I can really feel the approach of winter. Hard to believe I’ll be in Jersey again soon, and for the whole of December. I’m kind of looking forward to it. It’ll be a good chance to get the heck out of this town. There’s a lot of weird energy floating around here.
My day off was not as restful as I had dreamt. I’ve been helping a friend in need, but within that I’ve kind of forgotten to take my own needs into account. Right now I’m about an hour away from my flat full of yummy food and I’m starving but too pragmatic to order food here when I have a butcher-cut ribeye in the fridge with a load of asparagus and new potatoes. It’s half six. It’s a relatively tense situation I find myself in, and I have a low level of anxiety because of it. That tightness around the chest. Plus I’m hungry which is probably why I’ve got slight shakes. Nervous energy and the fact I’ve eaten nothing but a croissant all day.
Looking out the window helps though. The colours are momentarily deep and rich on the trees. Leaves are turning through orange and yellow and brown before collapsing into thick heaps in the roads. The skies are clear enough and the days are calm enough that even here in the concrete jungle I can find moments to connect to something a little older. I’d like to have gone out and walked in nature though. It’s been a very urban day. I’m looking forward to getting back down to Brighton tomorrow.
It’s odd though because my whole day has been taken up with something I can’t write about.
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I went home. I cooked the most incredible steak, with new potatoes and raclette cheese, and asparagus. Then I got an unexpected and fascinating call from my godfather’s son. Then I watched the final two episodes of Squid Game. Then I had my customary hot bath. And now I’m feeling generally just much more relaxed than I was when I started writing today, even though a little spot of my youthful life has invaded. My godfather is a little black spot in my past. I’ve frequently wanted to connect with the fucker over the years. I lost my parents early and his influence in my life was formative. He gave me my strange geeky joy in doing the “manly” things. Hewing wood and gutting fish and carrying the thing and driving the machine. Perhaps we wouldn’t get on now, perhaps we would. I just would have preferred to have been part of the decision and not have just had contact severed by him while I was still a teenager, as soon as my dad was buried.
But that is an old old wound and I know it too well, far too well. I can luxuriate in the lovely things I’ve done this evening, and put my head down. Nice to spend a day helping a friend. It has deepened a friendship, and in the end that is more valuable than 20 lazy days of pampering at home.
Here’s my friend. When you’re sad, play dress-up!! I have some wonderful clothes now. Too many wonderful clothes. But wonderful nonetheless.
AlBarclay 