By: Elysia

Dig, dig, scrape, dig, dig.

Bark, bark, bark, BARK. Bark. Bark. Bark.

“Bugger.” (In Spanish.)

Paraguay: Stray dog’s barking foils prison break

By Elysia

A silence in the corridors,
A silence in the halls.
Then: whispering masses out of sight,
Out beyond the walls.

A low thrum of humming
Echoes from the lawn,
Ever getting louder:
The battleline is drawn.

The songs are almost deafening now,
The walls begin to crack.
Finally they start to see:
They are not turning back.

Gold-encrusted mannequins
Are shaken and they’re stirred:
Power to the people,
Voices must be heard.

By: Vague

The first time I heard the phrase, ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’, was when I was first reading The Lord of the Rings, where it is the title of a chapter. At least that is how my memory deems it; I may have known of it before, but it certainly stuck in my mind with that reading. I think I was ten years old, or thereabouts. A long time hence.

It is a beautiful phrase (at least I think it is), adding a lustre to what is essentially rubbish. How I wish I had access to my Shorter Oxford, so as to verify the etymology of the words. I guess the first is from ‘float’ and the second ‘jettison’ – but that would be a guess.

Again; rubbish.

Les Stroud, AKA ‘Survivorman’, frequently makes the point that one can be on any coast in the world, as far from another human as possible, and still find other people’s rubbish. And the vast majority of this is plastic.

I have discussed our ongoing love-affair with oil and its derivatives before; I cannot remember if that was on here, or elsewhere. It is a pet hate. I often try and imagine what this beach or that cove would look like without the garish smattering of plastic items strewn across the tide mark, like so many bright poisonous fruit festooning the seaweed, wood and bones that should be there.

Plastic is an interloper. It takes many, many years to decay. It is eaten by sealife across the globe, and is a major problem we care little about.

Yet.

And here we return to our title.

Yet, like Mr Stroud, I try and follow the adage the Wombles preach. One man’s rubbish is another’s treasure. And, when you are miles from the nearest shop, and with no way of transporting heavier items anyway, this treasure can become very valuable indeed.

To give an idea of just how much litters our coast I have brought up the following items to the shelter; there are far more still down below on the beaches that fringe the forest.

• Two two-litre fizzy drinks bottles
• One glass 1.5 litre bottle (whole!)
• A plastic spray bottle, such as you may buy containing cleaner, anti-bacterial spray etc (battered but not cracked)
• Two bleached rib bones (deer or sheep)
• A three foot length of six inch pipe
• A plastic barrel, the bottom cut off to make a bucket
• Three large fish boxes (100cm x 50cm x 25cm)
• Two plastic trays, also used on the creel boats (60cm x 40cm x 8cm) – these also yielded ten cable ties
• Part of fish box, cut so as to most likely act as a fender on a boat, with rope attached (150cm)
• Plastic pipe, six inches again, corner section
• Several pieces of driftwood, including a very useful pine pole, fifteen foot in length
• The other half of the seal skull I found last year, canine tooth still attached
• A plastic bucket, the sort used on boats, about 50cm diameter at the top and 50cm deep. This was slightly cracked at the bottom but is now perfectly usable as I wove paracord into it to fix it. Both handles also work fine and are undamaged.
• Two children’s beach toys; a small plastic rake and a plastic spade with a wooden handle
• A milk crate
• A ‘Plastimo’ buoy. 23 x 85. Made in France. Two holes/mooring points at either end of the 85cm. With 90cm rope.
• A flat rock, now used as a chopping board. (Ok – this neither floated, nor was jettisoned, but it was carried up from the beach.)

There are still a few other items I intend to collect, mainly driftwood, but also a selection of netting I am pondering a use for, a steel rod and one or two more fish boxes.

The items I already have, rubbish though they are, have started to prove their worth. The spade is surprisingly strong and has been used rather a lot already. One of the fish boxes is used when I collect moss and leaves for adding to the thatching, another has been sawn in half lengthways to make two shelves nailed to some wood and one of the shelter uprights.

The milk crate and buoy are being sat on as I write; very comfortable they are too.

Other items are already earmarked for a purpose; more shelves, a low table etc. I intend to use everything that I carried up here (buoy was carried by another, but that is another tale, and I mustn’t get ahead of myself).

One item there seems to be a proliferation of here is plastic containers for marine lubrication oil. Unfortunately, beyond the one cut down as a bucket and now catching run-off from my tarp in order to keep the shelter floor drier, I cannot think of a use for these. Unless I make a raft, as was suggested!

