A Leaving.

At one minute past eleven tonight I heard a firecracker - or it might have been some other form of pyrotechnic - break the stillness of the Shire night. No doubt it was one of the local breed of conservatives celebrating the fact that the UK is no longer a member of the EU. It seems I'm not a European any more. I liked being a European.

Brief Encounter.

Something nice happened at last to interrupt the current gloom today. I met a very lovely young lady called Belle in the coffee shop in Ashbourne. She was at the next table, the one by the window, and looked at me several times with soulful eyes. I admit to having been quite unable to ignore her, and I duly smiled back.

I wondered whether it was right and proper that I should cultivate an association on the basis of such a brief encounter, but decided to take the risk. I took some crumbs – the detritus of the butter croissant I’d had with my coffee – and placed them on the floor. The soulful look gave way to a bright radiance and Belle licked them all up in a few seconds. And then she placed her head on my lap and looked at me with eyes which conveyed more of expectation than expression of gratitude. I gave her the rest of the crumbs.

Her human, a young deaf and dumb man with whom Belle was employed to give assistance, didn’t mind a bit. He even waved and smiled at me when I left. Belle was asleep under the table by then.

Staying Connected.

The issues are mounting. Four of them concern health, the rest are an odd miscellany of all sorts of things. My life is taking on the texture of a surreal novel in which creatures of varying degrees of nightmare leap from dark alleyways to ride on my shoulders. The weight is getting to me.

A few nights ago I lapsed into a strange state of consciousness for a few moments. I suddenly felt entirely disconnected from reality, as though I were an astronaut who had left the ship to take a space walk without a safety line. It was bizarre and a little worrying; I even wondered whether it might have been the start of a real psychosis. But no: in less than a minute I was back in the twilight zone of mere anxiety, depression and a sense of treading water until the cataract is reached.

Sorry for the whinge but I can’t think of anything else to write about.

(Actually I could if I really wanted to. I could write about the tall woman who I see in the coffee shop every Monday, and who has lately been in the habit of staring at me quite intensely between writing on a notepad and playing with a laptop. I could even jot a rare Lady B post because she told me something interesting today. But why bother? History isn’t quite the sounding board that it used to be.)

Am I exaggerating a little here? It’s a pointless question because only I can know.

Tonight I watched a film called Lucy. I liked it.

On the Hiatus.

I’m feeling ever guiltier about the people who keep dropping onto my blog even though there’s nothing new to read here. And somebody whose opinion I value told me this morning that, notwithstanding my preoccupation with current and prospective worries, I should continue to blog anyway ‘for the sake of others.’

The sake of others? In what way does my blog benefit others? I’m not qualified to be a guru. I’m not sufficiently erudite to mimic the academic. I don’t give advice because I consider it presumptuous. I don’t even really know very much, but merely have instinctive reactions to things which I observe and which move me (like some asshole from the American political establishment bad-mouthing my heroine Greta Thunberg, for example.) I’ve said before that my reason for writing this stuff is because writing is what I do, and because throwing thoughts out into the ether is slightly more satisfying than bouncing them off a cold and impassive wall.

And there’s something else: When you’ve gone a long time without writing a post, revising the habit isn’t as easy as simply carrying on where you left off. I don’t know why; it just isn’t.

And yet I still feel guilty and inclined to apologise. So… sorry.

I did have a good thought this morning, though. I was suddenly swamped by the realisation of how precious the priestess is. That’s good because I need the occasional reminder not to take the special ones for granted. We probably all do. And I’m still questioning the fact that I constantly declined her request to finally meet me in person after all these years of corresponding by email (she’s been in the UK for the past three weeks.)  I did so for several reasons – not least being the fact that I didn’t have a clue as to where I might obtain a Phantom of the Opera mask – but I still can’t decide whether I did the right thing because we were never meant to meet, or whether I missed the opportunity of a lifetime.

Meanwhile, my life is set to change significantly tomorrow. We’ll see what comes next.

Pro Tem.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.

Just by way of explanation…

Life is a persistent storm at the moment. So many issues crowding in and filling my brain to the extent that there’s no room left in there to consider blog posts. Dire situations and dark prospects.

I could make posts about the problems, but the good old A&D is too cold and deep a lake to wade through. Besides, I spent most of 2018 whingeing in detail and I’m tired of it.

In the meantime, a mention to those faithful few around the world who check in, mostly on a daily basis: the fact is noted and appreciated. Hopefully I will be back. Writing is what I do.

More Fruitless Rambling.

