On Friends, Depression and Futility

I am writing this as a particularly awful episode of depression is petering out. Slowly. My guts are still in a knot, my limbs like lead, I have lost a kilo in less than two days, but my mind at least isn’t in as much of a fog of agony and despair anymore. For now. I can't promise this won't be confusing and contradictory and downright messy and insane because my mind isn't working very well at the moment.

I’m really only feeling safe on here, partly because I am less likely to be heard, partly because probably the people who read it are only people who care. But I could be wrong even about that. That’s a fun fact about depression. It makes you question the most fundamental securities of yourself. Which I have never had much to speak of, anyways.

It’s not that these securities return. It’s just when the depression recedes – more a dirty oil slick than a wave of water, viscously retreating, rather leaving traces, than washing off clean – these insecurities are less painful, less prominent. I am a little bit more able to fool myself convincingly, I am a tad more able to live with the uncertainty, or ignore it. Pretend I’m fine to not scare or bore people off with my tedious mood swings. They come out of the blue; I can be fine one minute, and the next minute I’m on the floor, screaming, because someone has torn the shades off my eyes and I finally see things as they are.

And I can see how frustrating it must be for others to constantly have to reassure me, to not get through to me, to have to deal with the same shit over and over again.  I’m not the only one in my circle of friends with depression; I know what it’s like to feel helpless and paralysed because all you want is to give them advice, a tool, something to make those feelings go away, but nothing seems to work, there is nothing you can do to fix it. You can’t grasp why they feel a certain way, why they have those awful thoughts about themselves, because you love them and all you see is a wonderful human being... surely it should be obvious to them, too? It is unbearable to watch them suffer, and you feel angry at yourself for being unable to help and, foolishly, angry at them for giving you such a futile task. And then guilty for feeling angry. But that still doesn’t mean you don’t want to help them;  that still doesn’t mean you wish they hadn’t asked you for help.

And knowing about what it's like from the carer's perspective, I should know better when I’m down. But once I am there, I don’t feel like I’m lovable enough to be worth the trouble.

It is odd; somehow you’re not equipped for the job when you know nothing about depression, but when you do, when you suffer from it, which enables you to empathise, you’re weak and prone to get dragged into it, like two drowning people trying to save each other.

Last night it was almost too much. After crying for hours, my mind went cold, somehow, calm and sober (hah) and I went through my options. I considered for a moment to hand myself in, get myself “sectioned”, as they say. But the long term implications of that were too terrifying. What it would mean for my future, my ability to take care of myself even after I was “released”. My employability. Going “inside” would take away the last bits of life that I still enjoyed. Going in would mean losing my liberty, my rights to decide for myself. Is there anything worse? Even at my worst the only comfort I have is that I have the liberty to decide what’s best for myself, despite what the law says. How much liberty do you have strapped to a hospital bed? How much worse is it to still feel the same way, but unable to do anything about it, and even if it is just that final step?

A couple of years ago, when work stress brought me to the brink of a breakdown, I went to see my GP for help. I tried to describe to her what I felt, but I had phrased it badly; instead of saying that I have powerful intrusive thoughts of wanting to kill myself, thoughts that felt like entities that were covering my “true” mind like a blanket, suffocating, arresting, but still controllable and separate from me, I called them “voices”. I didn’t mean audible hallucinations, but boy, did my doc perk up. “You hear voices?” she asked, worried, and I quickly corrected that. Bless her, she was lovely and supportive, but in the end, she is a doctor with duties. And she told me that if she thought I was a danger to myself, she’d have to report it. I still feel a hot surge of adrenaline, of true terror, just remembering this.

So I ditched the idea of getting myself sectioned pretty quickly.

Instead,  I made plans to end it. I tried to figure out where the best spot would be to hang myself effectively from without suffocating slowly. When you’re in a particularly deep pocket of depression, you almost think about suicide methods as a sort of reward – which one would “feel” best, if that makes sense. I don’t know where it comes from, whether it stems from self-loathing, and wanting to inflict pain upon oneself. It’s not that I would want the most painful one. It’s not “want”, like you’d choose a peach off a supermarket shelf. It’s an urge. An ache. I ached for the most...forceful, final one. The one you would do the same way you’d angrily kick a wall, to tell whoever to fuck off. As if death itself isn’t forceful and final enough, the method needs to release the anger, too. Or be an extra kick in the face of the person you hate so much - you. So it’s always been hanging or guns to me (availability not considered). But then you need to balance it against which one would leave the smallest “aftermath”.

I wondered, after reading books about crime scene cleaning, what would be the cleanest and most effective way, least troublesome for T. to  clean up, or whether I should do it in the house or go off somewhere else. You know, if you sit in the bath and slit your wrists, it all sort of just drains away. Easy. I’d have to pack up my shit first, though.

And then I thought about how T. would have to tell my Dad. And how he would have to find a German speaker to write that email for him, or make that phone call.

