Winter is ... in Seven.

Viewing the pixilated moon through condensation on the window glass.

Walking through shadows which weren’t there in the summer.

Contrasting the graphic quality of skeletal trees with the solid and softer attributes of their summer-clad selves.

Marvelling at how quickly a hot beverage loses its capacity to comfort.

Feeling anxious for the birds when the dusk is deepening and the temperature palpably falling.

Sniffing the air for the scent of snow on a changing wind.

Listening to the hiss of countless car tyres turning anonymously through the frigid dampness of a monochrome urban landscape.

  

This is the view from an office where I worked for nine years. One afternoon in July I walked out and was never seen in the vicinity again. It earned me the nickname ‘Lord Lucan’ among my erstwhile colleagues. It shouldn’t; walking out unexpectedly and never going back has always been something of a habit of mine. My mother sometimes asked me where I got my gypsy blood from. I’ve no idea, but the gypsy in my blood has fallen cold and anaemic now. Only the wildwood with its singular and sometimes mysterious sounds stirs the memory of its former restlessness.

Several times this week there have been mysterious sounds outside my office window after dark. It happened twice tonight. It being Halloween today, they reminded me to put a cake and glass of scotch out in the garden, just in case.

As Promised...

I said in my last post that I’d make the effort to reprise the blog if no damning letter arrived in the post. No such letter having yet been received, I suppose I ought to keep my promise. (Keeping promises happens to be important to me.) So here are a few notes for now:

1. I re-acquainted myself with the wood at the top of the lane a couple of days ago. (It’s where somebody I held in high regard once did her best Hermione Granger ‘boys are useless’ impersonation.) I’d forgotten what a sense of magic hangs in the air there. An imaginative person might be excused for expecting to see the flash of a unicorn’s horn or hear the hoof beats of a centaur, and I’m an imaginative person. I’ve taken to calling it ‘the Harry Potter wood’, and it’s currently the place where I’d most like to die.

2. Chronic back pain is very good at dampening the spirits.

3. I find myself irretrievably drawn to young mothers with their first baby these days. There’s something so very appealing and life-affirming about them.

4. Five favourite quotations from Harry Potter movies:

Severus Snape:

That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger. Are you incapable of restraining yourself or do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?

Dumbledore:

Of course it’s all inside your head, Harry. Why should that make it any less real?

Moaning Myrtle:

Oh, Harry: if you should die down there, you’re welcome to share my toilet.

Hermione Granger:

Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon…

Luna Lovegood:

Oh, I’ve interrupted a deep thought, haven’t I? I can see it growing smaller in your eyes.

5. It disturbs me that I share a lot of characteristics with Ron Weasley. That really does disturb me.

6. I’ve no idea if and when I’ll make another post. The chronic back pain is depressing my spirits (not to mention the multiple computer problems, the insufferable incompetence of the corporate world, or the constant wondering whether I still have a life to get through.)

I’m off to bed now, hoping that the back pain doesn’t keep me awake or the nightmares keep waking me up. The nightmares are full of vague images that I try to work out in the unwholesome darkness of the early hours while trying to get back to sleep through the back pain.

Musing on Resumption.

I recently came across a post of mine written a couple of years ago around the fact that the Welsh word for ‘film’ is ‘ffilm.’ The double f proved fertile ground for humorous comment and I thought it rather good; it even made me laugh, which very few things do.

I miss writing my blog, you know. I’ve written one post in over six weeks, and that only a paltry explanation for my absence. Since I have so little verbal or social intercourse – at least the meaningful and energising sort – with other members of my species, the dear old blog has undoubtedly been my chief confidant for a long time now. But as the fog of uncertainty on the health issue has grown thicker, the expectation of bad or even devastating news more pressing, and the lack of any wind to catch the sails more frustrating, the will to confide and communicate has slipped into stasis. I haven’t stopped observing and noting and forming words to express my mental dalliances, but they have lacked the will to slip out of my head and onto the page.

Today, for example, I saw something somewhere which nudged me to start writing posts again, but now I can’t remember what it was. Like everything else which has prompted me to resume the throwing of words into the wind, it was strangled by the nervous anticipation of receiving yet another white envelope marked Private and confidential. Addressee only some time over the next week or so. Such a missive would almost certainly bode poor prospects for whatever future I still have.

And then there’s the question of whether the words ever land anywhere anyway, or whether they drift aimlessly into the vastness of space as fragments of energy destined to drift through the dark cosmos for all eternity. Blogger stats tell me every day that people visit this blog, but I’m not sure I believe it. I suspect it’s merely a contrivance engineered by Google to keep their flock in the fold. Not that it matters, of course; I’ve always said that I write the blog for myself not an audience, but it’s another little weight to add to the scales on the ‘why bother?’ side.

And yet I’d still like to get moving again, to push the troublesome issues and anxieties and the sense of being in limbo aside and pretend that everything is normal and life goes on as usual. I’ll see what happens over the next few days. If nothing does, I’ll make the effort.

Then again, if nobody is going to read what I’m saying here, is there any point in posting it? I think so. It can’t do any harm and I have the best of all reasons for posting it anyway: I want to.

A Brief Intake of Air.

It’s occurred to me to wonder whether anybody has questioned the fact that I haven’t written any posts for several weeks. I don’t suppose they have because I don’t see any reason why they should. And yet tonight I feel the urge to say something again, even if only to explain it to myself (or the wall if it’s listening.)

For the past few weeks I’ve been in a bit of a strange place – and still am. It’s a little like being lost in the middle of a dark wood with a heavy mist obscuring everything beyond a few feet and no footpath in sight to offer the prospect of moving on. My usual compulsion to talk has been lacking and I’ve had nothing to say anyway. I’ve been spending my evenings with some good friends from another dimension, but on Sunday I decided it had to stop and said goodbye to them.

Maybe it was because I saw a woman walking a dog up the lane that day, a woman who disappeared mysteriously in the few seconds it took an oncoming vehicle to obscure my view of her. Or maybe it was the object I found under my living room table, an object which had no right to be there and the explanation for which remains elusive. But at least I’ve had no further encounters with my friend the Grim whose acquaintance I made last winter, nor the swarm of black butterflies which appeared in my bedroom a couple of months ago.

No doubt any person reading this will wonder whether I’m succumbing to psychosis. Well, I have no proof either way, but I’m quite certain I’m not. Something odd appears to be going on in my life, and I suspect it’s boding some change of direction one way or another. Time will tell, of course.

In other news:

This coming Thursday is a big day for me on the health issue front. It’s frightening, and yet it has a curiously thrilling aspect to it. I’ve also encountered a woman on YouTube who is drawing out my need to communicate with a fellow deviant. This is relatively unusual for me and I wonder how it will end. What worries me is that if it ends in tears, I’m sure they won’t be mine. And then there’s the back pain I’ve been suffering as a result of overstretching myself in the garden while not yet fully through the post-operative stage. My friendly consultant told me I still need to be taking it easy, and when I explained that gardens are not in the habit of waiting he smiled. Ah, and then there’s the case of my curiously crotchety internet connection which countless calls to my ISP and three visits from telecoms engineers have failed to correct. And that’s not the only electronic something-or-other which has been doing odd things lately. I daresay those who think themselves possessed of arcane knowledge will be drawing conclusions.

So, that’s a bit of an explanation for my silence. Does it represent the resurgence of my blogging habit? I don’t know yet. Time, as usual, will tell.