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Photos by Martin
Extra Care
If not the means, there are ways around or through. It takes time. Dis-perpetuate the status quo. Seek anew. Explore alternate paths and ennoble these. Create options. Keep going. Sometimes standing still is moving forward only unrealised at the time.
Take extra care over what becomes normalised in your world. Normalise what you know and desire to be real. The sense of self, sanity, identity, trust, and reason, must never be dispensed with. Nurture these things.
You cannot complete the cycle because you are part of it. You can only step away once the cycle completes – once you have completed it or it you. Change is the recognition of change and of enabling it (recognition and process).
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Story
Time to regurgitate my favourite seasonal anecdote. When the vicar visits the Year 1 class to relay The Easter Story. “And so, children,” he enquires at closing, “What do you think Jesus said to His disciples when He came back to life?”
Silence.
Until, nervously, at the back of the class, one little girl stands, stretches out her arms, and exclaims, “TA DA!”
What Is
Ordered a music manuscript book off Temu of all places. Haven’t owned one since my teens. Can sketch ideas when out and about. Will help me feel better – that I am doing something – and to get started again.
Thinking a lot about the music… The idiocy of conforming to canonistic norms… Perspective on all things. I see now that My Thing is simply to engender life to unique pieces of their own characteristics. That is what is important.
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The Château
Impossible, to ‘find’ any novel that truly holds my attention. Especially “contemporary fiction.” Language and style, dull and formulaic, every narrative predictable, I never make it past a couple of chapters. A joy, a true find, is William Maxwell’s ‘The Château’. Beautifully composed, artfully threading as it does between character and setting, it is the mythical page-turner I always seek. Again, a joy, for a new favourite to make its appearance.
It also presents a clever paradox in brutalising the sentiment of “average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people…” The book is entirely about people – seemingly small events, trivia, foibles – according to the tension and drama these build. And gently so, again played-out via the setting. My feeling is that Maxwell is translating the human world as action and inaction. This defines us as social beings, and is inescapable. The question, of how our identities form or are formed or are forming.
Spirit
Flawed beauty. The most beautiful people contain the flaw – the inclusion – that renders them beautiful. What is it that surpasses that? A perfection of spirit? The ugliest people I’ve ever known were all, always, the most physically attractive.
“The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.” – Sigmund Freud
“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
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Inter
Decreasing circles only slightly altered. An expression of being lost. Only now, the terrain of ‘being lost’ becomes recognisable. Disaster or success, I am no longer sure. Have now attained such heightened sense of calm, I could easily nod off the next ten days. How rare and how rarely attainable are these times. By mid-afternoon, had plummeted into an overwhelmingly deep sleep. Dead to the world, two hours. Woke to endless decaf. A huge bowl of porridge with bananas and berries. Lost myself in my book and Radio 3. It is raining once more.
Mistakes
How strange it is getting older when you grieve the energy of youth whilst knowing it created and sustained mistakes you are less willing to encourage – that again alongside the knowledge that mistakes are simply unavoidable in life. And when stasis becomes just another outcome.
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Lost
Something is forever lost in the digital age. Spatial and emotional awareness most noticeable, in comparison with my formative years. To the extent of being wheeled on a bed through hospital corridors with more than one person seeming not to notice or unwilling to step aside. “Excuse me!” I heard the medics repeat. Why this needs to be said is bizarre. What seems normal to this generation seems extraordinary to me. Considered innate – a true sense of social priority – I also recall as cited indoctrination by teachers and elders. It now feels like a blessing and a privilege.
No idea that Grant passed away a couple of years ago. Sometimes news is slow to reach. I experienced this before – the double sadness. Grant was a wonderful man, a very talented and prolific writer. A fighter. And incredibly supportive. I can’t express how much it meant that he enjoyed my work to the extent that his small press project published it.
Thank you, Grant. Rest In Power.
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Circular
On a walk yesterday, I encountered (at a charity shop) a small and simple white bowl with a black glaze interior. Common or garden Shabby-tat thing but very nice and only £1. It replaces a plain ramekin for coins. I have barely any material items but this is a minimal update and interests me in that way. It looks cleaner and more stylish, and appears to present an air of calm. I think somehow due its semicircular form.
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Mixedupweirdstuff
Found myself on a garage forecourt pre-interview gluing the sole of my shoe. This time around things flipped: The interview solid, the teaching session not quite. Was going OK but two-thirds in had an energy crash. A sign of judgement on the Head Of Department’s face caught the corner of my eye. I tanked. And now tanking-up with caffeine. It proved another non-secure post, though, not paying beyond end-of-term… Not what I need. Unsure this was overt when I applied. Whereafter? A wander around Clapham, an old stomping ground. Mixedupweirdstuff prevails.
Carousel
The Mary Poppins books are favourites worth re-reading every few years. Poetic, Surreal, yet incredibly socially contemplative (almost politically so) and far darker than is commonly perceived. No trace of ‘correctness’ to belie the veneer of English unflappability. And no wonder Walt Disney drove Pamela Travers (who nears genius) nuts. The carousel is one of her many and varied metaphors on life. Hitchcock used the same. It reflects and refracts a deeper introspection.
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Martin Slidel 