It looked like a crab. A crab with its pincers raised in defence. It wasn’t far out to sea. I could easily make out its lights and structure. Could it be an observation platform of some kind? Or maybe a landing stage or just a huge on-and-off ferry? There is always something new, even magical to come upon as I walk in the now dark early mornings. The sea was gentle. A lapping. The winter will come soon. These days before are diamonds.
They were flying through the blue of an afternoon sky. There were ten or maybe twelve of them. Canada geese beginning their journey home. Is Canada home? They are huge birds on land and in the sky they seem to sometimes falter. Clumsy, sometimes awkward. Will they make it?
I read about something call Posthumanism. Apparently some scientists are trying to do away with death. Eternal life. Here. On Earth. I thought about it. It didn’t take long. No. No thank you. I want to go. I want to die when my time comes. I want to close my eyes and never wake. I seek the nothing-ness, the light, the emptiness, the grace and the peace that cannot be found here. Not now, not ever. Let it be.
I stole them. I went there under cover of darkness with my scissors and stole them. Do they belong to anyone? I don’t know. They are growing (still, even in late August) in one of the plant containers outside what used to be TreeHouse and now defunct Health Food Shop and cafe. The leaves and tendrils are straggly and leggy but the flowers smell as sweet as anything. I love them. But, not unlike Rapunzel’s mother and her craving for Rapunzel (which I think is a German salad or cabbage plant), wanting or loving them isn’t reason enough to take some without permission. Will a witch come after me and exact a promise to give away a child in return?
I’ve always felt other people’s lives acutely. That is, what I felt or understood to be their lives. Not the whole, obviously, but I enter into the spirit of that moment of their existence. It’s both a stimulating and exhausting habit. It makes me genuinely interested as an interviewer and as a friend and I hope wife and sibling. But I soak too much sometimes. I cannot detach. I often ponder on why I have acquired this habit. Was it my watchful child trying to read other’s emotions, particularly our mother’s, so as to protect myself, to be prepared for a change in them that might indicate danger? He says I am always asking questions of others when we are out together. He implies that its a kind of deflection and, to a certain extent, he is right. But I am genuinely interested in the people I encounter. I want to know them, and the lives they lead. I am curious but it is a kind curiousity not prurient. But there’s also an element of escape involved. I step out of my life and into theirs. It’s nice, relaxing for a time. I like to shrug mine off now and then. It’s a heavy thing, this carrying of self. Do they mind? I hope not. I don’t want intimacy, just to be able to stand in their shoes a while. That’s all.
Is it an obsession now? I don’t know. I certainly feel compelled to draw everyday. I want to get better though what that will feel like when, or if, I ever get there, again I am not sure. Instagram is part of it. I want to post each day. Or should I say need to? I began doing so for the GW project but now I think it has become more than that. I need validation, I always have. I cannot trust my own judgement when it comes to my drawing. And I respect that of many of those who ‘tick’ me or comment. They are kind souls but they have integrity too. Perhaps I just have to accept that this is the way it is for the time being at least. I think about drawing all the time. All the time.
I know that part of trying to live life in a state of grace is about acceptance and not taking things personally. Summer has not been what most of us expected, me included. The light has been gray, mostly and overcast with cloud, and it has rained and rained. I miss the sun. Can I admit that? I miss its energy and life-affirming warmth. Will it come again? Perhaps autumn will be brighter, or winter might be mild with clear days. We can only hope and remain open to it. This is what has been brought to us. And as a result there is still so much green. Be thankful. Water is precious.
When I saw him getting out of the van on Wednesday it felt a little like that scene in Amelie when she discovers that it’s the technician that keeps leaving the unwanted photos in the passport photo kiosk. As with Amelie it all fell into place. He was Smoker (2) and it turns out that he is the owner or user of the Openreach van that we see parked just beyond what we call the courtyard. I’ve often mused over what he did for a living. He seemed to be at home at lot, certainly when his two little boys get out of school. And there it is. He’s a spy. That’s what we call the Openreach brigade. They park up by the now derelict Tax Office. A clogging of vans, in which they can be seen sitting in the front eating their lunch or snacking on coffee and rolls. Men mostly, though there are some women, their work is a mystery. Hence the spy reference. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps they listen in to our phone conversations. Who knows. Stranger things have happen. He never gives us eye contact. A self-contained man who I used to attribute unhappiness to. Perhaps I was wrong. I hope so.
I strode out onto Llanbadarn Road this morning in the still pitch dark and saw an object in the middle of the road. I thought it was a seagull chick. It had that nonedescript greyness to it. Was it sleeping? Or was it distressed or wounded? Before I had time to investigate I heard and saw a car. It was moving fast, its light shining a beam of white across the tarmac. The creature roused itself up onto its feet. Will it make it? I held my breath. It made it. The car zoomed past. I watched as it scurried off making a bee line for the wilderness of the garden belonging to the property developer who died a year or so ago. It wasn’t a seagull chick but a hedgehog. I’ve rarely seen one at large. It was a big one, clearly an adult. It moved quickly, it’s little back legs moving at a rapid pace. I was lifted by the sight. A wildness to treasure.
Two diggers on caterpillar feet are beginning to flatten our garden. I am made sad by it.
I was waiting outside our front door waiting for him to lock up and slam the back door shut when I heard singing. It began with someone humming a tune. It was clearly directed at someone else so as to remind them of a melody. Then the same voice began singing what sounded like a hymn. It was again a singing that was aimed at encouraging another to join in, when she did. I stood and listened. The female voice was frail, wavering, the younger one, a man was strong though perhaps not delivered at full strength. It was our neighbour, of course. I was standing outside her bedroom window which was slightly ajar, and the voices, carried through from the open plan living room/kitchen of her flat, were coming from her and her youngest son. He is her latest visitor. They come thick and fast these days. Do they anticipate her death soon? Can they know? Or is it that they want to be with her as much as they can before she does go? I hope so. He seems fond of her, her jokes with her, much of which she misses no doubt. Nor does he seem to shout. She hears him. Is that significant? Anyway, it was lovely to hear them sing together. He would take her to church later and play the organ for them. Nice.
The falling tomatoes have been righted. The new owners of Elephant’s House are back. All is well.
The fury of the wind on Thursday night upended the new owners of Elephant’s House’s tomatoes. They’ve capsized onto each other, their stalks and canes a mess of spillikins. Poor loves. By contrast the perfect couple nextdoor’s tomatoes are still in tact and also riper.
I’ve been discombobulated too. Technology and my rather too urgent desire to make all safe with LBU. Mercury is retrograde and all is a tangle. I have to let it be. As I do all my other failings and fallings. It is life. And an easy, charmed life compared to others. This I try to remember. Always.