And this is where it normally stops, my not wanting to put Dad through it. But this time I was cold, and I wanted to be scared about that, but the only thing that scared me was that I wasn't. Is that a sentence? Does that make sense?

And I would feel bad now, but I am still not in my right mind to truly regret it.

Last night I just wanted the slightest sign that somehow I was still loved enough to stick around. I know that sounds pathetic and like a massive pity party. But the thing with depression is that, once in its grip, you cannot feel or absorb love. You cannot imagine why anyone would love you; even if they do, it’s not real to you. Other people almost become an illusion. It’s not meant to demean them, it’s just how it is. And yet you need them to kick you awake, to become louder and more real than that hurricane of gloom in your head. When you’re overcome by that dark wave, your knowledge, your memories, your emotional assertiveness have as much weight and substance as spiderwebs. It takes NOTHING to shred them. This is why people keep crying for help even though they “should know better”, even though they have been reassured a million times before.

Which is why I feel so bad when I finally come out of it and see what I did to others. When they grow back into solid beings, and I see myself as a fool to not have taken or appreciated their affection, or ever even doubted it.

When the wave hits, my first instinct is to go on social media and cry for help. Because my friends are there. The problem is, everyone else is, too. And something like this will inevitably come across as attention-seeking. And then I am disgusted with myself for even thinking of going there. 

Of course you may argue, I could just call a friend. And I know many have offered. But again, as soon as I do that, isolate one particular person, I am giving them a burden they may not want, or it might be a bad time for it, but it’s not exactly something they can or would want to ignore. It’s like I am obliging them... and I am terrified they will resent me for it. Or become distant. Or leave. But I hate being like that. I HATE being needy. I know how it drives people away, frustrates, annoys, and it’s that hate that fuels the depression and self-loathing even more.

Putting it on here feels like I’m putting it out there without “recruiting” someone to help me. It’s all on a voluntary basis. People can pretend they have never seen it. And that's ok. And even if they've seen it, they can stay anonymous. I don't want anyone to feel obliged to help or love me. I'd rather have nothing; it would be an insult.

Then there is the other problem of “crying wolf”.

Now here’s another home truth about depression. No matter how often you cry out, and feel better the next morning, it is never is “crying wolf”. Depression isn’t a solid state of existence, it comes in waves. And coming out of each wave without having drowned is just another time you have survived. And just because it passes doesn’t mean it feels less acute the next time around. And each time it happens, it feels all over again like it will never end. It does because it feels like you have seen things as they really are. And no matter whether you manage to get a grip on the despair, that reality won’t change, so it makes no difference. What creates the agony is not the emotion itself, it’s that you’re convinced you see unalterable reality, something outside yourself you can’t change, no matter how you feel about it. Depression ceases to be a feeling, rather, it becomes a reality. I may feel better the next day, but I know that’s just because I managed to delude myself. And when I'm truly better, I forget that I delude myself. Which is nice. I don't mind that.

Yes, I may come out the other end. And whether I delude myself into happiness or non-depressiveness, I’d rather have the illusion of happiness, and I hang on to it as long as I can. But every time I come out the other end ALONE, the less I will be armed the next time around.

Another thing with depression is that, even though you might become more and more familiar with its pattern and should theoretically be “armed and ready”,  it wears down your resistance at the same rate. It’s like rust that weakens your mental structure and stability.

There is something about crying out when you’re in the deepest pit. The closest I can come to that is that film, The Ring, when they think they have broken the curse, only to realise that it will continue. Because all that girl wants is to be heard. She doesn’t want to inflict pain. She just wants to be understood. She wants to be FULLY understood. Because in utter joy and utter agony, you’re totally alone, and it’s that what’s so terrifying about it.

 And writing this, I come to a realisation. That’s what I wanted. That’s why I write this. That’s why I cry out even though I know it is pointless, I can never communicate what’s going on inside me fully, until someone understands how I feel, but again, that’s exactly what I DON'T want.

When I’m down in the hole, I just want to be taken seriously. I am not a drama queen, or an attention seeker, or a wuss, or having a self-pity party. I don’t CHOOSE to go down there. I don’t LIKE being this way. I’m in genuine pain that I cannot relieve myself.

Maybe this urge is just an echo of the time when I was told over and over again to just pull myself together, when being upset or distressed in the face of violence and abuse I was told to not be a drama queen. When being crippled with depression, I was just considered a Zicke. When being terrified of going back to school because of the amount of bullying I got from students and teachers, I was just told to not make a big deal of it. Like it was my fault to be upset. It’s my default reaction now, to worry that I will be brushed off and not considered worth the time and help. Intellectually I know I am... but the rest of me doesn't.

Of course I want to stop reacting this way. But I don’t know how. It's like trying to stop your hand from flinching from a hot surface.

I can only ask, forgive me for sometimes being needy or difficult.
Yet it makes me angry because I shouldn't have to apologise for that.