So, flotsam and jetsam it certainly is, but I am turning more and more Womble, making good use of the things that I find…

Note: Having thought about it some more, I think the milk crate is probably a lobster crate.

By: Vague

It is now over a year since I left my ‘proper’ job and ventured, quite literally, into the unknown.

I have returned to the shelter I built, to once again spend the Fall out in the woods, along the beaches, across the moors and up the mountains.

I started a blog piece a couple of weeks ago, after my company left to return south to her ‘proper’ job. Unfortunately the blog became turgid, incoherent, rambling and generally rubbish, so it was shelved, never to see the day.

Instead, I went over this piece and drew up a list of bullet points I wanted to write about. It occurred to me that the reason that the original blog had become so dire was that I had been trying to put too much into too small a space.

By writing the list I have effectively made the writing process that much easier (you’ve got to love lists) and normal service should once again resume.

I had intended to write a few pieces over the time since I left the wilderness, especially about my Brittany adventure, but I failed. Probably due to wine.

Hopefully I will be able to furnish these hallowed walls with a few thoughts and notes. I will be out here for a few more weeks so there should be plenty to discuss.

By: Vague

As some of you may already know, I recently spent some time living out in the wilds, in a shelter I built myself, heated by fire, quenched by Scottish burn water (I had to get that phrase in, it amuses me to think that if you didn’t know a stream was a burn in Scotland, you’d be perplexed). During this time I filled several Moleskines with notes, musings, observation, idea and poetry. I tried to distil what it means to be me into words and I have certainly made a satisfactory start. As you may also know, I am now dedicating the next few months to finishing my novel, but I also intend to write other pieces; drawing on the notes I made and purifying these thoughts into essay format. Not only do I want to continue my investigation into the reality, if such exists, behind my existence, but I am also aware that to do so will keep the novel from stagnation, allow my mind to explore a different form of writing – and will give you something to read too.

It has been a fascinating process to put myself directly in the spotlight, addressing issues past, present and future, many of which I have shelved and tried desperately not to revisit for many, many years, others are more recent, more raw. With hindsight, I probably began this process when I started seriously thinking about leaving my wife, over two years ago, after I had actually done so it gathered pace, speeding up with whatever it was The Muse and I shared for that brief time I documented here and continuing its headlong dash into the unknown over the last year, with another complicated affair and then the time I spent alone. I will warn you now, these pieces may contain things that may surprise, possibly upset or even offend, so please don’t read if you are of a sensitive nature. For the one thing I have learnt above all others is that in order for this skin sack of flesh and bone to succeed, I have to now be honest with myself and all others. This honesty differs from the ‘no lies’ policy I have followed for some time, as I have become adept at sidestepping issues, disguising truth within layers, behind smoke, in order not to offend or upset – now I have realised that I am who I am and that should be good enough. Like it or leave it. This is not to say that the forthcoming essays are designed or intended to shock, sadden or worse; some will be about subjects that are unlikely to offend. But you have been warned.

Expect tales of my past too, I know several of you have enjoyed one or two of these I have done previously and a portion of my notebooks is certainly taken up with remembrance of things past (À la recherche du temps perdu, of course). Keeping a journal is something I have mentioned before; even a few lines about an event or day can act as a trigger for the memory, and it is now time to draw on these observations, these lost times, in order to ensure they are preserved. An analogy for this process can be found in a box of memories, that place so many of us keep items that have great personal and individual meaning, yet to others are simply rubbish; a cinema or rail ticket, a letter, a pressed flower, a stone, a tiny three word note on a post-it. When we die these items lose any form of connection to the event, beyond their face value, their simple physical self. If a list is not included with them (‘leaf collected on walk with X, fell from a tree as we sat in the park on xx/xx/xxxx’ or ‘bill from meal with Y, we argued, I just wanted to hold and kiss her’), then they will be thrown out by whosoever finally goes through our collections when we are dust. Without recording these memories, they disappear, as Rutger Hauer so elegantly stated ‘all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.’ The more memory we leave behind, the greater our legacy, our resonance down the ages. As is stated in the Hávamál; ‘ Cattle die, and kinsmen die, and so one dies one’s self; one thing now that never dies, the fame of a dead man’s deeds’. Other translations remove the word ‘fame’, replacing it with ‘reputation’ – is this not what a legacy is about? Fame, defined as being known by many people, is different from reputation. It can be argued that we have come to associate fame with the acquisition of wealth and synonymous with reputation (and celebrity, as I have blogged about here). And this then raises the question of what I want to do with my work, why I write (as per Orwell).

