The Third Level

I was given a meme ‘ Your life in a day.’ I have been reading about Memetics and I decided that this meme could and would encompass just one true day in my life. What I did, what I saw but more importantly why I did it and how I saw it. What I thought and why. Just another day.

I plan to keep this space to revisit the meme from time to time as a way of providing a snapshot of life in relation to my environment.

New Beginnings

I open my eyes around 4 a.m. most days. At once I am compelled to get out of bed. I never sleep in unless I am ill. Some people find this baffling and/or annoying. I have been a borderline insomniac since a child. I don’t know why. Neither warm milk nor sleeping pills really work. There comes a point when you have to accept how you are.

I will find quiet, useful, things to do like empty the dishwasher and prepare other people’s breakfasts. As soon as it is light I will leave for my run.

Running

I am a trail runner. I run off road, in the country. I used to be an urban runner: a road runner. Mostly because it never occurred to me anything else and partly because I wanted to run early in the mornings all year round. The street lights in towns and cities made it possible.

I used to run seventy to eighty kilometers a week. It was an addiction. The resulting severe weight loss and bouts of pneumonia mean that now I can only run about 50k a week but I enjoy every step.

Running Music

Today when I ran I listened to music. I do this particularly when I do not want to think. When I just want solitary exertion, numbness. I have an i-pod shuffle. I bought it because it is light and clips easily onto my running kit. Today I listened to this by Blue Juice over and over and over again for the tempo and the noise and the numbness.

The Way Through the Woods

I run through the woods. Up hills, down hills. The trail itself can only be accessed by foot. I have been running here for years and have never seen anyone else, ever. I try not to think.

Fallen Leaves

I can’t help thinking about the leaves. It is strange because it is Spring but everywhere there are fallen leaves. There are no leaves on the trees. It is like Winter, but it is not. I think Global Warming, rising fuel prices, food prices and credit crunches. These are things I have no control over.

Blue Skies

When the run is finished I look up into the trees. For over a year now I have been obsessed with death and suicide. Other people’s, mostly.

It started with a trip to the Far East. I had to take anti Malarial treatments the side effect of which was suicidal thoughts. One day not long after getting back I was sitting in front of a computer screen when suddenly and without warning I found myself wanting to slash my wrists. Envisaging blood. Wanting to die. Lingering on black thoughts.

It was a place I had never expected to visit and was unprepared. Fortunately I could step outside myself and understand what was happening.

Then last year I was running underneath a viaduct when someone threw themselves off it. The body got caught in a tree. I am an Atheist. No, really.

Apres Run

I Would Give Up Forever

I drive a lot. I drive too fast. I find driving boring. I listen to this by The Goo Goo Dolls. It comes from the Soundtrack to City of Angels which was a tragic reworking of Wings of Desire.

I listen to this because it was sent to me by a long term lover. I had an affair with him for years and never once felt guilty or bad about it. It was about sex and well, sex really. Eventually I realized he was boring and I was using him but by then he had fallen in love so I had to hurt him. And I did. Because Some Things are more important.

Every so often, he will send me this song. No matter how many times I have listened to it I still don’t understand it. Perhaps the point is I never will.

I Just Want You To Know Who I Am

Big City Life

I am essentially urban. I like city life. Drugs, crime, violence and public transport are things I feel at home with. I like roads and shops and the noise but Some Things are at home in the country. In the country you can keep your innocence longer.

Cipher

There is Art and Beauty everywhere but sometimes I wonder if it isn’t just a cultural code that I have no cipher for.

Between The Lines There Are Spaces

In town I shop. There is a young man of twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. He is retarded: sweet like a child. He always says hello to me. He always blushes. He enriches my day. People like him are becoming rarer. Increasingly they are weeded out before they can grow. Is this evolution?

I know scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers and artists. I have met the weird and the wonderful, the famous and the rich but this young man who stacks shelves in a small, corner shop is the most unique and interesting person I know. Most people don’t even see him.

Some Things

Some Things are more important than anything. It takes time, patience and maturity to realize and understand this. I have finally arrived at this place. Perhaps I have always been here but have been rebelling against it.

At night I turn and there is the man I have chosen to give my love to. The man that I love is somewhere else, I don’t know where. It is not important.

Seeing Food

Everybody seems obsessed with food. I seem to spend endless hours shopping for it and cooking it. I eat everything meat, offal, fish, eggs, vegetables……..snails. People who are fussy about their food choices irritate me. I eat to live. Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity are all diseases of affluent societies.

Eating It

This is Endive or Chicory. It tastes bitter. I liked what I saw so took the photograph, that’s all.

Flowers

Births, deaths and marriages. I have never understood why.

Reading Matters

I read every day. I try to read books every day. A book and a Kindle will never be the same. As I have grown older I have found books have become richer, more sage, in short they have changed. For example I first read The Great Gatsby when I was seventeen. Then I thought it an amazing story of hopeless love. Twenty years later, I realize Gatsby was a psychopath and Daisy had Bipolar, probably as a result of Post Natal Depression. Maybe I am just more cynical now.

My 10 Favourite Authors In No Particular Order

1. Jane Austen
2. Tom Wolfe
3. Paul Auster
4. Salman Rushdie
5. Charles Dickens
6. John Irving
7. James Joyce
8. Earnest Hemingway
9. Cervantes
10. Vladimir Nabokov

German is Difficult to Master

German and English are both technical, scientific languages. They are full of useful words like kompressor and piston. French and Italien are Romantic languages. Water towers become water castles in French which gives a totally different vision of something industrial and mundane.

I want to believe science is a good thing, a positive in a world charged with negatives. I think about DDT and chain reactions, of stem cells and research and think about making mistakes and how some things seemed like a good idea at the time…..

Free Will

I don’t, as a rule like cats but I love this one. I buy it tins of tuna fish and talk to it. It purrs and  does my proof reading  even though it can’t spell in any useful language. It is illogical, irrational. It is genuine free will.