I have no final sentence, or clean paragraph, to tie the loose ends of this post. I'm just throwing it out there. Dealing with depression is an open-ended battle, with no answers, with eternal repetition of the same shit, that it seems futile for all involved. Anyone know any answers, I'm all ears.

Simon: "I had a dream about nuclear apocalypse. It was animated!"

Me: "You haven't even seen Barefoot Gen yet."

Simon: "I know!"

Me: "My work here is done!"

Simon: "I was all running around in those burnt circles where the bomb had dropped."

Me: "There'd be more than just a burnt circle. Or less. Depends on how you look at it."

Simon: "And it was all grey."

Me: "Like an East German tower block."

Simon: "Or a Kraftwerk album."

I get up and make us coffee. In the background I hear Noel Coward starting to sing "Don't let's be beastly to the Germans" from Simon's laptop. 

Typical morning at the Jays then. 

On the destruction of the geriatric metanarrative

I always had an inkling I would be a crazy cat lady. Dad predicted from an early age (mine, not his) that I would resemble my grandmother, something which I fought vehemently and yet find more and more applicable with the passing years. Nan stopped at every animal she encountered during her walks around town, making cute noises, and she always had some treats in her pockets for them. It was a source of embarrassment for me when I was young and foolish, but now I am just like that (well, I haven’t arrived at the treats yet, but I am sure I will get there eventually). It’s got to the point that some of my friends point and laugh whenever we watch that Black Books episode when Fran is labelled as “aunt Millicent, who lives in the crooked house with 20 purple cats, and she has sex with them all”.

I defiantly started collecting cows, but the truth is, I bloody adore cats. I don’t mind dogs but cannot abide the sucking up and emotional dependence. Cats are criticised to be fickle and “fuck you” , that they own their masters, but that’s what I like about them. They get what they want and then they go their own way. I wish I was more like that.

Anyways, the splendid year I lived with Kate, I also lived with two cats – a treat in the pet-unfriendly renting market of the UK. Dolby and Theta are old and wonky, but amazing, both in their own ways. They have mannerisms and personalities and cracked me up many a time... especially Theta, the old blind man with a penchant for getting spanked , sitting in impossible spots, nosing and nudging his way under duvets where he would sit purring like a 1920s car motor, and sporting splendid Batman ears and ballet feet. We always imagined him as a bowler-behatted English gentleman who has a sex dungeon and wears fishnets and gimp masks on Saturday nights.

Sometimes I just sit and observe them. And this is what happened one sunny summer afternoon in the garden, something so defining and Theta-esque, I had to write it down.

Theta blindly shuffled around the flowers that grew by the garden path, nosed them, investigated closely, while I watched, with the usual affection and amusement for his wonky antics. He looked like something out of an old ladies’ fantasy, flower-sniffing kittens and the like, the type you see reproduced on cheesy G&Ts greeting cards and who are only ever cute in real life.

Finally he gingerly, ever so carefully, set a paw in the midst of the feathery bush of blossoms that grew by the path, then the other, then finally the last two, blinking, until he stuck out of that floral lump like a feline, short-sighted garden gnome, pretty as a picture. He looked like he was trying to play the trump card in his and Dolby’s never-ceasing battle for my affections. And it nearly worked.

“Awwww Theta, you darling...” I managed to say - but then he lowered his behind ever so slightly and stuck out his tail. And when his ears pulled back into Batman formation and he squinted concentrated into the dusky distance, I knew what was coming. Shattering my granny fantasies, he unceremoniously dropped a huge dump into the virginal blossom crown. I could almost hear them scream like prissy maidens.

With little regard for this violation, he hopped back onto the garden path, blindly located the epicentre of his business and then, in a vain effort which was barely more than a symbolic gesture, he ruffled the flowers around it a little to cover up the deed and then scampered off.

I love that cat. Have I mentioned that?

Summer the first

Tonight, I’m sleeping with the window open, because it’s been stifling hot all day, hot enough to remind me of my Texan days, where the heat could lull you into an exhausted doze in no time – except here we do not have the reprieve of air conditioning. When it’s hot, you can’t get away.
But we’ve complained about the cold for so long that we have long lost the right to whinge about heat until at least August.

The air now is a silky balm, pleasantly cool without being chilly, billowing mildly in the dusk, just that temperature where your skin can’t sense it anymore as a contrast to itself and you almost feel suspended because suddenly, the atmosphere seems gone and time stopped. The sky is a royal blue dome edged with turquoise where it blends into the silhouetted tree line, and speckled with the first pinprick stars. Orange street lights glow in the evening blue like grand still fireflies. It’s a night glorious enough to sleep out in the open.