I have been a writer for as long as I remember. It is something I do for pleasure first and foremost, I have an ongoing love affair with words and their structure. To be able to string together a series of symbols that can be deciphered across the globe is something we all too often take for granted. But; tell someone you are a writer and the next thing they say will be ‘are you published then?’ Even the OED includes a reference to writers doing so as a career, or job. Another thing people nearly always add is ‘I’ve always wanted to be a writer too’. Well, call me a fool, but you can’t become a writer. You either are, and write, or you are not, and don’t. I disagree that writing can be conveniently lumped together with accountancy, factory work, teaching, dog walking or any other job or career. It is more than that, it is a calling, one that can be difficult to explain to those who aren’t creative themselves. But what is the point of writing without a readership? This is something that Mr Will Roberts recently touched on; and he was right – what is the point of writing without a reader?

I’ve mentioned before my decision to stop writing and concentrate on gaining experience of life before recommencement and how this has certainly been more than successful, surpassing any of the shadowy forms of the future I envisaged all that time ago. The things I have done, the people I have met, the events, the women, the places I have been; all of these things are now being chopped and simmered, ready to add flavour, realism and variety to the final recipe which will become my novel. And, let’s face it, there’s plenty to go around, enough for many more meals. Now is the time I start to reap the rewards of a life lived. Time to entertain. Time to write. For, as Tove Jansson states in The Summer Book; ‘sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn’t even realise that they had forgotten.’ (Incidentally, I urge you to track this book down, it is a top five novel as far as I am concerned, capturing both old age and childhood and addressing massive questions in a way which never fails to entertain. Why it isn’t more well known outside Scandinavia, I don’t know, especially as the author is known for the also excellent Moomin books). She was right – I don’t want to start too late, nor risk forgetting my idea. That would be a travesty (for you as well as me). No, now I have the time and will. I haven’t forgotten once that I am a writer, I have doubted whether I would ever reach a point where I could write as I want, I have questioned what it is I actually want to write, I have debated the reasons behind my obsession with the written word – yet I have never lost sight of the fact I write.

I may keep you updated with the novel writing process and the trials and tribulations of publishing that will follow (although I am quietly confident about this, having a few aces hidden up the proverbial sleeve). I may not. Reading back over several of the pieces on here the ones I enjoyed revisiting most were those in essay form and those where I retold a tale of my past. To my eye I can see how many of the others reflect an attempt to recreate my success with TOB, yet do so for people who really know me. It was an interesting experiment and one I am unlikely to return to; I have plenty of people on TOB who are more than happy to provide commentary and discussion on what happens in my life, why confuse matters? A better discussion of this was given in the last piece on here.  Perhaps the reason I am still keeping TOB and moving from blogging on here is because of the two way process it enables; I can chew through an idea, ruminate on my own thoughts with criticism, support and occasionally derision from others. This gives me a more complete analysis of an event, leading me in directions my mind may not have taken without the input of others. The lack of commentary on here (when it was possible to comment I cannot recall receiving a single response) adding to my choice of taking a step back. A one sided discussion is not what a blog should be about, at least as far as I am concerned, all very entertaining for the reader I am sure, discussed perhaps when I am not present, but where’s my fun in that?

To, to conclude, I guess what the above is really saying is ‘I’ll see you when I see you’. If you want to hear from me sooner, send a message or write a letter.

By: Vague

The piece below is one I had crafted for T.O.B. (as regular readers are aware, and the title states, this is my other blog, the one that I’ve kept for rather a number of years now and, crucially, is anonymous – no-one I know in the ‘real world’ has found it, yet).

I have changed a few of the details so as to cover my tracks; I couldn’t have anyone searching certain phrases and locating my scribbles now, could I? Therefore, certain names have been altered to those I have used here previously, as opposed to those I have used on T.O.B..

I will also add that this piece never made it to the WWW – I started typing it out on my mobile, in order to upload it, but the process was using up too much battery so I stopped. (Plus it was getting quite tedious and my thumb was weary!) So, here you go; we told you Vague Preoccupations wasn’t dead!

*

Now, as you know already, I am currently away from the whirl of civilisation, escaping from the city I have called home for nine years; somewhere on the west coast of Scotland.

I’m not going to detail my adventures here; as you also know, this is recorded elsewhere on the chaotic and vast web of the world. (Indeed, I know some of you have already discovered, read and discussed some of the pieces I have set free there.) This is not the place for a discussion of the wildlife I live amongst, or the best fire lay to use, or any of the other plethora of skills, tasks and events I am currently immersed in.

