Seems that most of spring has been swept away with winter too. Plunged straight into summer. I don't mean the heat, though it has been unseasonably warm these last few days, but other elements such as the light and the echoes and the resonances of it all. The light is all pale and yellow, and the air tastes of asphalt and glass, cars and the late 1970s in RAF married quarter playgrounds. The sky, particularly when clear, seems vast and deep. An upside-down sea. I would like to distill the sky into some kind of wine.
Down on the beach -Andy and myself walked up to the Marina yesterday- there were the summer groups of BMX riders, breakdancers, musicians, families, drinkers, sunbathers and dogs. The horizon seemed to become kind of dulled. A haze beginning to obscure the distance. (I remember Brighton Beach ten years ago, the heat fog as I called it, reading H.P.Lovecraft on the beach whilst between jobs. Just turned 28. Yesterday. A lifetime ago, staring at the sea vanishing into a white void). Andy pointed out to me the amount of times I had to stop for a coffee, or a tea. Less, i think, for the drinks themselves, than for the inexplicable pleasure of stopping at the various scattered stalls to buy them.
Getting back last night. Strange being inside when it's still light outside.
An odd kind of... I don't know. Something in the air I suppose. A kind of nudging. I think it's a byproduct of turning 38. 40 seems to be a lot nearer now than it did a month ago... The passage of time. Chronos, that cruel but consistent god who catches up with us all. That nudging. Reminding me not to let these days slip by, as they do.
Slipping back though. Always easy with me. A generic memory. A collision of different years, but from that one place. Autumn of course. Autumn is a place, not only a season. How can I be nostalgic for autumn at the beginnings of summer? Not really nostalgic. Just aware of it. Walking home through pools of shadows. Rustle of discarded leaves on rainy ground. That dream-like light. Opening the door of a house. Hall-light spilling into the blue twilight, and the house deepening.
Houses in autumn have so many more different levels.
Summer now. Back to the present.
Hold on. Summer?
This is only spring. Just. Just spring.
I have a problem, it seems, with linear time...
Monday, 12 April 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
The Elephant from the Sea
Took a stroll along the Undercliff Walk with Andy on Easter Day. Busy with families and dogs. The sun over the sea. We ended up walking to Rottingdean, spent some time wondering about the beautifully serene and atmospheric churchyard there. Deciphering descriptions on gravestones (my favourite was 'and to an unknown sailor lost on the above ship' and another; 'artist, musician and troublemaker'). Something nostalgic here. Made me remember - for some unfathomable reason - something from childhood. I wanted to build a model of a country landscape, of lanes, and trees, and hills. A 3-dimensional map of a fictional country. When was this? the late 70s? Maybe. I think it was something in the trees and the brightness of the sky that made me think of Scotland. Strange. It has been twenty five years -a quarter of a century!- since I left Scotland. and I still miss it.
Walking up toward Rottingdean, I noticed something on the wall that ptoected the Undercliff Path from the high tide, the sea all wild and Ides-of-March-ish. I thought, at first that it was a paper bag, some piece of discarded rubbish. Other people looked at it too, and passed by. Odd. We drew level with it, at this thing, this object on the wall.
It was an elephant. A small wooden elephant.
Well, not that small, the size, perhaps of a... How do you measure the size of miniature elephant figurines? The size of two clenched fists perhaps? I doubt it would fir into an empty food tin... Surprisingly heavy too. Felt pleasing when I picked it up.
I looked around for any owner. No likely candidates. Should I leave it? Perhaps the owner might return? Hmm. Perhaps it might be washed into the sea. Perhaps it wanted to be found. Maybe it -somehow- got washed up from the sea. A piece of driftwood lost from a ghost ship.
Not the first time I found a random elephant. Back in 1994, stoned on some wasteground next to East Berkshire College, I was scrabbling in the mud. I loosened something. A stone I thought. Working it free.
A small elephant. A beautifully crafted thing. The size of a chess piece.
My parents still have it on their mantelpiece.
And I have an elephant from the sea sitting perched upon a pile of books.
I wonder where it came from, this elephantasm, but I know I shall have it forever.
Things that are found are so much more precious than those that have never been lost.
Walking up toward Rottingdean, I noticed something on the wall that ptoected the Undercliff Path from the high tide, the sea all wild and Ides-of-March-ish. I thought, at first that it was a paper bag, some piece of discarded rubbish. Other people looked at it too, and passed by. Odd. We drew level with it, at this thing, this object on the wall.
It was an elephant. A small wooden elephant.
Well, not that small, the size, perhaps of a... How do you measure the size of miniature elephant figurines? The size of two clenched fists perhaps? I doubt it would fir into an empty food tin... Surprisingly heavy too. Felt pleasing when I picked it up.
I looked around for any owner. No likely candidates. Should I leave it? Perhaps the owner might return? Hmm. Perhaps it might be washed into the sea. Perhaps it wanted to be found. Maybe it -somehow- got washed up from the sea. A piece of driftwood lost from a ghost ship.
Not the first time I found a random elephant. Back in 1994, stoned on some wasteground next to East Berkshire College, I was scrabbling in the mud. I loosened something. A stone I thought. Working it free.
A small elephant. A beautifully crafted thing. The size of a chess piece.
My parents still have it on their mantelpiece.
And I have an elephant from the sea sitting perched upon a pile of books.
I wonder where it came from, this elephantasm, but I know I shall have it forever.