Back in Cowtown, that’s just what we girls did. We dragged our old mattresses from our beds out onto the balcony of the decrepit house we shared on the edge of the village, a balcony large and deep enough to hold five mattresses lined up next to each other. In the midst of this harem-esque bedstead we sat, giggling like school girls, drinking pina colada mixer that went warm too quickly, and cheap wine, and told each other stories from the life before. And later, we slept, the country air as nourishing as soup, enough to make us full and saturated when we woke. Sometimes it was almost too much for me, being used to stale, thin indoors air, the night air would give me intense dreams which made me feel exhausted the next morning. Birds in the massive cherry tree next to our house would wake us at 5am, crying and screeching at the sunrise.

My life has always taken strange turns, and my timing always seemed off. I was three years late finishing high school, but played mother at 19, and in my mid-twenties I finally came as close to that girly sleepover I never had when I was a teenager. Maybe that is why I feel life so intense, overwhelming joy when good stuff happened, but crushing grief when things go wrong – my life never happened to me when and how I anticipated it, but all elements seem to show themselves at other, unexpected points in time, making things feel just “more”, because they are out of joint.
For someone who craves security as much as I do, and as much as it torments and confuses me at times, I almost enjoy that kind of unpredictability. As long as I know I can hope for something good.

When you're de moon...

Hug that tree, bitch!

I dunno what's going on, but I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And I just feel the overwhelming urge to tell all my friends I love them.
I really really do.
My friends are fucking awesome.
I don't want to make a list because I would feel guilty for everyone I am leaving out by accident, and I don't want people feel bad to be inevitably lower on the list than others.

So basically, you know who you are.

*grabs every single one, puts them in a headlock and knuckle-rubs their hair*

I totally and utterly love you guys.


That is all.

Open the floodgates for wisdom

My friend Marcus is not just a poetic genius, but also one of the most enlightened people I know. People like Marcus remind you that your life has purpose, and gives you a flood of hope for the fuckin species we are. Here is some mindblowing and beautiful poetry he wrote.
Marcus gets my YOU FUCKIN ROCK badge of honour.

It is for the sake of those without hope

That hope is given to us

There is no new messiah

It's a big fraud

To leave us waiting

For the ultimate parental figure

We lay here waiting

For direction

In the hope He will tell us what to do

There is no messiah

He's not coming

It's down to you

We have all we need

There is enough

The Muslims say Muhammad was the last prophet

I concur

Now it is us

We are all prophets

So whilst we lay in wait

Our egos take control

In the century of the self

You are the next messiah

All of you

Seek and ye find

Seek what is for the good of us all

- Common unity

Each one of us is here on a mission

To find our life role

Our true meaning

Our true goal

So find it – do your research

How will you better our soul?

I say again:

There is no new messiah

It's a story

We lay in waiting

Waiting for the father

We lay here waiting

We want direction

We hope for direction

There is no new messiah

He is not coming

It's down to you

We have all we need

There is enough

The last prophet ahs come and gone

Let us unite and refine

let us unite and define

let us unite in time

We lay in waiting

Our egos take control

The century of the self

You are the messiah

All of us

Seek and ye find

Identify wholesome actions

For the good of us all

Dismiss unwholesome actions

For the good of us all

Find common unity

Celebrate life

Find common unity

Find your mission

Find your life

Find your meaning

Find your path

Celebrate life

Reflect

Find the goal

Common unity

End to war

End to control

End to death and destruction

End to greed

End to infliction

End to ignorance

End to selfishness

Find your piece to the jigsaw

For us all

Come again???

The other night Mike and I were bored. Abi was on late shift, and Stella was out at her mom's, so we decided to watch a movie together. Mike said: "Let's watch something scary. What's the scariest movie you got?"
So I picked out "Threads".
And you know what happened?

Mike fucking fell asleep.

I just don't get it.

By the way, for your viewing pleasure, "Threads" is available to watch on google video. I'm not sure how legal this is, but do give it a shot. I dare you.
And if you fall asleep, I'll call you a poopiehead. Don't make me.

Growing up too fast

I'm in awe. I just spent about half an hour googling for people I used to know, just hoping a website would pop up somewhere and update me. (It's weird. Mike and Mark and me chatted the other night about the point of Facebook and high school reunions... it's not necessarily that you want to get back in touch with old school mates, you just want to see what they are up to now... hoping that the bastards that used to make your life hell are now on useless scums on welfare, with fat ugly wives and snotfaced brats for children, and the bitches that used to drag you down are hopefully fat and used up and have abusive husbands wearing dirty string vests.)

Back to the point. I entered the names of the triplets I used to take care of back in 96/97 into google, and while nothing ever used to come up in the past years, I struck gold this time. I found a middle school online paper, and it had their names AND PICTURES in it.
My babies have grown up to be drop dead gorgeous teens. Caitlin will be a classy queen, and the boys... holy shit. You can see they will be extremely hot one day (when they are old enough to be called that!)
I am so chuffed!!! Check them cuties out!!!

