I was woken today by an agonizing cramp in my right hamstring. For three, admittedly large, muscles, they caused a tremendous amount of pain and the reflexive straightening of my leg seemed initially not to help. Then sitting up, the pain receded. It seems an unpleasant and ill-conceived muscular mechanism and is disproportionately painful. Nevertheless, it was what ushered in the day for me.
A tiny sliver of golden orange could be seen on a part of the wall where I don't normally see sunlight. The acute triangle left by the overhang of the curtains admitted entry to this reminder of how advanced the year has become so far. Tomorrow it will be May and I am very far behind on my planting! No chillies or broccoli have even been sown yet. How remiss of me.
But it is not for want of time: This long break of twelve days cost me a mere four in holiday allocation. How provident that the Easter break, Royal Wedding and may day bank holiday should converge so!
I managed to avoid yesterday's royal wedding. Whilst I am glad that pomp and military splendidness can be seen in abundance at such occasions, I cannot be swept along with the euphoria at two people who are of no consequence to me getting married a hundred miles away. The very notion of royalty asserts that by birth alone, some people are more worthy than others. I may choose to rescue my relatives from a fire ahead of those with whom I have no connection, because this is human and driven by genetic imperatives which manifest as emotions. But i have no such connection to distant characters who due to historical circumstance, are priveliged to enjoy an exalted position in society, regardless of their true intrinsic worth. To argue they remain symbolic figureheads begs the question: "Of what exactly?"
Anyway, I do not wish to rant about my innate vaguely socialist leanings. I got a day off and it was rather a nice day, despite the weather forecast. Many had parties and the pubs seemed full of happy revellers.
The weather has been largely gorgeous, if a little cool of late. No rain of significance has fallen for weeks, if not months and the pond is becoming a valuable watering hole for the local fauna.
But sometimes, as the evening draws in and the fragrance of Summer hangs suggestively in the evening air, I feel a longing. My garden is beautiful. It is beautifully and cleverly designed and planted with well chosen and placed flora which have grown, as planned, into a place which takes on a magical air on a warm Summer's eve.
But sometimes, the sound of the birds, the scent and the solitude are inadequate and I wish somehow there could be a group of happy companions with which to share it. The vague sound of the television from the part open patio doors hints at presence nearby, but to be able to laugh tipsily, comment on the smell of the night air, to look up and discuss the constellations and have opinions and thoughts volunteered would fill the hole that occasionally opens up in my satisfaction.
To call round on a sunny morning and say to a number of people "Uphill Beach! Three O'clock! Bring a picnic!" and to spend the end of a day in merriment or quiet contemplation with like-minded souls would just provide a vital nutrient to the soul that I feel is missing.
I get the sense that, slumped in armchairs all over the land, many people must feel the same and I wonder at the lassitude, inertia and isolation that prevents this kind of thing from happening. Many people profess to feel lonely and yet few seem able to galvanise themselves to leave the comfort of the living room and TV to join with others for sociable passtimes. Is this a malaise of our age or was it always so? I cannot say.
Ok, perhaps the weather has some small part to play. It is difficult to say "Ok, let's meet in the park on Sunday afternoon for a big picnic" because it takes planning to know everyone is free. The necessary number of days' notice, to check diaries, can be a period in which a forecast of warm sunshine can become "chance of thundery showers" and picnics in the rain are not really desirable.
But I wonder if underlying that is a sense of fear of rejection: We do not call to ask because we fear we may be overridden by some more desirable activity or companions and thus may find ourselves less attractive company than that which we are declined for. And so the phone stays in its cradle and once again, we sit with a bottle of wine in front of the telly wishing we had some occasion to go out to.
Since I began writing this, the still morning sunrise has become an overcast day with a brisk north-westerly with a brighter side to the East. My fear of squandering a precious sunny day is now relieved and my list of domestic tasks reappears with no sense of anxiety at opportunities missed.
Perhaps today, my chillies will finally get planted.
Philosophical observations from wandering about noticing things.
Friday, 29 April 2011
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Being here now
So, I am sat in my hotel room six floors up in the Arosa Hotel in Paderborn. Far below me the city stretches away in the January rain, looking like the town in the 1971 version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", where the great glass elevator breaks through the roof of the factory and travels out above a very Teutonic looking city. White houses, each with its red tiled roof, give way in the dismal distance to white industrial building and in between, two enormous churches punctuate the view, towering above more mundane looking office and municipal buildings.
It is not a picturesque view particularly, but it is one with which I am partly familiar, having been here so very many times over the last 18 years or so.
But it is a vista that is different to my everyday outlook in Bristol and its surroundings.
Now I look out of the window and I am "here". There is enough strangeness about what I see to render it "foreign" because, although I know many of the streets very well by now, they differ in architecture and construction in ways subtle but significant from those I know as "home".
What is strange though, and this feeling has haunted my experience ever since I was self-aware, is the feeling of "not really being there". This sensation is rather pervasive and intrudes almost as much as the view of my nose used to when I was five and first looking at blackboards for a significant proportion of my days. Wherever I looked, there it was, obscuring objects and getting in the way of seeing properly. Annoying, isnt it.
But i grew to accept this triangular intrusion into my field of vision, I have not similarly accepted this nagging voice asking me "how do KNOW you are where you are? When you aren't there any more, how will you know you didnt imagine being there?"
Its a reasonable question. I remember visiting a factory in Italy about 16 years ago. It was my first trip to Italy and frankly, I was a bit surprised that providence had placed me in a position where I would be travelling to places I once considered exotic and unreachable. To prove to myself I was actually there, or rather, to attempt to gain information from another, more trustworth sensory source, I touched the walls of the building as we walked back to the office area. I ran my hands along the masonry in an attempt to touch something, literally, concrete in this strange, unfamiliar environment.