Instead I want to talk about something I know you lot will be far more interested in; principally how I have changed since deciding to actually have an adventure that had nothing to do with anyone else (especially anyone of the opposing sex) and was solely solo.

Of course I have already told a slight untruth here; you have previously read all about La Parisienne and the effect this (and indeed earlier events) have had on me. We’ve dissected whether it would be a good thing to walk (literally) away from this confusion and turmoil I had sunk into. And you know that my decision to leave was also based on the notion that it would give her time and space to help her make the right choice. Whatever that may be. You also know of the events in the few weeks before I left – she has gone ahead with her plans and we are currently incommunicado. Space, time, thought and memory.

Back to the topic in hand. I have changed physically of course. I have hair for the first time in many years. I have a beard that gives me a certain wild mountain-man visage. My hands have developed many new scars (hence the title); from knife, saw or other source, they all criss-cross one another, some fading already, others will stay as reminders for some years yet.

These scars overlay no longer soft office hands. My skin is tough, thicker, calluses from using my axe, saw and knife will soon be joined by others once I start practising with the bow I am crafting. Yet I do keep moisturising, so, tough as it is, my skin is not rough at all.

My face and hands are tanned and the phrase ‘weather-beaten’ may also be appropriate here. My body feels strong; I have lost the fat I deliberately put on, replaced by muscle, in parts highly toned. Indeed, I have developed one or two areas of my body more than I had thought I would; this can only be a good thing. As I was about to get off the train to begin this adventure an old man said to me, ‘what you are doing is banking for the future’. He was right – my body will thank me in years to come, as will my mind for the tremendous experience I am currently investing in.

So, physically I am stronger, tougher, more alert and having shed that greyness that office life can pervade the body with. No longer dull and grey, if I were to say I was a colour it would be the rich, vibrant green of the holly or perhaps that of the lush moss that surrounds me. To conclude, I have no doubts that physically this is an excellent endeavour. Mentally though? That is the meat of this piece and one I will now discuss.

Before I left, one of the last pieces I threw out to you wolves was about how I hoped this period of solitary freedom would help me to process all that has happened thus far in my little life, what I would miss, what I hoped to discover and enjoy.

I do a lot of singing out here, something I used to do when I was young, then this slowly dissipated until I would rarely break into song. I have learned that, although I always knew music was a huge part of my life, it is intrinsic to my mental wellbeing. For some weeks I was quite happy with my own voice but then I started to miss listening to those of others, I missed the chords of a guitar, the tinkling of the ivories, the strains of the strings and many other aspects of musical composition.

This made me slightly sad, but I persevered with singing until I suddenly remembered I still had my headphones from the long train journey north, and around a thousand tracks on my phone.

The song I had missed listening to most was one I have discussed here before, how it speaks to me and simply ‘fits’ my life at present perfectly. So, the first track I listened to, once I was safely ensconced in my hammock and sleeping bag, was ‘Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help your black ass?’ by Amanda F. Palmer.

I have already spent too much time doing things I didn’t want to. This journey is making me realise just how true this has been. The strange thing is, I still don’t regret anything – it has all been a hugely valuable experience; the learning curve at times steeper than I would have liked but it still enabled me to reach new heights of understanding.

I honestly believe it is of unparalleled importance that an individual is happy with who they are; that way they can pass on this happiness, this joy, to all those they interact with. The longer I am out here, the closer I seem to be getting to being truly at ease with myself.

I do miss people, some more than others of course, but what has surprised me is who has been in touch; I thought certain people would send more messages but they haven’t, yet, conversely, I have received several communications from those I didn’t think I’d hear from at all.

In many ways, although I seldom talk to anyone but my sister, I spend a large portion of every day talking. By this I am referring to my journal; not only is it full of observation, diary entries, plans, sketches, maps; it is also full of my written attempts to process all I have experienced, and also to formulate a few rules for my life, a codex, if you will, to live by. Taking these rules it is becoming possible to map out a future of opportunity, variability and experience.

One of the principal things I have recorded in my journal has been my relationships with women; from the days of Daisy, through the ex-wife, The Muse and of course La Parisienne. These subjects are nothing new to regular readers; many of you are all too familiar with the intimate and often explicit posts that have appeared here previously. You have often passed comment, advice and sometimes even judgement on these matters, many of you who discovered the other blog found it amusing how I tried to record events and thoughts there, knowing that people I know in the ‘real’ world were also reading it. You watched as I posted pieces about The Muse there and here, then many of you nodded and tutted ‘I told you so’, as I went back to non-discussion of my personal relationships on the other blog, transferring all talk and details of La Parisienne back here.

