Thats [...]]]> Home is a complex thing to me, maybe it is to all of us. Although the way some people talk about it, it seems to be a simple and solid certainty to them. A foundation that grounds their lives and gives them stability. It must be a beautiful thing, to live like that.

Thats not something I have ever really had, thanks to my parents heroic self interest, determined and proactive lack of care for their children. Certainty was something I built for myself as a child.

The smell of night blooming jasmine on a warm and silent night is probably the closest I can come to sense of childhood comfort, but home has never been a place. I keep hoping that one day there will be somewhere. I even have a plan to build a place to call my own. Whether that sort of intellectualisation and planning can manufacture an intangible is a question I am yet to answer. We’ll see.

Once, for a while, home was a someone. Someone who made the world feel safe and certain. But betrayal showed that to be bungalow built on sand, waiting for the tide. It’s a great pity. That sense of trust is one thing I truly miss, and it’s passing one of the very, very few regrets I have.

I don’t think I will ever see that purity of belief again, but I hope that I am wrong.

At least that has made me very conscious and very, very careful of others trust. Not something I would care to be responsible for breaking. That must be a dreadful burden to carry.

But there are tin men, who don’t care. Beautifully made of shining steel but with no heart, to whom it wouldn’t matter. The worst of them don’t care, and the best seek to find something to fill their strong chests. Maybe I am one myself, but I prefer to think I am made of straw. It’s not my heart but my silly head that’s the problem.

——-

I started writing this a few months ago, on my iPhone. At the time I found the small form factor great for somethings, but essay writing was not one of them. Now my iPad is here, I ace no excuse to write more.

This post is melancholy, coming at a time when I had some sad news about the fortunes of someone I care(d) for. Day to day, I do feel like London is becoming my home. Certainly I love both the people I live with and those who share my life.

A place I will call home is still in my future. And I think that there will be someone to share that with. Recent events have shown me there are people who I could see myself doing that with, even if they are not themselves the one, or the time isn’t now.

Right now it’s the height of a glorious English Summer. The sun is shining, the grass is green and the flowers in the parks are glorious. There is even the smell of night blooming jasmine from a garden not far from my apartment, and on warm still nights, the smell steals into my room and in my sleep wraps it’s arms around me and I wake up feeling safe and at peace.

– Post From My iPad

Location:Baker St,Paddington,United Kingdom

> The first Teacher’s Day in Thailand was celebrated
> National Religious Freedom Day in the United State
> Two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.

The gestures were appreciated, but most people [...]]]> On this day in 1969 the following happened:

> The first Teacher’s Day in Thailand was celebrated
> National Religious Freedom Day in the United State
> Two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel.

The gestures were appreciated, but most people just sent a card or flowers to my family to commemorate my birth. My parents were touched, particularly by the thing with the Russians – but then I can trace some of my heritage back to Tsarist Nobility, so they probably felt they should do something.

I am not quite sure what the Americans were up to. Perhaps they expected a religion to be founded around me. It hasnt happened so far, apart from that thing in Algiers, and I am not sure that counts.

A year later for my first birthday Colonel Muammar Gaddafi assumed the role of “Prime Minister” four months after leading a successful coup against the Lybian monarchy – which was nice don’t you think.

Festive, and an example of the universe being a zero sum game. I was suddenly in it and, after what was a pretty touch and go first year somewhat miraculously alive. There needed to be a counter balance of fashion free, rhythmless, domineering evil peversity to counter balance my shining beneficence.

It’s my birthday, let me live in a dreamland for today. Ok?

Sunshine, surprises, storms, warmth, tide pools, body surfing, tempests, naked swims together in the moonlight and solitary sunrises. The only thing about the sea, and the shore, there is always, always change.

Through what seems right now like a long life, there [...]]]> As we like to say back in the mother country, “Life’s a Beach”.

Sunshine, surprises, storms, warmth, tide pools, body surfing, tempests, naked swims together in the moonlight and solitary sunrises. The only thing about the sea, and the shore, there is always, always change.

Through what seems right now like a long life, there have been more adventures on the shore than I can name, or even rember with any ease. And there have been so many playmates and fellow travellers. Valued, no, treasured for their compainionship, leading me further astray, or pulling me babk when I needed it.

Walking along the shore of my life, and looking back, the sea has carried away almost all sign of my travels, leaving me with only echos, traces and my somewhat erratic recall. Not even my own tracks remain for that long.

And yet there are some footprints that seem to linger. Reminding me of stories, yet to happen, that want telling, if not in words, then in a least in how I walk from here.

Prints of foot steps yet to fall.

Some inconsequential prize to the first person who figures it out.

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What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

Tweet This [...]]]> I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine time goes to voicemail.

The thing that has always been clear to me, is not that I need to change my shape, or even find a square hole, it’s that I need to find a round [...]]]> I have often felt like a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes that’s been a good thing, other times, not so much.

The thing that has always been clear to me, is not that I need to change my shape, or even find a square hole, it’s that I need to find a round space big enough to fit my pointy corners.

That’s why I live somewhere like London, and have such big hearted, smart, generous people as my friends and self chosen family.

Being a square peg in a round hole isn’t so bad, if you just have room to fit and freedom to move. If that’s the case, you both have space to be your own person, while still fitting together.

The soundtrack to this blog post is Beverley Knight – Square Peg