And yet, it still didnt really work. A few days later, at home, back in familiar surroundings, it was as if I had looked up suddenly and the images in my memory, the sensations of my "minds hands" could as well have been memories I created from imagination. I knew I had been there because there were witnesses and a ticket stub from my flight. But the quality of the information stored in my mind seemed as if it could have been planted there without the experience actually having ever taken place.
Sitting here looking out of this window, I know that in a few days' time, i will similarly look up and I will have a memory of having been here, but I will be elsewhere. So, how then do i make this particular "here & now" real for myself? Given that my meandering mind often takes me to places in my memory or imagination, where i can see every turn of the road, every detail of a room, how can I convince myself that I am present in a room in a hotel in Westfalia?
And this brings me to a further thought: If I can illustrate an example of the fallability of memory, I will do so here. When i lived in the dingy fug of my great-grandfather's house, which we left when I was four, I remember sitting in an armchair in my pyjamas. I suppose I would have been about three. I remember clearly the feel of the material on my bare feet. I remember the space between the arms of the chair in which I sheltered. But oddly, I also remember the door opening and a face peeping round. It was the face of a frog on a man's body. I remember the man, in a suit, with a the head of a frog such as one might see in a cartoon, or like Kiki in Hector's House for those of you familiar with this childrens' program of the early 70's. I wasn't alarmed or scared. The world was still somewhere that held all manner of inexplicable and confusing things and this was just another example of something I had not yet encountered.
I remember this as an event. Now obviously, there wasn't a man with a frog's head in Tenniscourt Road in 1968. I have obviously conflated a dream and a memory. But the memory feels real and plenty of research shows how easily memories can be created of events that demonstrably did not happen (Reference: Search, If you wish, on "Elizabeth Loftus". "False memory". Eye-witness testimony will never again be something you place implicit confidence in)
Since I seem to be unable to distinguish the quality of the memory from things I possibly imagined, perhaps, I can make a shortcut to experiences that it would be dangerous or inadvisable to have. If I eat a Mars Bar, a huge amount of nasties like sugar and fat are released in a rush into my bloodstream. This endocrine disaster is probably not a good thing, though arguably once in a while causes no harm.
However, after having eaten it, apart from feeling sick and having slightly more tooth decay, the main artifact of its consumption will be a memory of having eaten it.
Why then, can I not short-circuit the act of eating it and imagine the whole experience, thus saving myself from nutritional misfortune but still having the enjoyment in hindsight?
I shall stop at this example but it has implications for other daydreams that would surely get me in a lot of trouble were I to act them out.
Ok, we all know it doesnt work like that. It was merely a thought experiment to illustrate a point.
So, the experience seems to be the thing, perhaps not even the memory of the experience, which we know can be fallible and flawed. maybe the key to it is that hackneyed old stalwart of New Agers everywhere: "Being in the moment."
Perhaps if I relax a bit and just sit looking out of the window and stop trying so hard to "BE here!", I will allow the here-ness and now-ness to just permeate my consciousness and all will be smooth mellow spiritual creaminess.
Though, looking out at Paderborn in the rain, perhaps I might be better advised to daydream somewhere sunnier, warmer and more amenable.
It is not a picturesque view particularly, but it is one with which I am partly familiar, having been here so very many times over the last 18 years or so.
But it is a vista that is different to my everyday outlook in Bristol and its surroundings.
Now I look out of the window and I am "here". There is enough strangeness about what I see to render it "foreign" because, although I know many of the streets very well by now, they differ in architecture and construction in ways subtle but significant from those I know as "home".
What is strange though, and this feeling has haunted my experience ever since I was self-aware, is the feeling of "not really being there". This sensation is rather pervasive and intrudes almost as much as the view of my nose used to when I was five and first looking at blackboards for a significant proportion of my days. Wherever I looked, there it was, obscuring objects and getting in the way of seeing properly. Annoying, isnt it.
But i grew to accept this triangular intrusion into my field of vision, I have not similarly accepted this nagging voice asking me "how do KNOW you are where you are? When you aren't there any more, how will you know you didnt imagine being there?"
Its a reasonable question. I remember visiting a factory in Italy about 16 years ago. It was my first trip to Italy and frankly, I was a bit surprised that providence had placed me in a position where I would be travelling to places I once considered exotic and unreachable. To prove to myself I was actually there, or rather, to attempt to gain information from another, more trustworth sensory source, I touched the walls of the building as we walked back to the office area. I ran my hands along the masonry in an attempt to touch something, literally, concrete in this strange, unfamiliar environment.
And yet, it still didnt really work. A few days later, at home, back in familiar surroundings, it was as if I had looked up suddenly and the images in my memory, the sensations of my "minds hands" could as well have been memories I created from imagination. I knew I had been there because there were witnesses and a ticket stub from my flight. But the quality of the information stored in my mind seemed as if it could have been planted there without the experience actually having ever taken place.
Sitting here looking out of this window, I know that in a few days' time, i will similarly look up and I will have a memory of having been here, but I will be elsewhere. So, how then do i make this particular "here & now" real for myself? Given that my meandering mind often takes me to places in my memory or imagination, where i can see every turn of the road, every detail of a room, how can I convince myself that I am present in a room in a hotel in Westfalia?
And this brings me to a further thought: If I can illustrate an example of the fallability of memory, I will do so here. When i lived in the dingy fug of my great-grandfather's house, which we left when I was four, I remember sitting in an armchair in my pyjamas. I suppose I would have been about three. I remember clearly the feel of the material on my bare feet. I remember the space between the arms of the chair in which I sheltered. But oddly, I also remember the door opening and a face peeping round. It was the face of a frog on a man's body. I remember the man, in a suit, with a the head of a frog such as one might see in a cartoon, or like Kiki in Hector's House for those of you familiar with this childrens' program of the early 70's. I wasn't alarmed or scared. The world was still somewhere that held all manner of inexplicable and confusing things and this was just another example of something I had not yet encountered.
