It’s sunny, I feel happy today. The sun makes a difference. Over the rooftops on the Brighton main line. Getting out might be good for my general mood. We passed a derailment at Clapham, that was interesting.
I keep going over these same thoughts, living somewhere else, doing something else, being something else, being renewed, reinvented, but I’m unable to make even the first steps towards making tangible changes. Thinking, planning, researching changes should be a positive experience, enabling, optimising. At the moment, though, without knowing when the present state will ease, every episode of thought seems to push all the aspiration further into the future, to a nebulous time perennially out of reach. Do I mean perennially? Perpetually. That’s better. I’ll leave both words present though. Annoyingly, morally wrong perhaps, certainly distasteful to my radical Marxist leanings, but it seems at present that money, or financial stability, is the catalyst to mobility and aspiration. I’m financially stilted at the moment, physically trapped in a concrete tower. What will happen to me now? Terrifyingly, the concrete seems to actually contain coldness, the outer walls feel as cold as a fridge.
I’m becoming more withdrawn, I can see the signs. I don’t communicate, enthusiasm starts then wanes, I avoid contact where I can. I’ve opted into a few online things lately but then don’t do them, sometimes I just forget, sometimes I actively decide to withdraw. I’ve tried several times, but they’re not for me, I find them unnatural, they heighten the sense of isolation. The early excitement in March of seeing deserted places, redundant infrastructure, anticipated stimulation by the slow onset of decay, has given way to an emotional numbness, I can’t comprehend or process what I see around me. Perhaps my mind is becoming full from too much constant internet, too much to take in, too much living through a screen. An expectation that I’m supposed to be a part of it, engage, respond, so I do, but feel I’m not in control of myself. The pain in my hands is still there too. Perhaps the damage is permanent.
Later. Fading winter sky. Rusting remnants of the promenade. The old electric railway rusting as well. That pale turqoise paint is a quintessential identifier of the town, the seafront, the promenade. It’s there in at least two Carry On films.
Where are people now? Cambridge, Walthamstow, Stockholm, London, Bournemouth, Weymouth, Ipswich, St Leonards, Appleby. Where am I? Why does place matter so much to me? It defines me. It should give me a sense of belonging. I’m in a place I have no affinity with, a place that is actually making me physically and mentally ill, a place that is rejecting me, destroying me, destroying itself too.
Wednesday.
It’s a worry really, this heading away to places every few days, only to return. Running away. Years ago, whilst in a disturbed state, I drove to Scotland overnight, I didn’t know why, I was running away from something. Unthinking, I got in the car. I don’t have a car any more. I was probably a danger to myself then. I had to return. I changed the clock on the car display so I didn’t know what time it was, and therefore had no connection to the happenings I was avoiding back at home. I don’t think I ever changed it back. The M6 is peaceful in the early hours.
The light is odd this morning. A horizontal band of dark cloud. Sun out but not penetrating. Light entering the flat from unusual angles. Diffused.
Thursday.
Odd dreams. Driving a Volvo 240 saloon car through Siddal with a body in the boot, not sure where to dump one or the other, or both. I woke up and had to convince myself it wasn’t real. I haven’t had that blurring of boundaries for a long time.
Back at the shop. Nice people. I think one afternoon is enough. It still exhausts me mentally. I’ve handled the difficulties there well in the end. I still think about talking to someone about the bad experiences though. Whistle blowing.
There’s been an explosion at a water treatment plant in Bristol, a strange thing to explode. I think it’s one that uses anaerobic digestion, as does Crossness treatment works near here. This is a process whereby live bacteria consume the sludge from sewage, reducing it in volume, and producing methane in the process, which can be burned for energy. There still seems to be some dark matter pumped out into the river though. In very cold weather it produces steam too.
A seven hundred year old church in Derbyshire has burned down, possibly arson. It had beautiful stained glass windows. People are numb to catastrophes like these, they seem to be weekly. We’re numbed by the impending national doom, a people condemned by its elected leaders.
Friday.
Another empty day, stagnant. The ants are getting more active. The sky was red earlier. There’s a bird ‘flu epidemic now. All chickens have to stay inside, but their eggs are safe, so we won’t starve.
Saturday.
The floor is vibrating again. I’ll never find out why. Sunny outside. Condensation and mould on the windows, ants flying around.
I went to Peckham and saw Peter at his little bookstall. He gave me a flyer, talked to me as if he knows me well. The Railway Children is on television this afternoon. It may as well be Christmas for two months now. We’re all shellshocked and deranged enough.
Young people gathered in crowds around Harrods yesterday. No one seems to know why, but four of them were arrested. Youthful high spirits, or mass hysteria? The world seems unstable, at a level beyond political, health and climate spheres. An instability of the psyche.
Andrew Stevenson 