Life
In the light, among the living
Keep the ghosts happy
I was celebrating a new job, looking forward to an unexpected week’s holiday, when my father fell at home, so I’m spending that week in Wales.
Brief bliss
I was caught in a work storm for a few months over the summer. Things settled enough for me to take a small risk, which paid off, which means I can finally tack for calmer waters.
Worth and work
I’ve been reading more this month. I decided to read a novel for thirty minutes uninterrupted at least once every day. I had to dig around to find the motivation to do that because I’d fallen out of love with reading (again).
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Duality
I’m deep into my summer break, which has not gone to plan. We’ve cancelled our holiday to care for a sick parent. Ironically, I’m feeling better than I have in a while. Life can be both.
Open roads and blue skies
I’ve arrived at an approach to posting online that I’ve been resisting for years, but has become inevitable with the slow death of Twitter: one place for my stuff, that I control.
Go gently
I hit an emotional wall a couple of weeks ago. Looking back, it’s been coming for months, but when you’re in a storm for long enough it begins to feel normal.
Angles, curves and spin
he year barrels on and tomorrow we hit July. It’s the halfway point. The summer solstice has passed and the hottest months are ahead. Time doesn’t take a break, even when I ask politely. Dad gave me some of his old golf clubs. He took me to the Steelworks golf club when I was twelve and taught me to play, but then when I was fourteen I chose tennis over golf, and I haven’t played since. I still play golf video games though, because I’ve always loved the curve of a ball through a landscape.
Everyman
Heat. During the final chase, I could feel the rumble of planes in my stomach, and my wife now has the hots for nineties Pacino. He’s a very sloppy kisser on a big screen.
Walking with ghosts
An elegantly dressed woman is with me and a man on a balcony in a nightclub. The man is very drunk. She whispers to him that they should go on somewhere else.
Puzzles
At the start of the day a deployment of code went awry and at the end I was a go-between over my still-hospitalised father’s boxer shorts. Life can be ridiculous. On Monday I went to see John Wick 4 and ate a terrible hot dog. The person serving sprinkled it with dried (!), crunchy onions. Then yesterday I watched the first half of Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte. The two films serve different parts of me. Michelangelo Antonioni — I am Michael, my uncle was an Anthony who is now with the angels.
Matrix
Walked to Southside for a coffee. Why? I’m thinking of Gwen Bell, then Neo/Keanu. I deliberately left my notebook at home. I need some time without a pen in my hand. Re-balancing... something. Gwen, Neo and Keanu are seekers of different kinds. I told myself yesterday to put the writing weight down. There is too much else going on to add the pressure of writing a novel. Life before art. Life is an art, yes, but you get my drift. I’m chaining myself to a rock when I need to be swimming.
Hospitals
My father is in hospital again. Both his legs are swollen, which is fairly common with heart failure, which we’ve known about for a few years, but one of his arms has also swelled up, and he’s out of breath doing the slightest things. The practice GPs thought it was better to treat him at home, but the lymphoedema nurse was adamant it was something else. My moderately stressful trip shoehorning Dad into a VW Polo for an assessment in an inaccessible part of one hospital became an eight-hour wait with the triage team in a bigger hospital.
Content apocalypse
This is the tipping point. I’m fifty in two weeks. I’ve watched fifty percent of the 800 films I own, and even less of the books. The amount of time I have left is constricting, but the number of books and films I own keeps expanding. Something has to give. I need a new philosophy. What I consume (bleurgh) must feed (this is family trauma speaking) whatever I am creating. I envy those who have perhaps always done this. Collecting and list-making is the hoarder’s comfort.
Emotional weather
I’m staying with Dad for the weekend, and because he’s having some new health problems, it’s quite hard work. My mother was always the anxious one. Now it's me.
Adieu, 2022
In time-honoured fashion, here are my favourite discoveries of 2022, in chronological order of publication or release. It’s been a year of three big creative adventures: getting a new job (first in fourteen years); a family holiday in France (first to Paris for a week, then to Morzine in the French Alps); setting up my Patreon (experimenting with a patrons-only podcast). There was very little fiction writing, but plenty of reflective writing.
Love and breakages
I’m excited about 2023. There’s a lot I want to do next year. (This is the case every year.) I’ve just broken a wine glass. I’m at my father's house, and it feels auspicious, although I don’t know why. He has cheap glasses because we are his only wine-drinking visitors. He rarely drinks alcohol anymore, and when he does it’s either lager or a glass of whatever we are having. Anyway, the glass broke neatly at both the top and bottom of the stem, so there were three pieces of glass on the tiled floor.
Website updates
I’ve made some tweaks to the styles and layout of this website. I’m thinking about the future.
The most important thing to do is
It’s Halloween. My daughter had friends around for a spooky-themed tea, and now they’ve gone out to ask for treats. The door knocking has begun.
Kardomah
When I visit my father, I always love to walk around Swansea and get an early morning coffee. We used to come as a family when I was growing up, so with my existing morning coffee and writing habit, it’s a double comfort.
Trust your enthusiasms
After fourteen years in my day job, I am finally leaving. My new role is still coding, but instead of being in Higher Education I'm going to be a consultant with a subsidiary of a global corporation. The PRIVATE SECTOR.