I remember this as an event. Now obviously, there wasn't a man with a frog's head in Tenniscourt Road in 1968. I have obviously conflated a dream and a memory. But the memory feels real and plenty of research shows how easily memories can be created of events that demonstrably did not happen (Reference: Search, If you wish, on "Elizabeth Loftus". "False memory". Eye-witness testimony will never again be something you place implicit confidence in)
Since I seem to be unable to distinguish the quality of the memory from things I possibly imagined, perhaps, I can make a shortcut to experiences that it would be dangerous or inadvisable to have. If I eat a Mars Bar, a huge amount of nasties like sugar and fat are released in a rush into my bloodstream. This endocrine disaster is probably not a good thing, though arguably once in a while causes no harm.
However, after having eaten it, apart from feeling sick and having slightly more tooth decay, the main artifact of its consumption will be a memory of having eaten it.
Why then, can I not short-circuit the act of eating it and imagine the whole experience, thus saving myself from nutritional misfortune but still having the enjoyment in hindsight?
I shall stop at this example but it has implications for other daydreams that would surely get me in a lot of trouble were I to act them out.
Ok, we all know it doesnt work like that. It was merely a thought experiment to illustrate a point.
So, the experience seems to be the thing, perhaps not even the memory of the experience, which we know can be fallible and flawed. maybe the key to it is that hackneyed old stalwart of New Agers everywhere: "Being in the moment."
Perhaps if I relax a bit and just sit looking out of the window and stop trying so hard to "BE here!", I will allow the here-ness and now-ness to just permeate my consciousness and all will be smooth mellow spiritual creaminess.
Though, looking out at Paderborn in the rain, perhaps I might be better advised to daydream somewhere sunnier, warmer and more amenable.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Why does it take tragic reminders to give us resolve?
There are some pieces of news that rock you to your very core and undermine your sometimes tenuous grip upon your internal mental composure. I had such a piece of news yesterday about someone I know. This is someone young who has been dealt the worst blow fate can bestow. I prefer not to elaborate, except to say life is even more unfair than I had ever imagined it could be, indifferent yet cruel. I cannot put myself in the shoes of either him or his poor parents; my empathy is defeated, turned aside by cowardice, fear and self-preservation and compassion is all I can allow.
Putting aside my anger at God for not existing, an inaction that I have never forgiven him for, I just shake my head at the tragedy of it all.
So, I shoehorn my wretched powerlessness into a container in my head, squeezing the lid down to contain it as best I can, I shove it out of the way on a shelf in my mind, where I know that at some point in the indistinct future, it will again burst free to torture me. In the dark of some night, the arbitrary nature of the Universe and its events will hang oppressively over me and I will toss and turn, thanking whatever providence, guiltily, that the lightning bolt flew past me and mine, and struck someone else.
But I know I will remain fearful in the knowledge that nobody is really safe and pain may be mine if probability decrees.
But fear and bitterness are not helpful and I try to find some means by which there may any shred of good to come from such an awful situation.
Yesterday, I was reminded by an email to complete my holiday calendar for this year. In 2010, it seems, I did not take all my allotted vacation days, leaving me with two weeks unused. Of these, I can retain a week for use next year, but five days must be taken if they are not to be lost.
I resolve to distribute these over the next couple of weeks.
But what kind of indictment on a life is this? How shameful that a man in his prime (well, ish) should finish a year having been too busy, distracted or indecisive to fully utilise all the free time that is his due. What the hell was I thinking?
So, given that life is finite and destiny can render it potentially significantly shorter than we anticipated, it is a crime that we do not make more of it. Well, I say "we" but obviously here I mean "I". What was so important in those warmer days throughout the year that I could not look out of the window and say "Tomorrow, I am going to the sea in my van!" or "Next week, we should go away somewhere nice for a couple of days." ?
Thinking back, actually: Nothing.
Now here we are in the frigid winter where days are short and everything is frozen solid for days at a time. And I have to find some way to reasonably use up five days, other than Christmas shopping, buying pointless things for people that they never expressed a desire to own. What a waste!
If anything is to be salvaged from the message of tragedy it is the hackneyed stolen phrase "Carpe Diem". A wearisome, overused cliché but nonetheless relevent.
But how do we sieze the day? Well, first of all, perhaps timely reminders not to be so bogged down and defeated by the minor trials and obstacles that make up everyday life: The everyday life that we are suddenly confronted with losing sometimes and hence then treasure.
Somehow, though, small obstacles and inertia become a barrier to worthy use of free time. I can't find the headphones for my mp3 player so I don't go to the gym. I am afraid my friends will be busy so I don't call them to see if they want to go out to see a band. I am listening to a podcast of "In Our Time" so, I can't pick up the phone to see if my mother is in for me to visit. Its all just a bit troublesome to do.
Finding the energy to power the momentum, to build it to escape-velocity for whatever rut or armchair we find ourselves languishing in, can feel insurmountable.
So, when the sun shines, or even when it rains, and opportunity beckons, I shall think of my friend and of all the other misfortunes that can randomly smite us, and I shall use his adversity and my respect for him to lever me from my lassitude and into action.
So, this morning, mindful of this, I aquiesced to an introductory diving course.
Why not?
Putting aside my anger at God for not existing, an inaction that I have never forgiven him for, I just shake my head at the tragedy of it all.
So, I shoehorn my wretched powerlessness into a container in my head, squeezing the lid down to contain it as best I can, I shove it out of the way on a shelf in my mind, where I know that at some point in the indistinct future, it will again burst free to torture me. In the dark of some night, the arbitrary nature of the Universe and its events will hang oppressively over me and I will toss and turn, thanking whatever providence, guiltily, that the lightning bolt flew past me and mine, and struck someone else.