Things that are found are so much more precious than those that have never been lost.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Someone Passing By
Weird being back at the petrol station again. Five years I spent working there. Only ended up there because I hadn't really done anything all day. Slumbered through the morning. Read. Popped to the shops mid-afternoon and bought Darkthrone's excellent new album 'Circle the Wagons'. Mackerel, noodles, peas. Porridge in the morning. Slumbered through the afternoon.
The Portugese woman next door had friends over. Loud voices, all cheery and European. Music played very loud. Only one song admittedly. Funky latin sounding music with a chorus about life being beautiful. Was glad when they turned it off and the visitors left, singing the song down the stairs.
An obvious melancholy. Damn. Should have left the house. Done something. Gone for a walk. Met someone for a coffee. Gone down the pub. Idle hours inside lead to melancholy. Should have known.
Ah well.
It passes.
Best way for it to pass quicker go for a walk. 7:00pm when I left? Getting on for twilight. Still sunny though. A cool breeze a tad uncomfortable. Headed down the beach first. Last lingering bank-holidaymakers. Watched the sun over the sea, looping toward sunset. Walked west down the promenade, then up past the swimming pool and the closed playground. Two teenagers jumping on the trampolines, somersaulting and laughing. Looked like fun.
Up Sackville Road. Streetlamps on. Up onto the Old Shoreham Road and turn right. Pass Furniture Village, and there.
Five years in the form of a petrol station.
Across the forecourt, busy on the bank holiday Monday night. See Mike working. Still there.
Weird being back at the petrol station again.
Nothing changes here, not really. Mike, now twenty nine, the same age that I was when I began working there, all those years ago. Talk about old customers and old times. Look out of the window at the houses across the road, at the park in the distance.
Nothing changes here.
'You remember that guy from Hertz that used to come in?'
'Which one?'
'Guy with the pony tail?'
'Reg? -No Kai!'
I did remember him. He was a driver for the aforementioned Hertz, a company who had an account with the petrol station. He was in most days. A graying pony tail. In his fifties, but still looked young. Was some kind of musician, but wouldn't say what kind. Lively and strangely shy. Sometimes wore a leather jacket.
Always smiling.
Kind of thing you say about someone who had-
That strange falling feeling you get in your stomach.
Knew what was coming.
He had died, of course. Cancer. Came on quick. Knew something was wrong but didn't want to worry about it. Or was worrying about it. You know how it is. Men and , Doctors. Christmas it was. Didn't know him well enough to be sad about it, but still.
Looked outside the window at the cars passing, and the vans, and the people walking across the forecourt. Nothing changes here. Laughing with Mike about the time we thought the petrol station was haunted, about the time the assistant manager had absconded with £6000, about the exploits of the infamours 'Ginger Gang', most of whom had ended up in prison.
Good catching up.
Walked back through the night to the bedsit, took my old route down the Old Shoreham Road. Summery-smelling night, all hopeful and nostalgic at the same time.
Funny. I can still remember his voice.
I'll never find out what kind of musician he was now.
The Portugese woman next door had friends over. Loud voices, all cheery and European. Music played very loud. Only one song admittedly. Funky latin sounding music with a chorus about life being beautiful. Was glad when they turned it off and the visitors left, singing the song down the stairs.
An obvious melancholy. Damn. Should have left the house. Done something. Gone for a walk. Met someone for a coffee. Gone down the pub. Idle hours inside lead to melancholy. Should have known.
Ah well.
It passes.
Best way for it to pass quicker go for a walk. 7:00pm when I left? Getting on for twilight. Still sunny though. A cool breeze a tad uncomfortable. Headed down the beach first. Last lingering bank-holidaymakers. Watched the sun over the sea, looping toward sunset. Walked west down the promenade, then up past the swimming pool and the closed playground. Two teenagers jumping on the trampolines, somersaulting and laughing. Looked like fun.
Up Sackville Road. Streetlamps on. Up onto the Old Shoreham Road and turn right. Pass Furniture Village, and there.
Five years in the form of a petrol station.
Across the forecourt, busy on the bank holiday Monday night. See Mike working. Still there.
Weird being back at the petrol station again.
Nothing changes here, not really. Mike, now twenty nine, the same age that I was when I began working there, all those years ago. Talk about old customers and old times. Look out of the window at the houses across the road, at the park in the distance.
Nothing changes here.
'You remember that guy from Hertz that used to come in?'
'Which one?'
'Guy with the pony tail?'
'Reg? -No Kai!'
I did remember him. He was a driver for the aforementioned Hertz, a company who had an account with the petrol station. He was in most days. A graying pony tail. In his fifties, but still looked young. Was some kind of musician, but wouldn't say what kind. Lively and strangely shy. Sometimes wore a leather jacket.
Always smiling.
Kind of thing you say about someone who had-
That strange falling feeling you get in your stomach.
Knew what was coming.
He had died, of course. Cancer. Came on quick. Knew something was wrong but didn't want to worry about it. Or was worrying about it. You know how it is. Men and , Doctors. Christmas it was. Didn't know him well enough to be sad about it, but still.
Looked outside the window at the cars passing, and the vans, and the people walking across the forecourt. Nothing changes here. Laughing with Mike about the time we thought the petrol station was haunted, about the time the assistant manager had absconded with £6000, about the exploits of the infamours 'Ginger Gang', most of whom had ended up in prison.
Good catching up.
Walked back through the night to the bedsit, took my old route down the Old Shoreham Road. Summery-smelling night, all hopeful and nostalgic at the same time.
Funny. I can still remember his voice.
I'll never find out what kind of musician he was now.
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