On Being Unremarkable.

Apart from the weather which would have done full justice to a fine day in early July, and apart from the bewildering array of crossed wires and competing circumstances which fractured and confused what should have been a placid evening, and apart from being convinced all day that it was Wednesday which caused me to miss making an appointment for tomorrow, and apart from my first sight of the evening Venus for many a long year, today was too unremarkable to write about.

And yet write something I must. I’m driven to write. I’m not driven to write copiously in order to create volumes of opuses by which I might be remembered and through recognition of which I might be lionised. I have no desire to be lionised because I don’t see the point. Dead people are just dead people, whatever their name was when they were living people. And besides, I have a short attention span which marks me out for a place among the detritus at the bottom of the measuring jug in which human beings are allocated their worth.

That’s OK. Seeing the glorious evening Venus descending imperceptibly from the darkening azure to the russet-fringed skyline reminded me of those times when I used to take winter walks after dark – when I used to wander deserted lanes through the snow and frost and mist, when I used to look heavenward through steaming breath to learn the names of the constellations, when I used to listen for strange nocturnal noises in the distance or just beyond a hedge and make unsuccessful guesses at their origin, when I used to stand and marvel at the Lady B’s pale-painted cottage made mystical by a full moon beaming weakly through the translucent air. Such insubstantial recollections mean more to me than merely being lionised.

And so I write meaningless fragments like this in the absence of something better. And eight or nine people might read them, or they might not. And they might judge me by them, or they might not bother. It really doesn’t matter because the source of the drive is a bedraggled mind which has to constantly observe and perceive and question and come up with theories which are unprovable because I don’t have the patience to be academically inclined. It’s all about releasing pressure.

But now I’m rambling beyond the point, so I can allow myself to shut up shop and drink more Jameson to match the music.

(I have my first insect bite of the year, by the way, which I do consider worthy of mention.)