So, what do the pages of my journal record on this subject? I have attempted, this time alone, to dissect what was good, what was bad and what each relationship truly meant to me. Again; I regret nothing. Everything that has occurred has led me to this point for a reason.

I don’t miss Daisy. That is done, a chapter finished, yet one that shaped me as a young man.

I hope the ex-wife is happy; for so long I felt guilty I was not who she wanted me to be, yet, in paradox, I knew I had to become truly myself.

I wish The Muse well, she came into my life at just the right point, I had missed passion and she threw it at me  by the barrelful. I will forever be grateful for what she brought to me, I hope she knows that.

La Parisienne has proved hardest to dissect, come to terms with. Perhaps this is due to hope, perhaps due to it being so recent and, unlike The Muse who has shut the door firmly, the door to the world of La Parisienne remains slightly ajar. I now have my rules though and I will follow these. She knows she needs to be brave, but bravery is in short supply these days. Who knows what the future holds?

I have also discussed others too, things and events that had I acted differently may have shaped me more than they have done. This process has been difficult, interesting and vastly important. In fact, as the lovely Red would say, “rate important” (note for American, and indeed non-northern-English others, for rate, read right).

I think the most important lesson I am learning is that, even if it is difficult and indeed possibly controversial and confusing to others, I simply MUST follow my path. Whether this means I will walk alone is yet to be determined. As so many of you, voyeurs that you are, have suggested, perhaps I should go back to using women as playthings, shut off from emotional attachment and concentrate on the physical, rather than the mental, side of things. I am as yet undecided as to this aspect of my road ahead; at present it matters not, but in a couple of months I will be once more around others and need to tread carefully.

So, lots of talk of paths, roads, journeys. But isn’t this what life is all about, our own rambling way at times flanked by others at times doubling back, meandering. One thing I have realised is how bad I have been at keeping in touch with people and I hope to alter this as soon as I can, writing good, old fashioned letters, more emails and other lines of communication. I’ll never be a fan of the telephone though!

Re-reading the preceding words, I realise I have said much, yet told little. Perhaps this is due to this still being an ongoing process, perhaps to a slight withdrawal. Who knows? No doubt, once I am back in civilisation with a broadband connection once more, I will return to lengthy and detailed discussion, as I have done so many times before. I do think knowing I won’t be able to respond to your comments as I usually do has also altered what I have recorded here.

I will sign off now and begin the process of typing this into my mobile phone. I hope you are well and one thing I haven’t mentioned, but look forward to immensely, is catching up with all your own news in your blogs. For I too am a voyeur.

*

There you go. One more piece for Vague Preoccupations. I have edited out parts of the above (mainly intimate/explicit parts, such as a discussion of my final night in Sheffield), but on the whole it is more or less what would have been sent to T.O.B.. Strangely, I find I am missing this, the freedom to be brutally honest, talk about subjects that are still rather taboo amongst those I ‘really’ know and also the interaction that, although at times has been hurtful, has always been useful. I think at present I am using my journal as this sounding board, reading back through it, tailoring those rules, rejigging my possible futures.

And what does the future hold? I can tell you this for certain – it will be exciting, at times frightening, at others difficult. But I will be me, and that is what matters most – honesty to self and others.

By: Vague

This will be my last blog on here for a while – possibly forever, but who knows what lies around the corner?  Never say never.

Recently I have commented on how strange keeping a blog on here has been, read by Real Life People (that’s probably you) who really know Me (or at least as much as I share); not just know my words.  I have struggled with self-censorship issues for some time now and in the last few months it has become harder and harder to know what to say, what to hold back, what to explicitly commit to your eyes and what to hint at.

For the last ten years I have turned to my weblogs (no one calls them that any more…) and my ever present journals and notebooks in order to work through what occurs in my life, digest, assimilate and try and make some sort of vague sense of this life I live.  This is something I urgently feel the need to do now, craft pieces filled with truth, filled with emotion, that ask questions I need to seek answers to.  I also need others to take on these issues and report back with their own conclusions, offerings and thoughts.  Yet I have realised this is not the right forum for this any longer, if it ever was.  I need to question my direction, question what mistakes I have made to reach this point, question where I go, ask who am I?  Questions questions questions.  Answers?

It is an odd thing – I made this decision last week, after some serious thought and told no one about it until Sunday; since then three of the bloggers I follow have decided to either shut their doors completely, or hang up the keyboard for an undecided amount of time.  Perhaps there’s something in the water, or in the air?

