The child of free education and no war, a working-man’s grandchild, trussed up in an expensive education and still no war and you choose not to eat and you call yourself oppressed. Are we not always oppressed? Is that not the essence of the human condition — some eternal struggle against the next odds? From hunt and gather to the roller-coaster of capitalism, a train of twists and turns, myths of gold and myths of oil and handshakes and photographs in suits (such are promises), rattling across the globe, faster, faster, faster, faster, flashing faster than the we of the world can possibly see until the train has long passed through and the lessons of history are too slow — too slow, too slow — to catch the crackle of the present as it breaks. And we have all been spread — scattered, like seed — across the earth, human capital shifted in great waves of migration and tireless trickles of restless endless voyaging. Shifted on the waves, on slave-ships and convict-ships and passenger ships and aeroplanes, shifted and drifted, distant, and diffused. Scattered, like seed, wildflowers across the earth, with our beauty — latent, potent, laden, gone — and our memory — latent, potent, laden, gone — and our books. And the web of the spider spins around us, silently, slowly, weaving its soft silver sinews, miles and miles of twists, of cables, woven not from silk but fibre-optics, underground and under seas, great clusters of neurons shooting across the globe so that mother in Taiwan sees her child in Atlanta and all the gripping webs around the globe grow tighter and the silk knots we seek to loosen only distract us from the tighter tightening ever-tighter grip and the bright lights dazzle our senses. We are scattered — ashes on the wind, like seed — wildflowers across the earth, clinging to soil like weeds in the cracks of the pavements and the walls and the concrete and the shards of metal and glass we call homes. We flower and fluster and die — ashes on the wind, more dust on the city streets. More earth to turn and seeds — newly scattered, ashes, fed pesticides and painkillers — left to flower and fluster and die.
A Place You Can Slip Into.
Each place we connect with teaches us something — leaves something embedded within us. Some layer of the city’s smudge, some scent of countryside that clings, some pulse that enters the heart and lingers.
Then there always is its pace somewhere inside you — the pace of the place — its rhythms, its moods — a place you can slip into.
The North Star.
How I felt upon seeing that bright spot in the sky.
A single, bright star.
So long had I been gazing upon a different sky that I was quite shocked to see it. A single, bright, close star.
My eyes glued to the star as the taxi streaked quietly on into the gloaming, and the star through the window grew only brighter.
And again, she thought that she might cry.
To England, where my heart lies.
Sweet hymnal music and the chirp of springtime’s birds.
Brickwork, colours so varied and subtle, aged. Repainted, refreshed, changed, restored.
Pink Mayfair! Oh, glory!
Just to walk there — here, there, and everywhere — just to walk there is to live. Not for so long — so long — have I felt so alive.
Found in a Notebook, titled ‘Au Printemps. St Kilda Botanical Gardens. A sunny Tuesday.’
Para-gliders — five of them — loop across the bright, warm blue sky. The day is cloudless, stirred by a slight, light breeze. How far can they see, from up there? A vast stretch of billowing, bloated mass of inhabited land. The ocean; the ships beyond the horizon. What do they see of me? A small, black splodge; an ant on grass, as insignificant as the winged ant that just now alights upon my scribbling page.
On the subject of insects — there are bees about, hovering peacefully above the clusters of yellow daisy-like blooms that sprout from the grass in ragged patches wilted by the sun. The occasional fly goes by my ear.
Another sky-watcher makes his way across the blue; a light plane, mumbling and growling back and forth, the light shining silver on the white body of the plane.
Sunbathing season has begun. The lawns are littered with girls baring themselves to the warm spring sun, so I am not out of company with my cotton bath-sheet to spread upon the grass. Contented-looking babies are wheeled about the gardens by their mothers.
Distant, high-pitched screams come from above, as another para-glider’s chute opens with a strange crackling roar.
The breeze feels layered; it buffets across my skin in alternating, mingling streams of cool, dry, quick air, and pockets of languorous, humid warmth.
An Outpouring of Sorrow.
Is silence.
Rubber Soul (We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea).
Plastic soul, man, plastic soul.
The malleability, extendability of the mind.
You can quieten it, and calm it, and dive within it and step outside it. Whatever you want to do. Don’t try too hard.
Let it come to you.
What did he say? A spot of sunlight in your chest, spreading through your body. Something; you weren’t listening.
Let it come to you.
Breathe in — through the nose. And out — through the mouth — slowly, lips pursed to slow it down, slowly, all the way out. In and out, slowly, all the way out.
And on the next out-breath, close your eyes. Gently.
Slowly, gently.
Return the breath to its rhythm.
Take note of the body. The underlying feeling? — that tightness in your chest, the tension in your stomach-muscles, that fiery spot of pain in your spine, the one in your pelvis, the strain in your shoulders. The way your jaw is held stiff, teeth apart, and all the muscles in your cheeks are tightened, gripping the lips shut.
The breath upon the upper lip. A silver thread of smoke. In, and out, slowly, all the way out.
In, and out, slowly, all the way out.
The breath on the upper lip. Count the breaths. One, and — up — two, and — down. Three, and — up — four, and — down. Up to ten, start again.
And another train passes outside.
Whispers. The city breathes.
Thinking — note it.
Feeling — note it.
Feel the breath passing on the upper lip. One, and — in — two, and — out. Three, and — in — four, and — out.
All the way out, out, out, out to sea.
We didn’t mean to go to sea.
Adrift. The current flowing in and out, the breath on your upper lip, the silver thread of smoke. At sea.
London. The Warmest April Day Since 1949.
Blossom and birdsong in The Regent’s Park.
Meadow-like lawns scattered with white daisies.
French women chatter over yoga on the playing fields.
A spaniel barks, demands his mother’s attention.
Edgeware Road to Park Lane. Skirting the edges of Hyde Park sparkling bright green in the sun, blue-and-white-striped deckchairs unfolded everywhere.
Into Mayfair. Colours of the brickwork, shades of dusky pink, white, grey charcoal blue.
Spotted Berkeley Square, and suddenly Piccadilly and the Burlington Arcade sparkling with diamonds.
Regent Street, the Circus.
St James Square thronging at lunchtime. Another pair of men in blue suit-pants, white shirts, take-away lunch in hand, ‘seems everyone’s had this idea.’ The entirety of smart London offices spilled into the square burbling with chatter. Beds of vibrant bulbs. From behind me, the popping of a champagne cork.
The First Appointment.
The stairway gave me an uncanny sense of déjà vu.
It curved tightly upwards, not a spiral, but a U, snug in the rounded end of a narrow room. Green tiles lined the floor and stairway; an early Deco stained-glass window let a little subdued sunlight cast itself in colour on the steps.
There was a hush in the building. The kind of hush that is only possible in a building that is not empty of people, where the muffled little sounds of separate individuals, each at their own separate purpose, create a strange sense of invisible company.
You Silly Girl.
Head. Up.
He motioned with his hands under his chin.
I smiled sheepishly.
I was just admiring my shoes, I said.
He said, they are cool shoes.
Blue-Eyes.
You’ve always been sort of… disconnected. I think it’s a self-preservation thing.
Magical: Day One 