But I know I will remain fearful in the knowledge that nobody is really safe and pain may be mine if probability decrees.
But fear and bitterness are not helpful and I try to find some means by which there may any shred of good to come from such an awful situation.
Yesterday, I was reminded by an email to complete my holiday calendar for this year. In 2010, it seems, I did not take all my allotted vacation days, leaving me with two weeks unused. Of these, I can retain a week for use next year, but five days must be taken if they are not to be lost.
I resolve to distribute these over the next couple of weeks.
But what kind of indictment on a life is this? How shameful that a man in his prime (well, ish) should finish a year having been too busy, distracted or indecisive to fully utilise all the free time that is his due. What the hell was I thinking?
So, given that life is finite and destiny can render it potentially significantly shorter than we anticipated, it is a crime that we do not make more of it. Well, I say "we" but obviously here I mean "I". What was so important in those warmer days throughout the year that I could not look out of the window and say "Tomorrow, I am going to the sea in my van!" or "Next week, we should go away somewhere nice for a couple of days." ?
Thinking back, actually: Nothing.
Now here we are in the frigid winter where days are short and everything is frozen solid for days at a time. And I have to find some way to reasonably use up five days, other than Christmas shopping, buying pointless things for people that they never expressed a desire to own. What a waste!
If anything is to be salvaged from the message of tragedy it is the hackneyed stolen phrase "Carpe Diem". A wearisome, overused cliché but nonetheless relevent.
But how do we sieze the day? Well, first of all, perhaps timely reminders not to be so bogged down and defeated by the minor trials and obstacles that make up everyday life: The everyday life that we are suddenly confronted with losing sometimes and hence then treasure.
Somehow, though, small obstacles and inertia become a barrier to worthy use of free time. I can't find the headphones for my mp3 player so I don't go to the gym. I am afraid my friends will be busy so I don't call them to see if they want to go out to see a band. I am listening to a podcast of "In Our Time" so, I can't pick up the phone to see if my mother is in for me to visit. Its all just a bit troublesome to do.
Finding the energy to power the momentum, to build it to escape-velocity for whatever rut or armchair we find ourselves languishing in, can feel insurmountable.
So, when the sun shines, or even when it rains, and opportunity beckons, I shall think of my friend and of all the other misfortunes that can randomly smite us, and I shall use his adversity and my respect for him to lever me from my lassitude and into action.
So, this morning, mindful of this, I aquiesced to an introductory diving course.
Why not?
Friday, 26 November 2010
Dance with me.
I sit at the edge of the dance floor. I have arrived after the beginners' lesson and observe the inter-lesson freestyle that always happens for four or five songs. The ballroom in the Bath Pavillion is a lovely venue and now it is in a relative darkness that could in no way be described as gloom.
Points of laser light cheerfully play across the ceiling, making it apparent that light only exists at its point of destination. The room is full of couples dancing with a greater or lesser degree of expertise but all are in time with the music.
Some faces are frowning in concentration, but all are the faces of those in a happy place.
The song is not particularly compelling: A regular beat with some nasal female singing, much in evidence in these days of re-invented RnB (I always understood RnB to be an old black toothless geezer in shades and a shabby suit growling to 12 bar blues in a smoky dive. Now it is something altogether more commercial and characterless)
I used to be able to dance to anything that had a beat of the about the right tempo. Now it seems some music leaves me cold and, having nothing to interpret, I cannot motivate myself to move to it. This is one such song. Other songs have soul. Their emotion comes directly through the airwaves to my jive glands (wherever they are) and my limbs, torso and occasionally face, must by necessity interpret it into rhythmic movement. It compels.
But for now, come in out of the cold, having slipped out of my big coat and exchanged my outdoor shoes for my trusty dance brogues, I just sit and look.
Oddly, though I know all the moves, watching other people doing them makes them unfamiliar to the point I actualy don't recognise some. I am impressed and think "Oh, that is so beautifully intricate!" and then I realise with surprise that it's one I do all the time. An external perspective can seemingly modify our view of the familiar.
So, I sit and watch the dancing, the men leading, having to decide on what move to do and having the next several lined up barely consciously, the ladies subtly interpreting the signals of intention inferred from balance, direction and posture. It is a miracle of planning and coordination, all done pretty much without thought somewhere in the brainstem.
Only, I suddenly feel a familiar panic: "I can't do this!"
Looking at the actions performed and the fluidity and familiarity which which they are accomplished, my intellect shies away from the possibillity that I could do this, despite the knowledge that hundreds of nights before this one, I have got up and done so. The intellect is not to be convinced by this mere pile of evidence and continues to doubt.
The song ends. The next one is Santana, "Smooth". Not a song I particularly liked before I started dancing, but now one of my firm favourites. I could not explain what about it causes such joy of movement, but the song lifts me up and makes me the happiest person in the room, with movements and facial expressions that unequivocally illustrate this.
A lady approaches, her head tilted to one side in silent inquiry: "Would you dance with me?"
"Of course!" my outstretched hand replies. Our wordless exchange understood, she takes my hand, I stand and on to the dance floor we go. The way of walking to an unoccupied space feels light, confident, joyously well-balanced; Almost a dance in itself. We turn to face each other and then without a thought, that which I had observed begins happening. The music rises and falls in a beat of halves of seconds perhaps, and my body responds with a lead. The lady in turn reacts to my lead with her own sway and turn and the dance begins.
And somehow, all this now has happened in spite of te protestations of my own mind telling me that it looks far too complicated and must surely be cause for me to stumble and stall.
But no: Inside my head, a mass of neural machinery lights up and kicks into action, and the result is the true synergy of two bodies moving gleefully in time.
