I’m stood on a railway platform in Hexham, Northumberland. It’s 8.30am and I’m waiting for a train to take me to Newcastle. It is the start of a journey that will eventually take me to Bury, Lancashire; passing by the outskirts of Leeds. The city where I live – the city I left yesterday to travel up here. As I stand there, my mind starts to flood with questions I already know the answer to. Why am I really making a journey others would have happily backed out of? Why am I leaving my family behind when I could be spending a day relaxing with them? What must Amy’s friends think of me for travelling all the way up here, only to disappear the very
Monthly Archive:: June 2011
How could I have know when I woke up this morning, that I would spend most of my lunch hour stood across the other side of a post office counter looking at myself? That my usual actions – those of a forgetful, last minute as always type of present buyer would bring me directly in to contact with my own moment of serendipity? As I slowly inched towards the counter, I noticed the cashier’s name badge read Chris. Nothing strange in that I thought, not even if the cashier wasn’t male. Where it took a turn for the unexpected was from the point I placed my parcel on the counter. “That’s me” the other Chris said. I followed the line of her sight to the
As I sit here listening to Daphne “Change” (great track by the way, you’ll love it – or at least I will try to encourage you to love it), it’s starting to occur to me that change is somewhat dominating our lives at the moment. We watch a cartoon called Humf, where the main character this morning proclaimed his sheer delight at the fact he could change his mind on the things he likes. Obviously the lyrics of the record I’m listening to are all about people changing their minds – I even opted for a beer from the fridge, when I had initially gone to the kitchen for a glass of wine before I started to write this. But then those examples of change
I don’t dream. Not really. At night maybe, but not with what you might call hope. Not in that genuinely enthusiastic way people with aspirations do. People who tell the world what their dream job might be, or where they hope to be living in 5, 10, 15 years time. I talk long of my love for Italy, and how I’d one day like to live out there. That of course could be viewed as a dream. But ask me what I might do whilst I’m out there and the mind kind of draws a blank. I want the location; I just have no idea how to get past the language, the skills and the determination. Dreaming just isn’t in my nature. The problem you
You find me writing from that familiar place once more. I’m sat at my desk, staring aimlessly out of the window – as the sun illuminates the weeping willow in the courtyard outside. Although I’d rather not be at work on such a glorious day, the thing with this familiar place is that it is where I tend to come up with most of my ideas to post on this blog. For this familiar place is as much about a physical location as it is a state of mind. A momentary lapse of concentration – a distracting thought whirling around inside my head – captured quickly on the PC or lost forever if I’m brought back in to the room too quickly to act. Three,