Category Archives: personal

i am not

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I am not a runner.

I haven’t run in ages. The more I think I ought to run the less I want to. I am getting to the point of wishing I never had run, just so I wouldn’t have to think that I need to run and that I should be running.

I am not a writer.

Not strictly true. I am a writer, I am just not a storyteller. I try, and I have tried, and it is not something that comes to me. I can write, I just can’t do anything with it. The frustration is immense. Perhaps I don’t try hard enough for long enough.

I am not a photographer.

I used to be. I used to love it. I hardly take photographs any more, and when I do I rarely do anything with them.

I am not a label.

But I am. We define ourselves through such labels, identify ourselves to fellow communities by such things. They are our markers, our flags, our code of recognition and inclusion. I wear these labels no more, because past glories do not, cannot, undo the present.

I am not me.

I don’t think I have been for a while, not the full-blown, complete me. EF jokes that I am in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Perhaps I am.

At least I think she jokes.

There are a lot of things I used to do that I don’t any longer. Things I used to love; hill-walking, climbing, cycling, camping, travel, going out and about for a bimble. I used to do them. I used to do them a lot. I don’t any longer, and I’m not sure why.

This isn’t the cause or fault of anyone but me. This is me just not being me. Not doing the things I professed to love. Not being what necessarily made me happiest.

Not doing. Not being.

This is a thing I need to work through, a thing I need to understand.

 

a week

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In a week it is my mum’s birthday.

As some of you may know, her birthday comes the day before mine, and she was exactly thirty years older than me, so she would be 71 on Sunday.

And I am dreading it. I have been going through my paperwork, and hers, and I guess I am not coping with her death as well as I thought I was. There’s important stuff of hers I just haven’t dealt with, and I really, really need to.

But I can’t and I don’t want to. Closing those things down closes her down. It was easy when it was full flow, organising the funeral and services and the death certificate but since then…

Three boxes of hers have been sitting in my living room, filled with her vinyl record collection, her cds, her cookery books, photos and other bits and bobs. And they have been there for six months and I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know how to incorporate them into my life and belongings.

Her birthday is in a week and I don’t know if I can cope with that absence, with not being able to ring her or go and see her. I’ve missed the constant to-ing and fro-ing on the phone as I try to find out from her what she wants. I miss asking my brother what he got her so I don’t get the same thing. I miss our mutual frustration at not knowing it is she wants. I’ve missed her pleasure when I get it right and her bluntness when I don’t. I miss seeing her.

I will cope, because I have to and because I always do. There is just a part of me, a large part of me, that just doesn’t want to, that wants to wail and cry because I just miss her so much. But I can’t do that, so I won’t.

I’ll cope.

anyway…

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There were quite a few things I intended to write about this week; the sad news about Iain M Banks and what he and his writing mean to me, equality (again), age and getting old, how excited I am about the law degree and various other things.

Instead… well, not very much. So I’m sitting here, in a cafe, drinking coffee and listening to the couple behind me argue and, well, break up I guess.

I don’t know. It has been one of those weeks. Anyway…

***

I could write about Iain M. Banks and his impending death. I could write about how much I admire him, and how wonderfully he has come across at the various readings and which books of his are my favourites and why. I could, but I won’t.

I am going to miss his mischievous and rambunctious style. I will mourn his passing, and the grief of his friends and family. But most of all, selfishly and as put by my friend H, I will miss ‘another twenty years of brilliant writing’.

I will miss the relentless year-on-year delivery of stories that challenge and entertain and hit the spot just so. I will miss the anticipation of another Culture story, the complex and yet very human intertwining threads and emotions that run through each and every one of them. I will miss his dark take on the ‘mainstream’, the twists and turns of his devilish inventiveness that takes the ordinary and makes it something uniquely different.

A while ago, at a reading/signing in Toppings, someone asked him if he ever envisaged ending the Culture with a ‘bang’. He said he didn’t know, that there were plenty more stories yet to be told. I guess we will never know how the Culture will end, if ever, and we will never know those stories untold.

I’ll miss the stories. And I will miss a man I have only ever fleetingly met, on the other side of a signing table.

 

away

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Some friendships should not be pursued, should be left to their natural lifespan. Sometimes, most of the time, they are what they are. Sometimes, they are no longer what they used to be.

I realised this long ago. It is just one of those things, another of those many cycles we drift through.

Realisation is one thing, acceptance another. This morning, I understood this, and so it drifts away from what I hoped it to be, from what it was long ago to where it should be, to where it is now.

And I am no less sad for knowing and understanding it.

word of mouth and other things

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Last night was an interesting and entertaining affair. I, along with EF, attended the Word of Mouth event at the Thunderbolt pub. It is a regular event but last night was of particular interest as the ineffable Emma Newman and industrious Joanne Hall were both reading from their short story collections and extracts from their forthcoming novels.

There is always something about listening to an author read from their own works, imbuing their words with another layer of evocation and empathy. It is one of the best bits of BristolCon (amongst many) for me – listening to authors reading their stories in relatively intimate surrounds.

*sorry, got distracted there and went and bought my ticket for said BristolCon*

***

Last year was a washout for me, in that my mother died the evening before BristolCon (I didn’t find out until my brother rang me whilst in the first session). I had been looking forward to it so much that I felt utterly and bizarrely conflicted. Part of me wanted to escape into the day, just to immerse myself in the event without having to think or feel too much. The other, more pressing, brotherly part just wanted to get down to Waterlooville to be there for my brother, who had had the misfortune of discovering her body that morning (and had left several frantic messages on my silenced mobile phone).