I don't know how this happens. I ciould not articulate from where the dubious attitude of my inner narrator comes. But that in itself is a lesson for a greater principle perhaps. Perhaps sometimes we should just trust ourselves a little more. Our intellectual voice seems destined to undermine and sabotage us and perhaps we should just do stuff anyway and have faithin our abilities.
And so, years of classes and dancing have impinted themselves somewhere in my brain and have left this wonderful programming that will unfurl flawlessly given suitable conditions: The right music, the touch of a lady's hand, soft lighting and an amenable atmosphere. Bits of salsa, tango, cha cha and other styles of my own devising throw themselves into the mix and mystified, I find we are dancing.
We move away, a spin, a grasp of a hand, a coming-together of faces. The space in between almost shimmers with intensity as two faces regard each other, holding of the transition to the next move right until the last allowable minute. we both savour the closeness of another human being for as long as possible before one beat becomes the next. Then quickly, from the languid approach, a contrasting rapid change of direction away again.
And the moves keep appearing, unannounced and yet flowing smoothly, followed and enjoyed. Leans, dips, drops, spins and laughs. For four minutes or so, there are only two people in the room and there is the music.
The song ends, we stand, smile our thank-yous and turn, other hands are offered and a new song begins, another dialogue of movement, cheerful, sultry, mischevous or dramatic. Its up to you. You choose the music and I will lead.
Points of laser light cheerfully play across the ceiling, making it apparent that light only exists at its point of destination. The room is full of couples dancing with a greater or lesser degree of expertise but all are in time with the music.
Some faces are frowning in concentration, but all are the faces of those in a happy place.
The song is not particularly compelling: A regular beat with some nasal female singing, much in evidence in these days of re-invented RnB (I always understood RnB to be an old black toothless geezer in shades and a shabby suit growling to 12 bar blues in a smoky dive. Now it is something altogether more commercial and characterless)
I used to be able to dance to anything that had a beat of the about the right tempo. Now it seems some music leaves me cold and, having nothing to interpret, I cannot motivate myself to move to it. This is one such song. Other songs have soul. Their emotion comes directly through the airwaves to my jive glands (wherever they are) and my limbs, torso and occasionally face, must by necessity interpret it into rhythmic movement. It compels.
But for now, come in out of the cold, having slipped out of my big coat and exchanged my outdoor shoes for my trusty dance brogues, I just sit and look.
Oddly, though I know all the moves, watching other people doing them makes them unfamiliar to the point I actualy don't recognise some. I am impressed and think "Oh, that is so beautifully intricate!" and then I realise with surprise that it's one I do all the time. An external perspective can seemingly modify our view of the familiar.
So, I sit and watch the dancing, the men leading, having to decide on what move to do and having the next several lined up barely consciously, the ladies subtly interpreting the signals of intention inferred from balance, direction and posture. It is a miracle of planning and coordination, all done pretty much without thought somewhere in the brainstem.
Only, I suddenly feel a familiar panic: "I can't do this!"
Looking at the actions performed and the fluidity and familiarity which which they are accomplished, my intellect shies away from the possibillity that I could do this, despite the knowledge that hundreds of nights before this one, I have got up and done so. The intellect is not to be convinced by this mere pile of evidence and continues to doubt.
The song ends. The next one is Santana, "Smooth". Not a song I particularly liked before I started dancing, but now one of my firm favourites. I could not explain what about it causes such joy of movement, but the song lifts me up and makes me the happiest person in the room, with movements and facial expressions that unequivocally illustrate this.
A lady approaches, her head tilted to one side in silent inquiry: "Would you dance with me?"
"Of course!" my outstretched hand replies. Our wordless exchange understood, she takes my hand, I stand and on to the dance floor we go. The way of walking to an unoccupied space feels light, confident, joyously well-balanced; Almost a dance in itself. We turn to face each other and then without a thought, that which I had observed begins happening. The music rises and falls in a beat of halves of seconds perhaps, and my body responds with a lead. The lady in turn reacts to my lead with her own sway and turn and the dance begins.
And somehow, all this now has happened in spite of te protestations of my own mind telling me that it looks far too complicated and must surely be cause for me to stumble and stall.
But no: Inside my head, a mass of neural machinery lights up and kicks into action, and the result is the true synergy of two bodies moving gleefully in time.
I don't know how this happens. I ciould not articulate from where the dubious attitude of my inner narrator comes. But that in itself is a lesson for a greater principle perhaps. Perhaps sometimes we should just trust ourselves a little more. Our intellectual voice seems destined to undermine and sabotage us and perhaps we should just do stuff anyway and have faithin our abilities.
And so, years of classes and dancing have impinted themselves somewhere in my brain and have left this wonderful programming that will unfurl flawlessly given suitable conditions: The right music, the touch of a lady's hand, soft lighting and an amenable atmosphere. Bits of salsa, tango, cha cha and other styles of my own devising throw themselves into the mix and mystified, I find we are dancing.
We move away, a spin, a grasp of a hand, a coming-together of faces. The space in between almost shimmers with intensity as two faces regard each other, holding of the transition to the next move right until the last allowable minute. we both savour the closeness of another human being for as long as possible before one beat becomes the next. Then quickly, from the languid approach, a contrasting rapid change of direction away again.
And the moves keep appearing, unannounced and yet flowing smoothly, followed and enjoyed. Leans, dips, drops, spins and laughs. For four minutes or so, there are only two people in the room and there is the music.
The song ends, we stand, smile our thank-yous and turn, other hands are offered and a new song begins, another dialogue of movement, cheerful, sultry, mischevous or dramatic. Its up to you. You choose the music and I will lead.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
The Audience
I recently found the "stats" button on my dashboard page. I am not sure at the veracity of the data here but taking it at face value, it appears to be interesting and sobering reading.