Texts on a Friday evening

or A slice of British culture

- How are u? It’s poo to get drunk all by yourself. Patty x-

- You do your duty like the rest of us!! Ads X -

Shelbourne Summer Afternoon

for Jamie

When scouring the grass
in the garden of genius boy
spoons can be found
he uses
to fix his bike

spoons to abuse zebra spiders
with, make them flip
over a hot cup of tea
yet object to insect torture
by means of magnifiers

while,
a lying promise,
a pre-summer breeze
makes the grass shudder
and skin crawl


bloglag: since June 17

Congratulations!!

Pathetically late in most (well, all) cases, but it shan't be ignored anyway.

Congratulations to the BACOMMERS who have just graduated. Especially to Iain Rowley, who got 80% for his creative dissertation (a poetry collection) - a beast to achieve, as Malcolm is difficult to please when it comes to that. And an extra congrats for achieving a first class degree.
I (and from various recent chats, Helen C. and Roman G.) had never any doubts that you would, genius boy!
Congrats to Jim, whose results I don't know but who managed to whip out a difficult dissertation and doing so well in it that it has been recommended for publication.
Congrats to all the rest of you who, as I could witness in the past year, made the best and most of their university years. I'm proud of you all.

And not to forget, even though it's been ages, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jamie. I will throw you a party, and if it's the last thing I am doing. Wild horses and irate Germans couldn't stop me.
You are ze Aw3s0m3! :) xxx

Time

“We don’t waste time. We keep it, whether we drive directly East or just a bit North first. Did you forget everything? Up here it is not important how quickly you get there. If you take a detour, your life is still happening. No time is lost... Maybe that was the biggest problem the Quallunaaq brought us – time. We had to learn that there is something like wasted time. The Quallunaaq believe that waiting means wasting time and therefore wasting life.”

– Akesuk in “The Swarm” by Frank Schätzing

Maybe Western concepts are not what they are cracked up to be. I see time as my biggest enemy, when it actually isn’t.

Needless to say, this is the desperate talk of a nearly 30-year-old.

A Shelbournian afternoon

We're in the garden of the Shelbourne boys, languishing on scratched lawn furniture spray-painted with the Phonetics' logo, a tiger head. My favourite boys, Jamie and Geoff, and me.
"I'm cold", Geoff says.
"How can you be cold?", I ask. It's sunny and warm... well, warmish. He shrugs and looks down on himself. "Well, I am just wearing a dressing gown!"
"It's warmer than my clothes!", I reply. "And I am not cold."
"Well, I am not swapping clothes with you to find out", he fires back, in a bantery way, and Jamie, who's been watching us, giggles.
It gets quiet. We sit there with our cups of tea and absorb the peace of the garden, made complacent by a Sunday afternoon. Then Geoff looks over to Jamie, who is still smiling to himself.
"You're thinking about it!", Geoff accuses, and Jamie's grin, caught in the act, turns into giggles again. He turns his head away, but can't stop grinning.
A minute later, Geoff looks at him again, only to catch that the expression in Jamie's face hasn't changed. "You're still thinking about it!", he complains. "Stop it!"
Jamie breaks out in giggles again. He tries to force himself to stop, but his efforts are in vain. That he still pictures Geoff in my clothes and finds it hilarious is practically tattooed on his forehead, and the more Geoff complains, the more he has to laugh.

It hasn't got a plot, and to most it may mean nothing, but for me it is such an intense moment of good-natured bantering and togetherness, it makes my heart laugh. This is one of the things I will remember for the rest of my life, and store away in my mental scrap book, because it reminds me why I love being alive.

Quote of the day

"There is nothing genius about a chicken taking a poo, even if it is blasé about it."



(Jamie, commenting on my excited outburst about them chickens running around in the Monkeyworld café. I tried to coax one over, and it just gave me a "fuck off" look over the shoulder before it dropped a shit for emphasis. Much to Jamie's consternation, it made me squeal with delight.)

Of friends’ houses, rain and Hesse

This last week has been really nice. I have seen more of my friends who were, up until now, crazy busy with exams and projects. Pat’s moved into a house down the road, adding another friendly soul to my wicked street. I went for a few drinks with Iain, who’s got the most brilliant mind and is amazing to talk to because he is so genuine and pensive. And I went to Jamie’s place quite a few times and hung out with him and Geoff and Jim... gawd, I love those three guys: they are creative geniuses, so friendly and laid back, funny as fuck and spontaneous. There is something about their house, their community and company that equally boggles my mind, my perception, makes me happy and makes me creative. They are three of those kinda people you can’t help but like, they are equally eccentric and lovable.

Saturday night I totally beat Jamie and Jim in Scrabble, god bless “bairns”. And on Wednesday night we watched this awfully dark German film called “Funny Games” which helped us establish a ground rule about drinking/smoking weed: If you are drunk/stoned, everyone else will seem drunk and stoned to you. And we drank quite a lot, so that made that film a proper mindfuck – fun nonetheless. I’ve almost become a lodger there, crashing in a spare room each time because it was too late to get back home.