I am sure that my choice to freeze a steady input of new pieces here will not be unwelcome to some, I know for a fact certain people will be glad to see the end of it.  The irony is, TOB and TOOB are far more implicit and explicit about my life, far truer depictions of what I really think.  On here I have pulled punches, taken care not to offend, not to hurt.  I have even censored myself to such a point I have not even mentioned certain thoughts, certain events.  This isn’t what I want to keep a blog for – I feel this has diluted what I write on here, become more of a chore than a pleasure and no longer something to look forward to.  I have turned more and more back to my anonymity on the other blogs and my journal.  I have started carrying my moleskine again, noting down many and varied observations about the world around me, overheard snippets of conversation, character sketches, lines that leap into my head unbidden.  Sadly though, I feel that Vague Preoccupations has ceased to be of use to my development as a writer (at least at present), and that has to be what any work is about – surely?  I have certainly done far more creative writing of late, poetry and prose vying for time with my journal and observational pieces.

I have also realised I have stepped back from talking about certain subjects to friends; my incessant questioning and doubts are probably exceedingly irritating.  Instead I will try and move forward talking about nothing of serious consequence, at least for a time.  I have found it difficult to see into the future, my eyes have felt grainy, tired and full of sand.  I actually mentioned this to a friend a couple of weeks ago and she replied with an excellent quote, ‘Don’t worry, the sand will turn to glass and you will be able to see again’.  She is right; I need to stop peering ahead so much, stop second-guessing what is around the corner, simply be.  All clears with time.  Or so I hope.

I hope that some of you have enjoyed sharing in this experiment, like I said at the beginning, I may return at a later date, or the format may be altered, or it may be I do not ever add to what has been again.  I’m not going to try and think too much about it.  I hope you understand my reasons for calling it a day, going dark.  They are simple enough in some ways, yet also extremely complex.  Thanks for reading, until next time.

By: Vague

This promises to be something slightly different to pieces of late.  I had originally intended to put up the first part of a trilogy I have crafted, touching on subjects I have avoided.  Then I was fairly sure there would be no blog piece from your author this week.  Now, however, I’ll give you this.

In this life we are born, we live, we die.  These are the constants; they are the same as all life on earth, what holds us all together, everything else is inconsistent, open to chance, roads crossing roads, meeting paths and ways separating.  In our lives we are often faced with a fork, two directions so dissimilar that we pause, panic, try to retrace our steps.  I have felt time stand still when lips touch me and I have seen it flow faster and faster, disappearing before my eyes, hours passing within moments.  The one thing I have never witnessed is time going backwards – despite our species unique ability to wish we could go back in time to alter an event, avoid fate, we simply cannot do this.

So, when we are faced with this fork we have two choices.  The right choice and the one that should be left.  We cannot turn on life’s journey and head backwards, as much as this would be so much easier.  We can pause at this juncture, wait for guidance, fate, karma, realisation, illumination, inspiration, belief.  Sometimes the best course of action is to take no action for a time.  Wait, sit, calm your thoughts, avoid outside interference, seek advice from those you trust.  Wander off the path for a while, explore for yourself the area you have found yourself in and, while doing so, take a long hard look at the events that have led you here, who you are, all the while looking back up the path at the choice you know you must make.

And sometimes a choice is no choice, you have already chosen, you just haven’t yet cleared your mind enough to accept it.

We surround ourselves with friends and family, we are influenced greatly by what we are told, advice is given freely, often whether we seek it or not.  The key to listening to advice is to digest it slowly, weigh it against what you already thought, try and peer into the grey of the future; ponder whether the route is easier with the advice, certainly, but also try and look beyond the journey to the destination.  The harder route, where you may not heed all you are told, may yield a far greater prize.  Never simply settle for second best.  Always strive to achieve everything you have ever dreamt of.  Have belief.

(There is a famous passage, somehow appropriate, in American Gods, which I think you should read now.  There’s even a picture of Mr G. wearing a t-shirt with this quote.  I have always viewed jade differently since I first read this, and I guess you might too.  Makes sense).

I have spent some time on my bed this week thinking about what I believe.  I realised two things from this stress and migraine wracked time.  Firstly, that what I believe has recently changed fundamentally and, secondly, that I have begun to believe in certain things I have always held at arms’ length.  Not quite not-believed-in, but never embraced.  Some things have always belonged in my stories, in my poetry, in the darkest recesses of my mind, never before freed from these shackles until lately.  Somehow they have now slipped past my defences and arrived, fully formed, in my life.  And life is fleeting; yet I now understand that these things seem to outlast our temporal existence.

