Life-&-Living

I sit here at my desk, amidst a sea of boxes, piles of paper and open drawers, grateful for the peace and quiet these last few minutes before the lunch break starts afford me. The morning has flown by quickly, lost in the blur of furiously packing, sorting and binning four years worth of work and junk that by the end of the day has to be organised neatly so the office admin staff can get them moved as required. The powers that be in my neck of the woods have decreed - having decided that we have been stuck in our silos for far too long - that moving to an office sharing arrangement that has us clustered functionally will foster a more collaborative approach to work, create synergies and improve efficiencies. Fundamentally democratic - and buzz word heavy - even though the unspoken elephant in the room is that by some quirk in the system the supreme leader has scored a corner office looking out onto the harbour; a far more eye pleasing sight than the endless parade of bus tops that I can just make out from my desk if I squint hard enough. Earned perks of office I guess. ...

For the umpteenth time I am attempting to begin again. As to triggers for each prior iteration of these beginnings, I can blame various cataclysmic events – a delayed quarter life crisis which ended up with me starting over on a new continent, a short lived romance, and the sense of endlessly treading water being prime examples of some of these. On this occasion however, I cannot pinpoint a singular reason why; such has been the sort of year I have had – between the end of a good year of sorts with G and the significant uncertainties brought about by an unstable oil price regime. ...

[ Source] --- The sense of something Brewing; Hope’s shoots, soft, tender- Beginning, Again

[ Source] When March finally dragged itself to an end, I remember thinking that I hadn’t felt as stressed as I did at the time since 2008, 2008 being a nadir of sorts; one that ended up with me quitting my job and heading back to grad school, my version of navigating a delayed quarter life crisis. So out of sorts and form did I feel that I took myself away to the Starbucks in Union Square, one Sunday after church, ordered the most decadent hot chocolate with cream on offer and proceeded to have a conversation with myself. What quickly became apparent from that exercise was that there were a number of pressure points which were driving my malaise. ...

In the unknown you clutch vestigial memories of night journeys and of trains and being surprised by grey granite segueing into lush greenery but once you cross the Bridge across the Firth of Forth Hope awakens ‘Cos you’re Home. On train journeys, coming home and the Forth Road Bridge for the prompt for Day 28 at NaPoWriMo, a truly gorgeous sight on a (rare?) sunny November day as I found many years ago…

Pause, On the corner of Kings’ and 23rd North West and smile, let your face crumble like a cookie dipped in spring milk. Tell her the musky scent of her perfume reminds you of spring wafting in on the wind heady, yet subtle, hardly felt. Moan about the weather, of snow pelting down like hail of sunshine shoved into a corner by clouds and then nightfall When you find she’s clutching Chaucer to her chest and McEwan in her bag, read her a line from Komunyakaa: ‘I took seven roads to get here and almost died three times’*. ...

[ Source] If words were everything We would be halfway To the moon and back, A streak of light, white-bright Against the night sky Driving darkness far away Into the distance Of a forgotten age. If promises were The elixir of life We would nymph-like never age, Never yield to the chiseling Hand of time, etching its Designs into our very bones. Word by word they have built up Grandiose things, carcasses that Loom large, Colossus-like over us; Selling us bamboo dust for sandal wood, Trading Hope for the control A snake charmer’s pungi wields. ...

A bloke can do no worse Than believe his own hype Unless it is to hope That a grand Messianic gesture Might turn the ebbing tide of Love, Where a simple one would do. For everything there is a time And a season for everything under the Sun But what virtue does Hope have unless She stir in dire times?

The end of the day Remember the days When we were close to the edge And we’ll wonder How we made it through the night The end of the day Remember the way We stayed so close till the end We’ll remember it was me and you ...

[ Source] They clamber aboard at Upminster - they being man, boy and girl - eventually ending up on the seat opposite us. We are on the C2C service from Ockendon towards London Fenchurch Street, the first leg of what we hope will be an uneventful train ride into town; towards Tottenham Court Road for a pitstop at Dominion Theatre for Hillsong. Of the trio who disrupt what peace we’ve had so far, the girl ends up by the window, the man by the aisle and the boy - who can’t have been more than 2 or 3 - in between them. The most noticeable thing about the man is his rather tight shirt, one which his stomach strains at ever so slightly and his flip flops. If I were a betting man, I’d place him as some sort of suburb dwelling city slicker, kicking about with the family on a weekend, slightly overdoing casual in the process, perhaps as his way to compensate for being cooped up in a suit and tie all week. ...