So it happened that I was there on Sunday morning. I must have woken up quite early, but I had no sense of time. It was perfectly quiet, and the rain washed down the windows in waves and creeks, with a monotonous drum that was both creating a feeling of cosiness and making me drowsy.
There is something incredibly calming and peaceful, a moment of perfect happiness, when sitting on an early Sunday morning, watching the thick mournful wafts of rain clouds drift across a wet sky while drinking the warm, cosy comfort of a hot cup of tea and soaking up the moment. It was a moment where I felt perfectly at home – contemplate this feeling, when does one ever feel like the way one felt as a child, when does one ever feel that one belongs somewhere, and if not in this particular place, then at least in this particular moment, where everything just fits and is as it should be. I live for moments like that. More so, this is what keeps me alive. I have rarely felt that way, felt it so intense, so there, in the past years... hell, thinking about it, my whole life.

Moments like that I had only at Peter’s in Berlin, my mentor and surrogate family when everything else was going to the pits. It’s moments like that I seek, everywhere, so everywhere will be my home, so I don’t have to feel scared, lost. If it is even to sit at a train station’s platform on a sunny spot and connecting to the concrete below me and find the slightest ounce of beauty in it, so it would feel welcoming, so I could even embrace being in a place that is absolutely hideous. Or trying to connect to the drunks in the Oscar Wilde, having a laugh with that guy who would always ramble mindfuck in a Shakespearan English, stuff so crazy I would never be able to remember it. Being able to embrace the milieu you dread will make you feel fearless. Having a strong dream of getting away was what made me feel home most of the time, the hope I would not be wherever I was one day. And at the same time embracing and loving what I feared most, so I wouldn’t have to fear it.

And then I thought, England was one of the places where I wanted to be, because something there, for some reason, felt home to me, and at that moment I experienced it the strongest – the realisation that now I was actually here, where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be, how I wanted to be. Just with a warm cup of tea, watching rain clouds in a zen-like moment, feeling home, feeling nothing but affection at the thought of my friends still asleep in their beds or out and about somewhere, who made this place home for me, unwittingly or not.

Sadly, I am too impatient, too annoyed by idleness, to sit and watch clouds forever. So I picked up that book Jamie was reading, just planning to browse a little through it to kill time, and then, soon, get a taxi home.
But then the rain got torrential, and while I use that as an excuse for my prolonged stay, it wasn’t why I was still there hours later. I was hooked.
Working in a bookshop has the advantage of having permanent access to books, and perhaps even as a requirement, know them. At least a little. And I have read truckloads of books in the past months, or at least leafed through them, and some of them are better than others, but none of them got me hooked. Most of them – easily about 90% of the fiction section – is mass-produced, flat drivel with two-dimensional forgettable character in exchangeable, unoriginal situations. In fact, most books seem to come from the same blue print. Read one book of chick lit, you have read them all. Read the Da Vinci Code, which is godawful writing, if you ask me, and you have basically read all the books coming in its wake. The Lucifer Code. The Magdalene Legacy. The Traveller. It is abominable. Most of these books lack the literary cousin of nutritional value, they are like flat, tasteless rice cakes next to a Thanksgiving Dinner; you close the book and forget it immediately; nothing in it struck a chord, sang in tune with you, changed you, awoke you. Maybe that is what makes a good book: if it manages to touch something in you that awakens you to yourself. If it manages to speak out something that has always been in there in you, somewhere, as an unshaped thought, too vague to recognise and hence benefit and grow from it. It is only a precious few books that manage to find the seed of YOU in you and plant it.

And I had just found one. I wasn’t reading it, I was absorbing it, soaking it up like a sponge. Why have I never read Hesse before?? I always planned on it, but never did. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it, maybe I didn’t see the messiah when he stared into my face. He is one of the few that know my mind better than myself and helps me excavate it, wake me up to myself: Irving, C.S. Lewis, Douglas Coupland, Richard Bach. Finding someone who does that is like finding love, finding a soul mate, hell, finding your soul. Minds like these assure me in my knowledge that there is something like a universal idea, collective mind, an ultimate reality that everyone shares in, because they manage to grasp the essence of it and what it does to your soul. The thing Jung made a science of, Tillich turned into a theology. How you wake up to life like you have always meant to be like this.

The book I am talking of is “Narcissus and Goldmund”. It’s the story of a serene and wise monk novice and his pupil. They are friends, but they are as different as can be. Goldmund loves Narcissus so much he wants to be like him, wants his approval at all cost, but Narcissus rejects this and wants him to be true to his own self instead. It’s both painful and beautiful to read, the struggles they go through. I guess the final moral of the tale is that the most divine path to follow is your genuinely own, and that this path is what will lead you to your real self and God in the end. Goldmund’s path leads out of the monastery and into a life of debauchery and even murder, but in all this he is never a bad person because he just takes what life gives him and makes of it what he can. What makes it even more fascinating is that he is somewhat of a Kaspar Hauser: his isolated upbringing in the monastery makes him perfectly estranged to the social rules of the outside world: all he has is his instinct and the wisdom Narcissus gave him. It plays with the idea of whether and how much morality, or even just social appropriateness is something innate or something conditioned.