The first thing that strikes me is that this very blog has had 354 views in its three years of existence. I guess that is one every three days on average. Not a great deal I suppose, but it means that at least someone has stumbled over the page and perhaps read the words deposited for better or worse upon it.
What intrigues me more is the audience. Ok, the most significant audience appears to be the USA with just under a third of hits, then the UK with about a fifth. I do know some people in the US, but I am not sure they know of the existence of this blog, so I can ony assume these are passers-by.
Then of course Germany with about the same (thank you my dear loyal friends, especially you, my Friendly Librarian).
However, a proportion of the hits are from South Korea, Brazil and Iraq. Iraq? Who reads this drivel in Iraq? DOn't you have more pressing things to be worrying about than the pathetic angst and irrelevent ramblings of some bloke in England? I mean, a war torn country where bombs go off on a daily basis surely must wrest control of the attention from such trivial things as the struggles with inarticulacy of a mediocre intellect and the activities of cypriot ants?
A small note of disquiet however, is sounded in my mind by the sudden visceral realisation (grasped intellectually from the beginning of this verbal journey several years ago) is that these outpourings are public and that anyone exposing their inner fears and hopes on the internet, should do so in the knowledge that ANYONE with a computer can read them.
Of course, how the readers choose to interpret the words they read is entirely up to them, though the skill of the author in expressing the meaning clearly will obviously help to keep the intention clear. But offence can be taken, meanings misinterpreted and passions inflamed in a number of ways. We would all do well to bear this in mind I think.
Well, wherever you hail from, dear readers, meagre in number as you are, I salute you for your curiosity and well, just generally, say a cheery "Hello!" from Gloucestershire. And whatever interpretation you choose to take from any of my ramblings, please understand that they are meant with whatever sincerity my blackened and tattered conscience can muster on that particular day.
The first thing that strikes me is that this very blog has had 354 views in its three years of existence. I guess that is one every three days on average. Not a great deal I suppose, but it means that at least someone has stumbled over the page and perhaps read the words deposited for better or worse upon it.
What intrigues me more is the audience. Ok, the most significant audience appears to be the USA with just under a third of hits, then the UK with about a fifth. I do know some people in the US, but I am not sure they know of the existence of this blog, so I can ony assume these are passers-by.
Then of course Germany with about the same (thank you my dear loyal friends, especially you, my Friendly Librarian).
However, a proportion of the hits are from South Korea, Brazil and Iraq. Iraq? Who reads this drivel in Iraq? DOn't you have more pressing things to be worrying about than the pathetic angst and irrelevent ramblings of some bloke in England? I mean, a war torn country where bombs go off on a daily basis surely must wrest control of the attention from such trivial things as the struggles with inarticulacy of a mediocre intellect and the activities of cypriot ants?
A small note of disquiet however, is sounded in my mind by the sudden visceral realisation (grasped intellectually from the beginning of this verbal journey several years ago) is that these outpourings are public and that anyone exposing their inner fears and hopes on the internet, should do so in the knowledge that ANYONE with a computer can read them.
Of course, how the readers choose to interpret the words they read is entirely up to them, though the skill of the author in expressing the meaning clearly will obviously help to keep the intention clear. But offence can be taken, meanings misinterpreted and passions inflamed in a number of ways. We would all do well to bear this in mind I think.
Well, wherever you hail from, dear readers, meagre in number as you are, I salute you for your curiosity and well, just generally, say a cheery "Hello!" from Gloucestershire. And whatever interpretation you choose to take from any of my ramblings, please understand that they are meant with whatever sincerity my blackened and tattered conscience can muster on that particular day.
Monday, 11 October 2010
Brain intransigence
I wake feeling heavy. The vestiges of this week's Black Dog visitation leaving a residue akin to heavy metals in a kidney. A numb mind, insulated from feelings, gradually comes online.
A leaden torpor holds me to the bed and, extending to my eyes, exert a force of reluctance on my eyelids. In my own localised region of gravity, I am heavier than usual and rising from bed is a challenge I feel I may not meet. The temptation to fall back in is almost overwhelming, but I totter to the bathroom on unsteady, unwilling legs.
At breakfast, I sit drinking my tea, hoping that the stimulants and rehydration will perform their magic on my sluggish brain. They do not. The list of tasks i have to accomplish today, in preparation for my trip later this afternoon, swims fuzzily in my mind's eye. Indistinct and blurred, I can see nothing of it, not even how many items, roughly, it comprises. When my mind tries to grasp individual obligations as they swim around in my head like elusive carp, they dodge behind the waving pond weed of distraction. My mental net, wielded by clumsy metaphysical hands, is far too slow to catch even one and thwarted, I give up and eat my porridge.
The inside of my head is filled with some resistant fluid, somehow too viscous to allow the propagation of thought. Attempts to remember my commitments for the day result in confusion and disorientation.
How can I coerce this unreliable organ into cooperating with me?
A second cup of tea yields no more result than the first. I fire up my laptop, peruse some emails, the contents of which I know to be of critical importance to an ongoing issue.
I will be called to account, to explain the situation using the information contained in these missives. But the words skate uselessly off the surface of my eyes and no meaning can be discerned. Oh, this is so frustrating!
Perhaps exercise will help. I pull on my running clothes and shoes and step out into the uncharacteristically gorgeous Autumn sunshine. It is a little windy, but far warmer than it should be for October. And, starting my stopwatch, off i go.
I love "having been for a run", but I hate running. On a bicycle, I am fast, possibly faster than almost anyone apart from club cyclists or those naturally endowed with advantageous muscle composition. I can maintain an easy 20mph for some hours.
But running, I am ponderous.
I do not run fast. I trudge. Like some preposterous human ironclad, my 100kg bulk stumbles along, step after step. The first minute is actually not too difficult, though I pace myself slowly.