I have never known such a period of turbulence, where my emotions have been so raw, so near the surface and so powerful, shifting like trees in a storm, waves on the sea, patterns in the clouds.  I have spent my life running, both from events in my past and towards the promise of a brighter tomorrow.  I have spent many years making do, never seeking what I was looking for; for fear it may not exist.  I have spent time alone.  I have spent time in company.  I have spent time alone in company.  I have spent hours questioning, answering, asking everyone and no one.

I have often tried to avoid addressing the worst.  Facing my fears.  Standing toe to toe with a dark future.  Yet I have always ended up doing just that, perhaps it is the darkness within me, the writer who seeks to understand what we simply cannot comprehend, perhaps it is simply my nature to coldly look at the worst possible outcome and think about what I would do in such a scenario.  These last few days I have done just that, and it has taken me to places I do not enjoy.

And yet, I still believe.  I still believe that perhaps because something feels right it actually is right.  And I have to carry on believing, trying not to over think, not to intensely analyse, as I am always in danger of doing.  I have learnt from my mistakes.  And many are my mistakes.  It was only last year that I began to tell my true story to one or two people.  I have always concealed fact, used shadow to obscure certain paragraphs of my life, deliberately soaked a page in ink to hide the words.  And then for some reason I spilled out my full tale when I least expected to, telling of the darkness, the things I have done that I have hidden.

Standing at this crossroads I know the direction I would like to take, yet there is still that little man within me, building his walls against the world, trying to protect me.  All the while he is shouting, ‘This is you – nothing ever works out.  Run away, turn inward, avoid.’
I am fighting him for the first time in many years, perhaps it is because I am older and somewhat wiser, or perhaps it is because I finally have something worth fighting for; a future that at once terrifies and thrills me, much as the present fills me with both confusion and certainty.  Yet the direction I take is no longer my choice.  Perhaps this is what has thrown me.

I have questioned who I am, and I have not been alone in this.  Asking, searching the self for answers that are at once tantalisingly close yet also far away, is so very difficult that at times it is easier to cease asking, take comfort in the familiar, the safe, and lose your sense of wonder, of romance, of self.  Sometimes something feels so unreal as to make us doubt whether it exists, it is so different to all we have known.  Perhaps this is actually reality.  Perhaps the easier well-travelled route should be exchanged for the harder more dangerous path.  The rewards will be great, yet the road difficult.

I now know all these things, for I still believe.

By: Vague

It’s that time of the year again where I come back to life, tree-like or bee-wise.  Perhaps I am as a bear awakening from hibernation.  The point is, I love this time of year and it loves me.  I become energised once more, as the days get longer and the sun decides to hang around, casting its warmth and light on my winter-weary head.  This year my life feels brighter than normal, I’ve now hit my 33rd birthday and 34th year and I keep sneaking glimpses towards the future and it shines back in my face.

The first thing I have decided I need to do, lest I drown under the surface of so many upcoming plans and projects, is to organise my life, plan plan plan.  I have revisited the excellent www.diyplanner.com and am toying with different systems.  As an aid to this I have procured a new Moleskine (any excuse), in bright red this time.  I also made the error of looking through all the others in the range and came away with an address book too and some sticky bookmark things (and, err, Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman).  I simply shouldn’t be allowed in Waterstones or Smiths.  A banning order may be a good idea.  In the past week I have somehow ended up buying three more books from Waterstones and another six from Amazon.  This is on top of the five I received for my birthday.  I justified this expense by utilising the money my Granny sent me and supplementing it with my own and the belief all the books are crucial to my development and future plans.

Over lunch last week, shared (delightfully as ever) with La Parisienne, she made an excellent point (one the Editor, Beans, Double G and others have all also mentioned at various points); I should not keep putting my plans back.  This was in response to my mentioning that, by my birthday in 2011 I wanted to be out of this country.  When, in reality, I have enough time to sort things out to leave this year.  And why not this year?  I can try and convince myself this won’t be enough time to get enough money saved, or it is too soon (especially if I am moving abroad, as opposed to travelling), but the truth is that is simply bollocks.  When The Housemate and I originally decided to head off around the world we would have had less than six months of saving, this timescale is more than adequate, especially since I’ve already saved a little.

