Day 108: Photographs

Something different today. Word-sketches based on the photographs of Steve McCurry, whose work I adore. I was feeling flat and uninspired, so I looked through some pictures, opened my notebook, loosened my brain, and let the words spill out.

The door cracks in blue ointment as brusque feet splosh in plodding rain. Inky reflections run universal, a space opera splayed on tiled water, sandals slop in marching lanes. A chequered brick bracketed wonder, the wall sighing, lugubrious rain slowly flows. Drifts, dollops, sadness clinging, a loony god measures one more crying day.

- - -

The glassy luminance of a pale river. Banked greenery distantly settled. Depths of marble spread buttered castaways, sunken treasure in rising paths. Spire sparkles, heaven's glory spilling forth. Plaza houses, river paddles, minted teas by dusky banks. Cracks in glory billows breathless air in clouds rocked with gold. The air sharp, tangy. The fisherman goops in delicate joust.

- - -

Dark pupils pierce a frame of razors, wet gangles crisping locks fall coiling, massing bed of opals upon the ground. The father bent with steadfast hands of working day. Ears jut jugbowls resting on shoulder's haunch. The hair falls in glinting daggers to snitch-snitch of busy clippers, mellifluous pupils silent stare. Tight pendant weight. Necklace choker. Mother's hand cracked chestnut stone of ages. Child sat still with panther's poise.

Day 107: Pickles

Last morning at Fran's mum's, board games and mugs of tea, lunch of leftovers, with the rain falling outside and the leaves catching the raindrops and the sky heaving and pregnant with clouds. Jars of pickle on the kitchen counter. Coffee grinds in the compost tin. Crumbs and coasters on the dining table. John showing us round his converted camper van. Helena filling our hands with apples from the garden and half empty cartons of milk, asking if we've had enough, if there's anything she can get us. Talking with Suzannah about Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens. Fran sitting by my legs making noises to get me to give her strokes. The afternoon wearing on.

Snoozing with Fran in the backseat on the way home, holding hands, my head in Fran's shoulder, Fran playing with my hair. Then back to my house, the emptiness of my room, a few hours to myself before bed and then work tomorrow. Easy shows on Netflix, dark chocolate Lindt, a cup of Earl Grey, the loneliness of the night.

No escaping into drugs or alcohol, no resisting the quiet sadness all around. Let it be and let it be and let it be. Breathe in and breathe out. Feel the surrounding air, the encroaching emptiness, the play of breeze from window upon skin.

So much aggression and fear growing in our world, angry people people lashing out at the wrong targets, power-hungry politicians struggling to the top of piles of shit on rivers of bile, all to preside over dust and bones, amass gold that glitters at nothing as we hack each other apart.

We need to stop and feel the sadness of the cosmos and rest within it, see its beauty, back away slowly from this edge. All of us together. We all contain marvels, each of us is made of glorious dirt. Just drop the weapons and embrace the stillness. It is the only way that ever worked.

Day 106: Zines

Another day in the country. Fran's family are wonderful, kind and funny and wicked smart. A little too smart, actually, cultured and educated and travelled and knowledgeable, it's easy to feel intimidated around them. They know about Rothko paintings and Conrad's The Secret Agent, the names of trees and plants, how to build fires, where to go in America, and I can just pour pints of beer and talk about videogames that were good on the N64.

But in reality they were lovely and the only stress or expectation was in my own head.

In the morning we walked through the village down country lanes with long hedgerows and the distant shush of traffic, honesty boxes for the sale of sunflowers and giant yellow courgettes, and on, into hidden woods of oak and willow, then to the pub for pints (them) and OJ (me) and crisps (all round).

Back at the house we lunched on salads and cheeses in the garden, with coffee afterwards, slowly dwindling incense sticks warding off the wasps hovering just out of reach.

A fire in the metal fire pit as the sun went down, the flames leaping and the ash blowing in our faces, chatting and reading the zine Fran's sister had brought about surviving holidays when you're queer and depressed.

Then the rain pushing us indoors, to books and sketchbooks by the glow of lamplight, and final mugs of tea and glasses of port, depending on preference, and then one after another meandering up to bed.

Feeling over-socialised now, and tired, but happy, ready to sleep. Going to turn off the light, roll over, and snuggle in close to Fran.

I can do life. I can. I can.

Day 105: Family

With Fran's family at her mum's house for the weekend. Wasn't much looking forward to it, I've been so down the past week or so, trapped in the dark recesses of my mind, and the idea of having to perform, having to act, to be sociable, was terrifying, when I felt so small and bedraggled, when I wanted only to spend the next three days in my bed away from the world eating bad snack food from colourful packets and watching films in which expensive sets blow up in fiery explosions, not engaging in small talk and navigating social complexities and having nowhere to which I could escape. 