I was reflecting this evening on those days back in my past when I played the game of life along with everybody else. I remembered that there was fun to be had back then, and excitement, and things to aspire to, and things to look forward to, and so on and so forth. Put it all together and I suppose it gave me a sense not of belonging – I never really felt that – but of being enclosed within a package of things which I could reach out and touch. I suppose it’s a bit like driving a car with all the controls around you and a warm, watertight shell keeping you safe from the elements. Get out of the car and you have only your feet to carry you forward through the cold, the wet, and the stinging wind. That’s how life currently feels, now that I’ve mostly stopped playing the game because it all seems so artificial and pointless.

And last night I watched a YouTube video which examined the evidence for reincarnation. It told of the little girl who claimed that she remembered her previous life, she remembered her death in that life, and she remembered wanting to come back here because she liked being on earth in a human body.

This is where I get confused because I don’t know the truth behind any of this; I merely have suspicions of various strengths. And I don’t trust gurus because I don’t see how they can know it either. And so I fall to wondering whether life as a human being really is just an illusion set up to facilitate the playing of a game, and whether we only keep coming back here simply because we enjoy it. Or is that only part of the story? Could it be that some of the ways in which we act and think and feel have some significance beyond the illusion, which is why all that is meaningful in life ultimately distils to the abstract?

The next step is to ask a fundamental question, but I’m not going to do so because it would be prey to various misconstructions. It’s my opinion that philosophical enquiry – especially when it’s at the core of that existential branch which we call ‘spirituality’ – has to be conducted from a position outside the cultural tram lines looking in, and then it can easily become a capricious firecracker when it’s thrown back between the tracks. I might put it to the priestess some time. She wouldn’t misconstrue it.

And now I’m seeing life as a curve which starts at a point on a line, rises to run straight for a while, and then curves back down to the baseline at the point which we call death. And I find it difficult to countenance the notion that the consciousness which entered the life at the beginning didn’t arrive there from somewhere else.

And now I’m rambling so I’m going to shut up. It isn’t even a well written post, but I don’t suppose it matters very much. And the pungent scent of jasmine is strong again tonight. And I’ve discovered that the combination of whisky and tomatoes doesn’t agree with me. (I wonder whether this might lie at the heart of the dilemma.)

Blessed Evolution.

I have three ads currently sitting in the sidebar of my main email account. One wants me to spend £900 on a week’s trip to the Dominican Republic, another wants me to ‘integrate my marketing’ into the… something-or-other, and the third wants to give me advice on how to reduce toenail fungus. And they’re all probably fake. Most things are these days. If there’s one great stride the human race has made in the past twenty years, it’s been the tide of dishonesty rapidly swamping the lives of everybody who uses the internet. Bhutan is probably a rare exception.

When Veins Go On Strike.

I went for a blood test today to see how my cholesterol level is responding to my new-found statin habit. I asked the nurse if she would mind using my right arm because my poor old left arm has had enough needles stuck into it over the past two years to last a lifetime. Yes, of course she would… only she couldn’t. No blood was forthcoming. She said she’d have to use the left arm after all.

‘Why is it always me?’ complained my left arm. ‘What with syringes and bloody cannulas I’ve had enough needles stuck into me over the past two years to last a lifetime. What’s wrong with emptying the other arm for a change? See how he likes it.’

‘Sorry old chap,’ I answered apologetically. ‘I’m afraid the other arm is being uncooperative.’ The other arm tittered quietly, but its countenance fell when the left arm also decided to be uncooperative. ‘I’ll have to get Nikki in,’ said the nurse.  Nikki, it seems, was more senior and presumably more experienced.

‘I’ll bet you’re embarrassed,’ I said to her. ‘Yes,’ she answered.

Nikki came in and tried the left arm first, while the dear limb gritted its teeth and declined to be helpful. ‘No,’ said Nikki, ‘I can’t get a sample either.’ The arm looked triumphant while I scowled and asked: ‘Is there something wrong with me?’

‘No,’ said Nikki. ‘It’s just that every time I try to push the needle into a vein, the vein keeps slipping sideways. ‘Can you blame it?’ I asked. ‘I suppose not. I’d better try the right arm again.’ ‘Bugger,’ said the right arm, but decided to come quietly and a syringe full of blood was obtained at last and everybody was happy. Except the arms, of course, which might well sulk with one another for some time yet. The blood, meanwhile, was dark red and looked perfectly relaxed.

‘Will that do?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Yes.’

So I left, wondering just who was the winner in all this.

The Year's First Surprise.

Now here’s something odd. Somebody dropped onto my blog at midnight.

To most people, midnight on New Year’s Eve is a special moment – a time for squealing and kissing and hugging and setting off fireworks and singing Auld Lang Syne while toasting the moment with a wee dram of Scotland’s major export. And yet somebody chose that moment to visit my blog (and I should point out that they came from a country in the same time zone as the UK.)

Should I be surprised? Certainly. Should I be honoured? I don’t know.