Back in London
As the title proclaims, I'm back in the capital of the UK. Two round syllables.
Summer has suddenly hove into view, and it is a sudden and strangely fantastic thing to have ones clothes too much to take.
This particular visit to Cork has been an odd one. For the first time I didn't feel like I belonged... Not at home mind, home is always the same, the pets may get older, there may be a gradual narrative change to the place, but its always the same. My rooms the same. The house feels the same. Moms the same.
But the city, by god, the city, half shut, yet as airy as ever, but nobody was familiar, nobody was anything to me and I was nothing to them. Usually when I return home random encounters take the edge off all that, but this time, though I trusted to my usual facility for bumping into people, my trust was misplaced. In Cork anyway it seems.
It was Paddy's day while I was there. And there I was, in a little pub, drinking Guinness alone. Wandering out to stand in the smoking area simply for something to do. I saw some people later, but that was after hours of feeling different. Displaced. In fact meeting people proved to be merely a brief interlude to the abstract sense of distance.. I finished the night dancing with strangers for whom I was part of the background. As significant as a green lampshade.
London doesn't replace all that though. Though it has replaced Cork as the place I know the most people, it can never replace it, simply because of the place it is, as somewhere where it is easy to find companionship; friends. Cork is a place you can have a great night out with friends without planning it. Spur of the moment desires for human contact invariably lead to random encounters with people unexpected but known to you. London doesn't do that. Its somewhat saddening to lose the one place, and time in my life where I could do that.
But of course, thats all been coming for years. Its amazing I've hung onto it for so long. Such distance is ironic as the visit itself seemed to revolve itself around various attempts to trace my ancestry, through conversations with Mom about my Father (for once unbidden, she pointed out to me a rather frustrating genetic trait I share with my father, who knew thinking everything is going to fail and everyone is going to leave is genetic?) and many hours sifting though both 1901 and 1911 census's puzzling out the lives of my ancestors. I really got quite addicted to the riddle, an impossible one really, what with every census bar those two destroyed.
So I'm back in London. I'm quite glad. The trip has reminded me to take better stock of my strengths. I have an astonishing ability to relegate everything I've achieved to the slop pile, a shrug of the shoulders dismissing it as 'easy' 'without worth' 'foolish'. Concentrating on what I don't have, Certain the entire world is about to collapse because of me. So I will try to better my father. Avoid the stresses that wore him out. What people think they will think. People who like me like me and aren't just suddenly going to stop for no reason, stop being so damn insecure in life. Now that I know its genetic I can avoid convicting myself to a dozen shames because of it, instead, hopefully, maybe, I can just get over it. Accept myself as someone who has achieved and has many more achievements to come.
With that in mind, enough of this valedictory crap. Next time, I will delve into the personal historical past, David got me to start this thing as an historical resource, well time to plunge into the recesses of my experience. Make this thing far more varied and actually, shock horror, interesting.
Making dreams real.. dangerous...
Summer has suddenly hove into view, and it is a sudden and strangely fantastic thing to have ones clothes too much to take.
This particular visit to Cork has been an odd one. For the first time I didn't feel like I belonged... Not at home mind, home is always the same, the pets may get older, there may be a gradual narrative change to the place, but its always the same. My rooms the same. The house feels the same. Moms the same.
But the city, by god, the city, half shut, yet as airy as ever, but nobody was familiar, nobody was anything to me and I was nothing to them. Usually when I return home random encounters take the edge off all that, but this time, though I trusted to my usual facility for bumping into people, my trust was misplaced. In Cork anyway it seems.
It was Paddy's day while I was there. And there I was, in a little pub, drinking Guinness alone. Wandering out to stand in the smoking area simply for something to do. I saw some people later, but that was after hours of feeling different. Displaced. In fact meeting people proved to be merely a brief interlude to the abstract sense of distance.. I finished the night dancing with strangers for whom I was part of the background. As significant as a green lampshade.
London doesn't replace all that though. Though it has replaced Cork as the place I know the most people, it can never replace it, simply because of the place it is, as somewhere where it is easy to find companionship; friends. Cork is a place you can have a great night out with friends without planning it. Spur of the moment desires for human contact invariably lead to random encounters with people unexpected but known to you. London doesn't do that. Its somewhat saddening to lose the one place, and time in my life where I could do that.
But of course, thats all been coming for years. Its amazing I've hung onto it for so long. Such distance is ironic as the visit itself seemed to revolve itself around various attempts to trace my ancestry, through conversations with Mom about my Father (for once unbidden, she pointed out to me a rather frustrating genetic trait I share with my father, who knew thinking everything is going to fail and everyone is going to leave is genetic?) and many hours sifting though both 1901 and 1911 census's puzzling out the lives of my ancestors. I really got quite addicted to the riddle, an impossible one really, what with every census bar those two destroyed.
So I'm back in London. I'm quite glad. The trip has reminded me to take better stock of my strengths. I have an astonishing ability to relegate everything I've achieved to the slop pile, a shrug of the shoulders dismissing it as 'easy' 'without worth' 'foolish'. Concentrating on what I don't have, Certain the entire world is about to collapse because of me. So I will try to better my father. Avoid the stresses that wore him out. What people think they will think. People who like me like me and aren't just suddenly going to stop for no reason, stop being so damn insecure in life. Now that I know its genetic I can avoid convicting myself to a dozen shames because of it, instead, hopefully, maybe, I can just get over it. Accept myself as someone who has achieved and has many more achievements to come.
With that in mind, enough of this valedictory crap. Next time, I will delve into the personal historical past, David got me to start this thing as an historical resource, well time to plunge into the recesses of my experience. Make this thing far more varied and actually, shock horror, interesting.
Making dreams real.. dangerous...
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