last week

 There is an empty wine bottle on the kitchen top, and there are cat treats in the bathroom. Why are they in the bathroom? It begins to come back to me. The stray cat reappeared, and I ran inside to get food for him. When I came back inside after feeding him, I went immediately to the loo, and put the treats down next to the sink. The wine… why is the wine finished? I was watching The Railway Man, and it was deeply disturbing, causing me to pour the contents of the bottle a little more vigorously than I ordinarily would. After the film, I slept but awoke at 2am and have been awake ever since. It is now 6am and I am chatting to a friend in France and a friend in Nepal.

Over the next few days, the spiral grew, and my sleep diminished. Today as I awake, I promise myself to be better. This Friday I fly to California for a few days away, and I am looking forward to sitting on the beach with a book, meeting new people, seeing new things, and exploring the streets. There are times that I long for more, and then want to slap myself in the face for not simply being satisfied with what I have. I am satisfied… but it all seems to balance precariously on a knife edge. We’re all engaged in this epic human struggle in which so many of us want to help each other and be kind and good… and so many just want to rise to the top no matter what the cost is to others. I live a privileged life, I am grateful for that, but there is always someone trying to pull the rug from under one’s feet. And, of course, there is nature… which is more powerful than all. I never wanted children, I never wanted marriage, I never wanted a house, I loved all things unconventional from music to art to literature to people and their choices to my own identity and values and interests and beliefs.

Alas, life is a constant contradiction and paradox. I once wrote a book called ‘THE WAR WITHIN’ and, in this, I tried to describe the conflict that I feel inside between the clean, law abiding, positive and hopeful citizen… and the nihilistic, unconventional, and chaotic rebel who strives to challenge boundaries and question authority. Years after the book, I found myself waking across a stage in Exeter, England, at the graduation ceremony for my master’s degree. A few days later, I was on the stage in Madrid, Spain, singing for my punk rock band, THE HANDICAPS. This is the paradoxical war within.




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