I have been refusing to look too closely at my future of late, for reasons I will explain in a later piece, but this comment set me thinking about the realms of possibility that lurk unseen around the corner.  I know what I hope to happen but my old lack of self-confidence has raised its head once more and made me feel incapable to share my hopes with you, at this juncture at least.  I will say though that the plan to be out of this country by the end of this year at the latest still holds true, and I am also exceptionally hopeful it will be some time prior to this.  There are clues dotted around this site, in previous blog entries for example and also in my 21 things list I finally subjected to the cold hard glow of the ‘net yesterday.

One thing that has come out of recent weeks and recent events is this realisation I may portray a harder, confident exterior at times but in reality I am still the painfully shy child I used to be, filled with doubt over my own self-worth and fearful of doing something wrong, hurting others.  This is an issue I have become accustomed to dealing with throughout my adult life, yet it has only been due to the recent extraordinarily powerful events that I have noticed how much it can still affect me.  It seems to rear its head when I feel I have something to lose that I cannot envisage losing.  In this case, this is obviously La Parisienne.  I will wait to document this, the most passionate, loving, meaningful and simply ‘right’ relationship I’ve ever experienced, at a later date, for fear of somehow jinxing things (which I seriously doubt will happen, but this is me after all…).  You’ll just have to wait.  Or find TOB or TOOB or read my journals of course.

By: Vague

I feel I have rather a lot to say today, but as I start this piece I wonder how much I will actually share (this is both a matter of time and also privacy) – let’s see how things progress though.

Scotland.  Strangely I gained nearly six pounds in weight while I was up there, good weight too, not just flab!  In a perverse fashion I am glad the weather was far from its best, with a few days of rain, showers and high winds – the weather when I am outdoors never bothers me in the slightest.  There is an apt (possibly paraphrased) Ray Mears quote that sums this up succinctly ‘When it rains, you get wet, but when the sun comes out you dry off’.  This is how I feel – as long as you are prepared and sensible in the wilderness, there is little that can hurt you.  Layers of wool, then the ventile smock and a rubberised (this word always reminds me of some strange fetish porn…) poncho keep the worst of the weather off, heating oneself from the inside out with warm drinks and hot food also help.  If the weather gets that horrendous I could always sit on the bench in my clothes, within my sleeping bag, in my bivi bag…

The reason I was pleased that the weather wasn’t perfect is that Dr EW got a far more realistic view of the experience than if it had been beautiful sunshine the whole time.  He also wasn’t too keen on the profusion of ticks there seemed to be this year – more than I remember any previous year with the majority being freshly hatched nymphs rather than the bigger beasts.  My theory as to why this is the case (after a long, cold and snowy winter remember) is that they had only just started hatching when we arrived.  Their predators had yet had time to pick them off and winnow their numbers.  Dr EW ended up with a few nibbling him, whereas I obviously taste a lot worse as I escaped a single eager mouth.

I did slip slightly whilst descending the mountain at one point though… thankfully, however, my camera survived unscathed.  In general I was hugely impressed with my levels of fitness, it really didn’t take too long for the old mountain goat legs to kick in once more and I revelled in the fact I could take deep cleansing breaths without the urge or need for a cigarette (or that slight tightness either).  It has been nearly five weeks since I last smoked and I can honestly say I am hugely impressed with myself and my efforts (which aren’t even an effort any more).  I can’t wait to get outdoors again soon either – I think I may try and make it as regular as I possibly can, I am learning I need to be outside, under the sun, rather than breathing air-con-air (sorry for the pun) and sitting under unnatural light.  My days of civil Service office-dom are numbered, this much I am now sure of.  As to where to go from here?  This is an ongoing question.

I am aware that I am running out of time this evening to get this piece finished and onward to the Editor.  I think I may have to continue on a separate, non-blog day.  I will, however, very briefly mention the fact that, upon my return from Scotland, I had the most fantastic weekend with La Parisienne.  She came over on Saturday and we left for Stratford-upon-Avon on Sunday morning.  I will endeavour to write more about this as soon as possible, as I am struggling to put what it meant to me into words (rather unlike me…).  Needless to say, the time flew by as it always seems to when we are together and, before I knew it, we were back here.  Spending time with her is such a pleasure; it is very difficult when I don’t see her now, and becoming increasingly hard.  Having said that, I only need to think of her and I start smiling to myself like some demented clown, strange shivers running through me.  It works on so many levels, she is engaging in conversation, has a wide reaching knowledge and experience base, makes me laugh and smile more than I can remember and then there is the physical side, where she does things to me that I am likely to only share on TOB.  And then there are the kisses.  In fact, I think I will leave this here before I get too carried away with what I write but I will return to this subject as soon as I can find the time.