I have a strong belief that if we stem from God and our true nature is in God, then finding our own true path is the only way to him... and it will never be a straight one. That we sin on the way is inevitable... it does not mean we’re encouraged to sin (whatever idea you may have of what sin is), but that we need to accept that sin, flaws, mistakes, error, is just part of our nature and that what we make of it is what matters. For instance, Goldmund learns by instinct and trial and error what the difference between love and sex is... no doctrine could teach him that. The New Covenant is the only way because doctrine, trained lessons, are not what brings life and how to lead it home to us... the human way is by trial and error, and the New Covenant is the thing that reconciles us to God. I guess everyone has a different interpretation of it, and some people still think it is about rigid doctrine, but I could never reconcile myself to that. It’s just not genuine... it doesn’t work. And it’s not that I haven’t tried. All I know is that what I learned about God I didn’t learn in church, or in bible classes, or Sunday school.
The way I learned about him (or her, or it) was through life and through instinct, and through common sense, and those also taught me that God is much bigger than whatever was taught in church... he is much more universal, in fact, so universal that you see him and aspects of him in all religions... even though all of them fall short in capturing exactly what he is about.
I guess, “Narcissus and Goldmund” is a book that somehow expresses that ingraspable (is that a word?) yet stark universality and omnipresence without turning it into a religious book... it’s closest to how I experience God, or my own spirituality.

Funny enough, Hesse is closely associated with Nietzsche, who once claimed that God is dead.
Funnier even, is that Hesse was also good mates with Jung, who is famous for uniting spirituality/religion and psychology. And funniest is that this Nietzsche quote is one of the most misinterpreted ones in the world... it is one that merely states the contemporary human condition of being unable to accept God in traditional terms. Funny that one of the biggest enemies of the church should help me find the real thing.
And that I should only learn from friends what the word family means.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROMAN!!!!

25 E isn't that bad... what do those babies know about how to live??

:throws goat in Roman's direction:

Blue Tac Man!!!

This little piece of art was made by my mate Jeff, yes, from Blue Tac. Jeff is a crazy mofo and totally cool and supplies us with old editions of Bizarre magazine. This little fucker (the Blue Tac Man, not Jeff!) is barely the size of my small finger. Maybe Jeff should make a living of writing people's names on rice grains. (Mine would be easy; I don't have a middle name. Blame my parents!)
Oh, and the photo is by my friend Lucy Dutton. So hands off!

Catch the Fever Part II

Last year in October and November, I blogged about my friend Pat's brilliant, amazing band Tetra Fever, and whinged a lot about their neither having a website nor a recording to pleasure my ears with, or yours, for that matter.

Gloriously, this un-state has changed, and hereby I pester you to check out their music here. Once you listen to it, you will realise that I was right in pestering, and that sooner or later you would have found it anyway, because of its magic attraction and lure.

Tetra Fever is beautiful and makes bad things go away.
Tetra Fever makes world peace.

So there.




On that note, I also just discovered that my friend Jimvincible has just put out some good shit which really totally deserves a blog of its own, but I have to postpone that, otherwise I am not getting a lift home. As I am a lazy shit, this would be disastrous. But let it be said, Jim totally rocks my ipod.

If I had one.

The Doors

by Jamie Wilson

Jamie Wilson is a 20-year-old Communication and Media student at Bournemouth University, and a friend of mine, one I am proud to have, because he is multi-talented and fun. I am proud to present this story on my blog, and should anyone attempt to steal it, be assured that I will hunt you down, rip off your balls/boobies and shove them down your neck... not without sending a big fat turd down it first, needless to say!

I HAVE BEEN in a state of permanent mental anxiety for the past week or more, but nothing has bothered me so much as this infernal letter, which you presently study. My fear is that you will judge me harshly for what I have done -- so I have struggled to make everything as clear as possible in the hope that you may better understand my plight.

You may think me the devil, but I beseech you, I am as much the victim in this tragic story as your poor Johnny. You see, my brain is not naturally geared towards violence, but I was driven to the sheer dark cliffs of madness by the promise of fame and all that goes with it. Alas, it was a chance encounter with two strangers that instigated the whole affair, and on reflection I fail to see why I trusted them so implicitly. I am blind. Yet there was something about the way they dressed, the way they talked -- it was all very, very beguiling. They said they could open doors, doors that would eventually lead to stardom (for I was a fledgling actor), if I did one small thing in return… “Kill Johnny. Kill your best friend.”

Now, I’d love to say that their proposition had no effect on me, truly I would. But in all honesty, I can’t. Every time I saw the dear old boy my eyes turned to daggers, and all I could think about was those doors, the doors to stardom, opening up before me like so many adoring smiles.

