A Saturday Night's Journey back to balance

A great frustration drove me out of the house, an anger almost.
I needed to escape and my first thought was as usual: the gym.
So, I arrived at the gym and the car park was empty as one would expect on a Saturday evening when everyone else would presumeably have better things to do.

And so I ran. A reasonable pace interspersed with 20kmh sprints of 20 seconds each. And some of the demons tried to keep pace but fell by the wayside here. I could almost hear their taunts growing fainter and less convincing as I left them exhausted in my dust.

The fleeter-of-foot demons who remained continued to direct my thoughts until approaching the weights bench, I hefted two huge dumbells: The biggest I could lift. Lying back on the bench, I hoisted them to my chest and with a feeling of virtuous effort, pushed them skyward.
Eight times I raised them until the burning in my chest filled my mind and the last remaining demon crumpled into an ineffectual fading heap by the side of the bench.

Later, my workout finished and my arms, shoulders and chest now exhausted to the point that the van door was a challenge to pull open, I climbed back into the driver's seat and regarded the dark sky with its rising three quarter moon.

What to do now? The nagging demons were now departed, vanquished and humbled. But a residue of restlessness remained. I couldnt go home yet. I was too agitated.

As I approached home, I resolved to go somewhere and contemplate for a while. So, instead of turning towards the town, I headed across the common up towards the iron age hill fort.
On the common, the mist had started to form in some of the lower-lying areas and the flatter stretches of road. There was the strange experience of the van windscreen being intermittently below, above and level with the layer of fog, which i guess to be mainly about a metre or two thick. Sometimes an undulation would take me through all three and back again.
I drove quite slowly, knowing there were cows loose, grazing the common, and that they had a tendency to wander into the road. I did not wish a bovine bonnet adornment so, my passage through the ethereal mists was like that of a slow barge on a misty canal.

I drove into the layby and looked across at the moonlit scene. The ramparts of the hill fort could be clearly seen in the moonlight and mist hung in the ditches like a pale, flowing liquid. The moon illuminated it in such a way that dark shadows merged gradually into weak light by degrees, the odd bush gaining mysterious personality and almost intimidating movement.

There are a string of these settlements along the scarp. They are purported to be iron age but there are older tumuli nearby that suggest that occupation has been much longer.

There was silence and there was moon. There was mist and landscape. And there was me. What else was there? Were there spirits watching me as i watched the scene? I don't believe in spirits, ghosts or gods for what I feel are good rational reasons. But here there was an eerie feeling, probably self-generated, or atavistically left over from those dark, spirit-haunted nights in rude huts which my ancestors spent, or possibly from hints that older members of my family, in their ingrained superstition, would mutter at times when misfortune befell aquantances or events appeared to defy rational explanation.
Indeed, it is esy to populate such late Autumnal nights with flying witches cruising the dark skies in search of unfortunates upon which to visit spells or torment. I resisted such temptations as I sat and pondered.

I wondered, inevitably as one would, who had lived there and how I might resmble them in appearance or thoughts. What of my own urges to reshape my environment, modify my home and surroundings, to hoard resources: Had they been passed to me from such people? How did the need to improve their habitation manifest itself in them? In place of my own need to write down and express, what expression did they make? Or was life just so hard that subsistence took all energy such that none was left over for such luxuries?

And looking at the encircled dozen or so acres, could I imagine the houses, the livestock, the mud? No. SOmehow I can't. I just see a field.

But driving down the hill later, I stopped briefly at a track that leads down from the fort, through the woods to the more open land below, and it occurred to me as i sat there in silence, that there had probably been a track here for thousands of years. My home was, to some extent, their home too, with familiar landscapes and landmarks that I feel are somehow personal to me. And so were they theirs, I suppose.

It seems we are all just passing through. This thought completed my return to balance. All troubles are temporary. In one way or another.

siezed

In the echoing hall that is the inside of my head, there is a darkened corridor. I can't see where it goes, but I see many doors off to the sides. Some have locked handles and from within I hear muffled sounds of frustration as something struggles to get out. Other doors open freely, but the rooms inside, though lit amply, show no contents.
Most rooms seem to contain useful bits and pieces: Here a pile of files strewn carelessly across the floor, half read but easy to reference, though harder to file in any kind of order. There, some spanners, a dremel, a universal screwdriver set with a few of the more useful bits obviously missing from the case. And a desk with scientific instruments, well used and oiled to a comfortable action, all ready for use. They are in a state of disarray but look serviceable enough.

In another, a polished wooden floor is set for dancing, but there is no music. The floor looks slippery but an expeditionary foot will find that spinning is labourious and slides stop before they gain any momentum. And though footprints are visible in the chalky dust, it seems as though they have been there a while and not retraced recently.

In a more distant room, there is a small curly haired blond boy playing with lego. I push the door open a small amount and he hears it creak and looks up at me. I want to walk in and play with it too, but something stops me. Maybe it is his private concentration that I feel I cannot intrude upon.
I close the door, but as I pull it to, acting on a second thought, I push it slightly ajar again.

I walk back to the room with the files. The pile seems bigger. I resume reading.