The subsequent five minutes are horrible. My breathing increases in depth and speed and my upper ribs feel constrictive like the fingers of Giger's face-hugging creation in Alien. Gradually though, the lungs ease up and an easy rhythm is attained, though my progress is still slow for a runner.
Now, the North Wind picks up, which is good as along the long straight, punishing road up to the scarp, I start to get a little hot. I have overdressed for this unseasonal warmth and the sweat seems to be squirting out of my forehead. I am grateful for the efforts of the North Wind, though it is in my face and impeding me (though probably less than I believe).
Turning left to run along the bottom of the hills, I see how beautiful it looks in the sun. The trees still have most of their leaves and the ramparts of the bronze-age hill fort can be seen a few hundred feet above me. on this lane, about halfway through my run, i usually recite Shakespeare's 18th sonnet as a test of my exertion. If i can do it all the way through without gasping, but without to much ease, i have got it about right. i did have heart rate monitor, but i found it tedious to wear. This is adequate for the purposes of removing the obscuring layer of fat from my belly.
Today though, I am listening to Radio4, "Woman's Hour" about handwashing. It is quite interesting, so no sonnet today.
I really am still feeling rather ungainly though and my legs, used to different rhythm, are starting to complain at the unusual mode of use.
I pass the 5km mark at an embarrassing time: Over four minutes longer than at my best.
At last however, the forcing of heavily oxygenated blood through my reluctant brain, appears to be paying off. Destined for muscles, the oxygen-rich blood pushes through the blockages, flushes away the lethargy and coherence starts to appear.
Thoughts are starting to happen now of their own accord: Snatches of sentences, enjoyable phrases, remembrances of things I have to do.
I arrive at my door and fumble for my key.
Collapsing into a chair, it seems hardly seconds since I strode purposefully down the drive to begin. And yet, in the intervening time, much has happened at the level of sensation and thought. This paradoxical mismatch of chronologies always leaves me uncomfortable. But here I am, somewhere near 100% again. At least, i think so.
I guess you will have to be the judge of that.
A leaden torpor holds me to the bed and, extending to my eyes, exert a force of reluctance on my eyelids. In my own localised region of gravity, I am heavier than usual and rising from bed is a challenge I feel I may not meet. The temptation to fall back in is almost overwhelming, but I totter to the bathroom on unsteady, unwilling legs.
At breakfast, I sit drinking my tea, hoping that the stimulants and rehydration will perform their magic on my sluggish brain. They do not. The list of tasks i have to accomplish today, in preparation for my trip later this afternoon, swims fuzzily in my mind's eye. Indistinct and blurred, I can see nothing of it, not even how many items, roughly, it comprises. When my mind tries to grasp individual obligations as they swim around in my head like elusive carp, they dodge behind the waving pond weed of distraction. My mental net, wielded by clumsy metaphysical hands, is far too slow to catch even one and thwarted, I give up and eat my porridge.
The inside of my head is filled with some resistant fluid, somehow too viscous to allow the propagation of thought. Attempts to remember my commitments for the day result in confusion and disorientation.
How can I coerce this unreliable organ into cooperating with me?
A second cup of tea yields no more result than the first. I fire up my laptop, peruse some emails, the contents of which I know to be of critical importance to an ongoing issue.
I will be called to account, to explain the situation using the information contained in these missives. But the words skate uselessly off the surface of my eyes and no meaning can be discerned. Oh, this is so frustrating!
Perhaps exercise will help. I pull on my running clothes and shoes and step out into the uncharacteristically gorgeous Autumn sunshine. It is a little windy, but far warmer than it should be for October. And, starting my stopwatch, off i go.
I love "having been for a run", but I hate running. On a bicycle, I am fast, possibly faster than almost anyone apart from club cyclists or those naturally endowed with advantageous muscle composition. I can maintain an easy 20mph for some hours.
But running, I am ponderous.
I do not run fast. I trudge. Like some preposterous human ironclad, my 100kg bulk stumbles along, step after step. The first minute is actually not too difficult, though I pace myself slowly.
The subsequent five minutes are horrible. My breathing increases in depth and speed and my upper ribs feel constrictive like the fingers of Giger's face-hugging creation in Alien. Gradually though, the lungs ease up and an easy rhythm is attained, though my progress is still slow for a runner.
Now, the North Wind picks up, which is good as along the long straight, punishing road up to the scarp, I start to get a little hot. I have overdressed for this unseasonal warmth and the sweat seems to be squirting out of my forehead. I am grateful for the efforts of the North Wind, though it is in my face and impeding me (though probably less than I believe).
Turning left to run along the bottom of the hills, I see how beautiful it looks in the sun. The trees still have most of their leaves and the ramparts of the bronze-age hill fort can be seen a few hundred feet above me. on this lane, about halfway through my run, i usually recite Shakespeare's 18th sonnet as a test of my exertion. If i can do it all the way through without gasping, but without to much ease, i have got it about right. i did have heart rate monitor, but i found it tedious to wear. This is adequate for the purposes of removing the obscuring layer of fat from my belly.
Today though, I am listening to Radio4, "Woman's Hour" about handwashing. It is quite interesting, so no sonnet today.
I really am still feeling rather ungainly though and my legs, used to different rhythm, are starting to complain at the unusual mode of use.
I pass the 5km mark at an embarrassing time: Over four minutes longer than at my best.
At last however, the forcing of heavily oxygenated blood through my reluctant brain, appears to be paying off. Destined for muscles, the oxygen-rich blood pushes through the blockages, flushes away the lethargy and coherence starts to appear.
Thoughts are starting to happen now of their own accord: Snatches of sentences, enjoyable phrases, remembrances of things I have to do.
I arrive at my door and fumble for my key.