Sometimes it took all my skills as an actor to disguise these feelings, I’d wrap them up in false smiles and gentlemanly graces. Johnny knew nothing. And every day, after supper, Johnny would fall asleep in his armchair, and I would stand by the fire warming myself, thinking of how to kill him. And then, when I was certain he was fast asleep, I would creep up to him inch by inch until I could see the tiny movements of his eyelids, and I would reach my hands around his neck so softly, softly -- until I could feel his pulse. Then, each time, at the critical moment, I got the feeling that a thousand tiny invisible insects were crawling on my skin, and I would start to cry, so I removed my hands ever so gently and withdrew to the comforting embrace of the fire.

Johnny, the poor unsuspecting fool, would wake up and wipe the tears from his face without even noticing. I knew it couldn’t go on like this. Something had to happen that would put an end to this dreadful business. And on a night like any other -- it did.

I was standing by the fire as usual, warming my hands (lest I wake the poor boy with a cold touch); my brutal instincts were rising up inside me. I could feel the waves of power emanating from the fire, fuelling me for what I was about to do. But still, I loathed myself more profusely and more strongly than ever. Johnny was sleeping peacefully, and it struck me how much he resembled a child, all cosy and snug in his armchair. God forgive me, I leaned over him and slid my hands around his throat like a slippery python encircling its prey. There was a long moment when nothing happened. It was just me and Johnny locked in some hideous mockery of intimacy. I began to cry. My heart just wasn’t in it, I could feel it weakening, and then, just as I was about to release my grip, Johnny’s eyes popped open.

All my resolve seeped away as sand from a loose fist when I looked into his eyes. It was a look that made me doubt my very worth as a human being. What cruel and twisted monster was I that I could be driven thus far by empty promises? And then I remembered those doors opening up before me, and how I would revel in the light they cast upon me.

‘O dear and humble reader, what was I to do? The shame of it, the complete and absolute shame of it. This very hand, the hand I use to write this note, used in such a gross and ignoble fashion.

I tightened my grip on his neck. The tears began to flow harder and faster. Johnny suddenly understood the reality of the situation and flung his arms at my face, clawing and flailing at my eyes. I felt spurred on by his bewildered fumblings and squeezed so hard that I had to scream. Blood vessels began to sprout all over his red, red face, and I saw his eyes glaze over. He was dying. All I had to do was finish it. I screamed again, a long and pitiful scream, and this time when I came back to my senses Johnny was dead.

What ugly devil had I become? My hands still clenched around the neck of my oldest and dearest friend, my screams curdling to laughter, my black heart revealing its darkest hew. I was truly at my most hideous.

I took the body of my good friend and buried it in a nearby cemetery. I had the good fortune to find a freshly dug grave, I knew that if I buried it a metre or so below the grave then no one would ever find it, because some poor old sod would be buried on top of him. Of course, I had the cover of darkness to hide my ghoulish actions, but I took the extra precaution of wearing entirely black. Nobody would notice me if I was quiet and took care with my spade. I began to dig, but I took frequent breaks to check that no one was lurking. I had such a terrible fear of being spotted that I was in a state of mild delirium. I had to calm myself with a song, but soon I started to fear that my hushed tones would arouse attention so I had to stop.

With Johnny nearly buried I took one extra long look around the cemetery. Even though my field of vision was limited by the incredible dark, I could sense that someone was watching me. Indeed, my fears were confirmed when out of the shadows two impossibly ghost-like figures emerged. None of the great gothic writers could describe the sinister aura that they possessed. This was Mary Shelley’s worst nightmare. They approached like a pair of tigers, slow and steady, only they made no attempt to conceal themselves. There was no escape, no light at the end of the tunnel, whatever they wanted I was at their complete mercy. When the fear reached its zenith I was forced to shut my eyes, I felt helpless, utterly vulnerable. I felt like a sheep that had strayed to far from the flock and all I wanted to do was fall down and die. So imagine my surprise when one of the daemons addressed me in a familiar tone.
“Be a good gentleman and stop trembling, open your eyes so that we may talk.”
Blessed relief! It was the two strangers that had promised me fame and success. Perhaps I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel after all.
“Speak then, or shall we assume that you are now a mute.”
“Excuse me, I am just a little shocked.” I said.
“An understatement if ever I heard one. You look whiter than white.”
“Can you blame me? I have done it. I have killed Johnny. My end of the bargain has been well and truly met. Now you must complete the deal. Give me what is mine.” I tried to hide the sick desperation in my voice but I couldn’t help myself. “How do you plan to repay me?”
“Repay you?” A mocking smile spread across his face. “Repay you? Poor child we never intended to repay you. You mean to say that you actually did it. You actually killed your best friend.” His smile turned to sardonic laughter. “He actually did it.” The pair began to laugh as if they shared some particularly poisonous joke, and then they turned and left, still chuckling as they dissolved into the darkness. And in that moment I saw the doors to stardom close in front of me like an insanely devious grin.

(c) Jamie Wilson