

I'm right, I know I am.
Not only right about everything, but in the right.
The only weak point is myself.

Weak, weak every day, in everything.

Wordly wise, but with the naivete of a ten year old.

Just going for another fag and put the kettle on.

I almost did my usual trick there of putting my tea on the desk, going for a fag, then re-boiling the kettle and making a second. I must do this three or four times a week.

It IS, I think going to be a long road, a very long road, and I don't think I appreciated that at the start, nor the pitfalls, nor just how incomplete my own worldview was. Yes, the foundations were correct, the scaffolding was in the right place, but God, the wealth really is in the details. And it's in more than that. Because try as hard as I might, to be nothing more then a total machine, impervious to pleasure or pain, driven solely by one purpose and one purpose alone, I can't be. I'm composed of organic matter which will decay and rot, as all organic matter will. And I have these tiresome human emotions to lead me astray here and there.

But what if sometimes they lead me true?

I have looked for answers- and found them- in Christ, in Darwin, in Marx, in Nietzche, in Tome Paine, in Rousseau, in Stephen Hawking, in Richard Dawkins, in Plato, in Tolkien and God alone knows how many works of politics, philosophy and science. And yet now I find I get answers to questions I'd never asked in places I'd never thought to look.

I suppose I've found an unlikely Guardian angel who's made me face up to things I tried to avoid dealing with, things I've never told anyone, weaknesses, hang ups that I've put huge barriers up against people, to prevent them seeing. And it's wierd having someone know those things, yet still trust them.

I don't know. It's a strange place I'm in. I can't really describe it. It IS an emptiness, yes. Kind of 'Tis not the worst, when we can say, this is the worst' type emptiness. But also a sense of redemption, as if I have undergone some kind of purgation, and see the world without any skewed vision.

I feel as if all burdens, baggages, hang ups, self-delusions are gone.



And yes, it IS with trepidation that I look forward.
The future's GOT to be bright. Not just mine, the lot. Mankind's future. So I have no business letting myself get worn down.

And I don't know quite what I should DARE hope for, or what I'm committing sacrilege by hoping for.
But surely, it's all got to work out for the best.

All this MUST be leading somewhere. Everything happens for a reason, the good AND the bad. The dark moments surely happen to make the bright moments shine brighter. There will be more dark moments. But there is light to defeat it. And amidst all the dark, I see the brightest, most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

It's dark outside now. I think it's going to be a hot night. Maybe time to remove the duvet and just sleep under the cover.

There's someone outside with a builder's lorry loading it up. Odd time of night to do that. Or it could be a clever burglar's trick- so blatant no one would assume it really was a burglar.

I just noticed I've got the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander on my bookshelf and I've never actually read it. Should I, do you think?

Oh well. I would go visiting, but I should get an early night. Weekend maybe?
Why don't you pop and see Dizzy? Her city's been quiet for a while.

I'll leave you with the lovely Heather Nova.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful ramble.

Anonymous said...

We all get those empty times, it seems to be part of life. The trick is to move on out of them!

& yes everything does happen for a reason, it should give more understanding and a cue to move onto better things!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed reading this, Crushed.

Lots of what you write...I scribble down along the same sort of lines in a journal.

Clock is a tickin' and that is what does my head in too.

Anonymous said...

Only you could make nothing much in particular so long Crushed!

But I did appreciate it this glimpse into your day and thoughts, voyeur that I am.

The two summers I spent in England were not at all hot so I can't imagine this place you are describing.

Keep searching, you are not there yet.

Anonymous said...

What temperature do you call hot Crushed? Cold here for me is anything under 20c. Still, give me some snow.

Anonymous said...

> My Dad used to tell me that everyone had been given a finite amount of words, so I should think carefully about using them, because I didn't want to grow up and find I was mute.
Interesting ;-)

*sighs* On a night like this, it'd help if you had someone to hold you close....

Anonymous said...

There was a risk of eating al fresco tonight. Not to be. A wet front moved in.

Anonymous said...

Sulky Girl- Just in one of those moods. Partly the weather. Early summer evenings have something about them.

CherryPie- Yes, I know. Easier said than done, somtimes.

Yes, but sometimes reasons aren't immediately apparent. Or there's a mutliplicity of reasons. And again, those in turn happen for reasons. Is there a reason to end reasons? Ultimately, tes. Heat death :)

Kate- Just goes to show, even when you can't think of anything to write, you can always find something to write :)

I kept as a diary as a teenager. I think most entries were related my adolescent lusts/awakenings.

jmb- You should meet the chimney sweep- it really is true he produced a ten minute monologue about not being able to find any clean cups in the kitchen.

In many ways, I'm a fairly stereotypical average income white collar worker of suburbia :)

It's getting hot now, in fact last few summers have been roasting. Not perhaps, by Australian standards, but our summers are HUMID. The air gets close. It does affect me particularly, but I'll answer that to Nunya.

No, possibly not.

Nunya- Well, I've got a few peculiarities regarding my own physical constitution which mean summer is a great time for me. 20 degrees is fine for me, I can go outside in just my shirt in that weather, no problem.

I actually feel the heat, rather than the cold, I overheat very easy, and I have a poor respiratory system, because I was born six weeks early. I'm aware smoking doesn't help.
But I also can't actually take bright sunlight, even in winter I have to wear sunglassses when outdoors, mostly.

Generally, I faint a lot in the summer, especially if I get worked up. I hyperventilate, see grey spots, and hit the deck.

Eve- You know what, I believed it as well. I'd be yapping away and he'd say 'Think you must be halfway through your words now.'

Not for them it wouldn't be. I'm a poor sleeper at the best of times and the summer, I thrash about like a wounded deer in my sleep.

But it would ALWAYS be nice to have someone to hold close...

Anonymous said...

E-K- It's baking up here. Though I've heard it might rain at the weekend.

It seems only to rain at weekends right now up here.
I think this summer will mean a lot of eating outside- if you go for a pub meal, it's the only way you can smoke with your meal these days isn't it?