Collapsing into a chair, it seems hardly seconds since I strode purposefully down the drive to begin. And yet, in the intervening time, much has happened at the level of sensation and thought. This paradoxical mismatch of chronologies always leaves me uncomfortable. But here I am, somewhere near 100% again. At least, i think so.
I guess you will have to be the judge of that.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Immersion in Ether
Some times in one's life are, when recollected, saturated with intensity and emotion, possibly added nostalgically after the fact. Nevertheless, recalling a time of exquisite feeling and atmosphere can bring you sweetly back to the feelings of that time with a poignancy that sometimes almost hurts.
There have been such times in the last decade, times of exhilarating self-discovery, of breathtaking exploration and intimacy that the memories become treasured, only to be recollected occasionally lest the potency be degraded, like a photo left exposed to the light over years, fading and losing the vividness that was so precious.
Certain music has the power to aid or trigger such nostalgic retrospection. Currently, and the reason for my musing on this particular idea, i am listening to Turin Brakes "ether Song", which brings to mind the most profound, beautiful and exciting period of my life. It was a time when my perceptions of myself as a creature of drab ordinariness and pitiful flaws was being challenged, both by myself and by some people who came into my life suddenly at that point.
A crack in my self-image was being prized open by quietly spoken but convincing arguments from people I respected and a new me was emerging, painfully and cataclismically but with such a sense of wonder and excitement that I was left reeling and disoriented with the headiness of my discoveries. It was, as I realise now, a profound metamorphosis that I benefit from every day of my life now.
Well, that is another story. There have been other times of similar significance for which other musical triggers exist. the above is just the one which comes to mind from the listening of these current tracks. That they can conjure all the feelings of the time accurately and clearly as if I was once again in that place is a wonderful benefit of the power of music.
But a self-indulgent documentary of the sweeter and more personal chapters of my own particular life is not at all my point here, except to illustrate a principle that occurs from regard of the topic: Does remembrance of a time of significance, with all its attendant emotional piquancy, cause degradation of the memories?
Does listening to the songs that take you back there cause them over time to lose that ability to relocate you in time and place and emotion?
I fear it may. Hence I limit myself to only infrequent listenings of these songs and immersion in their reminiscence. I would hate to become inured to their effect and to lose the feelings and hence the enlightenments that they engender.
Ok, I concede it is dangerous and foolish to dwell in the past anyway. But our growing and learning as people is a strange process whereby a new talent, understanding or capability is initially a novel new toy that we learn to play with and develop into something that assists us in our dealings with the world and its inhabitants. Initially the shiny new component of ourselves rests obtrusively upon our psyches, inviting use and feeling distinctly conspicuous. But over time, it becomes assimilated into who we are and a part of our usual functionality, to the extent we may forget that we have it. Consequentially, if it is something we were delighted to find, as I was, we may lament that we have misplaced it somehow and reverted to our former way of being.
So, listening to these songs and sending myself back to a time when every day brought a new and wonderful realisation, causes me to revisit the features and characteristics, previously unacknowledged and hence unused, that were brought startlingly to my attention.
I suppose the fear is that, ultimately, i may, "lose the feeling" and I do so enjoy being the person I am now, even if it does sometimes upset or annoy people.
So, with my 5000 or so mp3s here, when shall go to now?
There have been such times in the last decade, times of exhilarating self-discovery, of breathtaking exploration and intimacy that the memories become treasured, only to be recollected occasionally lest the potency be degraded, like a photo left exposed to the light over years, fading and losing the vividness that was so precious.
Certain music has the power to aid or trigger such nostalgic retrospection. Currently, and the reason for my musing on this particular idea, i am listening to Turin Brakes "ether Song", which brings to mind the most profound, beautiful and exciting period of my life. It was a time when my perceptions of myself as a creature of drab ordinariness and pitiful flaws was being challenged, both by myself and by some people who came into my life suddenly at that point.
A crack in my self-image was being prized open by quietly spoken but convincing arguments from people I respected and a new me was emerging, painfully and cataclismically but with such a sense of wonder and excitement that I was left reeling and disoriented with the headiness of my discoveries. It was, as I realise now, a profound metamorphosis that I benefit from every day of my life now.
Well, that is another story. There have been other times of similar significance for which other musical triggers exist. the above is just the one which comes to mind from the listening of these current tracks. That they can conjure all the feelings of the time accurately and clearly as if I was once again in that place is a wonderful benefit of the power of music.
But a self-indulgent documentary of the sweeter and more personal chapters of my own particular life is not at all my point here, except to illustrate a principle that occurs from regard of the topic: Does remembrance of a time of significance, with all its attendant emotional piquancy, cause degradation of the memories?
Does listening to the songs that take you back there cause them over time to lose that ability to relocate you in time and place and emotion?
I fear it may. Hence I limit myself to only infrequent listenings of these songs and immersion in their reminiscence. I would hate to become inured to their effect and to lose the feelings and hence the enlightenments that they engender.
Ok, I concede it is dangerous and foolish to dwell in the past anyway. But our growing and learning as people is a strange process whereby a new talent, understanding or capability is initially a novel new toy that we learn to play with and develop into something that assists us in our dealings with the world and its inhabitants. Initially the shiny new component of ourselves rests obtrusively upon our psyches, inviting use and feeling distinctly conspicuous. But over time, it becomes assimilated into who we are and a part of our usual functionality, to the extent we may forget that we have it. Consequentially, if it is something we were delighted to find, as I was, we may lament that we have misplaced it somehow and reverted to our former way of being.
So, listening to these songs and sending myself back to a time when every day brought a new and wonderful realisation, causes me to revisit the features and characteristics, previously unacknowledged and hence unused, that were brought startlingly to my attention.
I suppose the fear is that, ultimately, i may, "lose the feeling" and I do so enjoy being the person I am now, even if it does sometimes upset or annoy people.
So, with my 5000 or so mp3s here, when shall go to now?
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