But it's not like there was any choice, it's important to everyone that I came, not least of all Fran, to whom I haven't exactly given my undivided self of late, so I had to just pull myself out of my doldrums and force myself along. 

And as with many things, I felt much better once I was moving.

The house is a beautiful old place in the country, we arrived to the soft light of evening falling over tall hedges and snug gardens, and in the house large rooms full of wood and books and the right kind of smells. Comfortable, elegant, homely. 

We ate curry that John had made at the long dining table, then cakes that Helena had baked, before retiring to the living room to talk and drink tea, and it was calm and easy and nice. Fran sat on the floor with her arm around my leg, and I teased out the knots from the back of her hair, and listened to the others talk, and I felt very far from the pub and from stress and from the depression that has been lying on me of late.

In bed now in the spare room, faded books from Fran's childhood around us, old school photos, blankets and cushions and paintings in frames. Fran smooshed up beside me. My eyes starting to droop.

This is nice. I don't know many things but I know this is nice. 

Day 104: Shudder

The smell of spices when I go outside. The world getting dark. The air cold on my arms. It is the first day of the end of summer. Walking to the shop in the dusk, with the light failing and the streets empty and a car alarm wailing, I feel the loneliness of the world. In the shop the bulbs are strong yet heartless, everyone has their heads down, lost in their plans for the evening, and for tomorrow, and for ever afterwards. Home to an empty house, cooking stir fry in a silent kitchen with the rest of the rooms dark. The cooker blinking. Phace's trainers lying on the linoleum. Dirty glasses pointing at the ceiling. What a forlorn night. Shudder that runs right down the soul. Up the stairs to a computer humming, to lamp shining, to bright videogame worlds to keep me warm.

Day 103: Touch

Vast expanse of charcoal sky stretched to the horizon. Distant lights shimmering. Air taut with silence. This bedroom could be a spaceship lost in the cosmos. Cut off from all of humanity. Ceaseless thrum of computer fan. Cold light from desk lamp. No sound of traffic.

I've just woken up from a nap after work. Was up at 6am for deliveries, after string of closes. Four hours sleep last night. Limped home and chatted to Phace, snug in her room under blankets, then up my stairs and collapsed in bed, watched mindless videos on YouTube until I passed out, been asleep since. Now I don't know which way is up or why I am or who life is.

Been feeling flat these past days, disconnected from the world. Like I'm bobbing on a boat on the surface of my existence, unable to pierce down to the depths beneath. I want to read more literature, take more photographs, look at the world through eyes soft and alert. Interact with the world through a touch that is greater than the grab and flick of thumb on phone screen. I want to caress. To fondle. To palpate. To murmur in the ear of the universe, and to hear it murmur back.

Look at this opening paragraph from the short story In Another Country by Hemingway:

In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew in their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.

Can you hear the music? I have been having trouble hearing the music, but I can hear it a little, in this paragraph. I want more of this music in my life.

Time for bed now. See you tomorrow.

Day 102: It came from under the boardwalk

This is what happens when you hear the same song fifteen times in one day. For Joe and Dale.

Oh when it's dark at night and there are no stars out in the sky
And your stomach gets so knotted and you feel that you might cry
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
That's where a portal between dimensions ripped into view

(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to our blood
(Under the boardwalk) People torn from above
(Under the boardwalk) Feasting on their guts
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk

In the park you hear the piercing scream of fleeing crowds
You don't know which way you should run to save yourself
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
You come face to face with a trans-dimensional monstrosity

(Under the boardwalk) That's where the beast came from
(Under the boardwalk) It was drawn to your blood
(Under the boardwalk) It pulls you into its mass
(Under the boardwalk) As you lose consciousness
Under the boardwalk, boardwalk

Oooh under the boardwalk, down by the sea, yeah
It has been a number of hours. You awaken. Your vision is somehow sharper, yet less distinct than before. You are able to pick up minute variations in the currents of air around you. Your sense of smell is... different. You feel a ravenous hunger. Your skin itches. It hangs loose upon your... shape. What is happening to you? You open your mouth to shout for help, but a guttural, squelching howl is all that emanates from the orifice in your... face? You look down at your arms. They are not arms. Your legs are not legs. You do not know who you are. All you know is that you have a hunger, and it is rising. You crave something of which you do not know the name. You spot a small boy paddling in the waves twenty or so feet out. He has not seen you here in the dappled shadows under the pier. Maybe you will go to him, ask him if he knows what is happening. You can smell his eyelashes. The matter under his fingernails. The tang of sweat on the skin around his armpits. You begin to pant. You will go to the boy. Yes. He will be able to help. He is just what you need. You rise from under the boardwalk,

BOARDWALK!