A bad day, all round. So… none of you buggers have permission to die on or around the 26th of October, partly because it is BristolCon day and partly because dying really is a bit shit and I’d rather you didn’t, generally.

***

On a lighter note, after that slight segue, Emma Newman is launching her new book, Between Two Thorns, this evening at the Forbidden Planet shop on the Triangle in Bristol, at 6pm. It will be glorious. If you get a chance to go, please do so.

***

A segue on Reading Books.

I have done very little of this over the last few weeks, mainly due to the ridiculous workload I have had, which has pretty much drained me of all energy for anything. Ah well, back on the wagon soon enough, too many good books to read.

***

A segue on Writing.

Interestingly, I have been writing, and enjoying it. I am working myself back into completing one of the novels I have started, and I have a Plan, which is always good. Many thanks to the effervescent Nik Perring for the reinvigoration. The man’s writing is a joy (as is he) – go and read his stuff.

Now, before I get stroppy.

***

A segue on Age.

My little brother was 37 on Monday. Thirty-seven. Thirty. Seven.

Fuck me.

analogue sunday

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analoguesundayI like this a lot. I haven’t been reading much of late (as in tending towards null) and I really need to get back into it. I am also spending far too much time on this thing (laptop); more than is probably healthy.

I need to feel the wind in my hair and the rasp of paper beneath my fingertips, so, from now on, on alternate Sundays… I am going analogue. It is going to be fairly difficult as using my laptop or tablet is all but second nature to me. But my pile of to-be-read books grows ever higher and my time ever shorter.

Onwards.

As an aside, a long time ago I did spend three months almost completely analogue. For three whole months, when at home, I did nothing but listen to the radio, write and read books. No television, no computer, no games consoles or the like. Just me, the radio and a pile of books. I figure the radio counted as analogue as it wasn’t remotely digital.

 

Aside

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I’m in a reflective, slightly melancholic mood today, for reasons I can’t really disclose.

This might mean a plethora of posts today, or none at all. I am figuring the former.

But let’s just see, shall we?

transient

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I’m sitting in a McDonalds, by the window, looking out onto silhouettes slowly revealing themselves against a beautiful early morning sky. The lights are reflecting in the glass, overlaying the view with a strange otherworldly beauty.

It is 6:45am, and I have just had a moment of vague deja-vu.

There is something utterly solitary about this; sitting here, listening to the music as the world  awakens ever so gradually. Solitary, and peaceful. The last time I had this feeling was sitting in a Starbucks in Edinburgh, waiting to be picked up to go to work. Before that… I am unsure.

But I remember, I remember… sitting in cafes, in airports, in bars. I remember listening to strange voices, strange conversations, strange pauses and stranger quiets. I remember crowds of people, or near-empty rooms. I remember different views, different reflections, catching my solitude in momentary glimpses. I remember waiting.

Moments like this remind me of being transient, of being still whilst on the move. They remind me of being detached from a normal life, of things that lie at the edges of memory and emotion.

It is 6.57am, and soon the feeling will pass. Soon I will be embroiled in life, in stuff and things and whatever’s-going-on. And then, one early morning in the future, I will be sitting at another table, sipping my coffee, catching a glimpse of something half-felt and half-remembered.

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more

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It is twenty to six in the morning and I am Bristol International Airport once again, this time for a day trip (essentially a one hour meeting but I've arranged other stuff to do as well).

I had a little reminder of the reality of inequality yesterday. I know there are people who are working much longer, harder hours than I do, for much less pay. EF helped out with her son's class excursion yesterday and was shocked by how hard a 90 minutes it was. Having done the same (with a very angry, upset, running-away-all-the-time four year old Somali boy in tow) I can attest to it. I have seen good teachers in flow and it is something to behold. Their commitment, energy (even when at the raw edges of it) and dedication to giving the best their children can receive is invaluable and more often than not underappreciated.

I also bumped into M yesterday, who was still going strong at her teaching job, working the hours despite being only a handful of months away from being a mum.

Elsewhere in the country, and the world, are countless people, working hard to ensure they do the best job they can for the money they earn. Sometimes they do it for free. It is a hard one to contemplate, that this inequality exists, that the value conferred is dependent not upon the lasting impact and criticality of these jobs and how they are performed, but on notional abstracts of value that are linked to ideologies and skewed economic and financial models.

There will always be relative value. There has to be. The question is, do our ideas of 'relative' and 'relative to' bear scrutiny? Are the values we ascribe fair and do they reflect the inherent value of a 'thing' within society? How valuable is a good teacher, who influences and inspires generations of children to be better, wiser and more inquisitive than they otherwise would be? Can we measure that and reflect that in financial terms and social standing? Can we ever reach a model of social, cultural and financial equilibrium that truly reflects the value of a thing or deed?

Perhaps not, given the way humanity works, with its less than altrustic nature. It doesn't mean we cannot work towards that, or recognise it, even in small, individual ways. For all that we are a mess, we human beings, we should always recognise that there are those who give far more than the value ascribed to them, and that they drag us upwards.

And that I should quit my moaning and remember that I could be doing more for more than I can currently do.