Last day of the Month. 31st January 2011

So much seems to pass me by.

Particularily at this time of the year. The changing beat of the days pushing me out of shape, enough to slow and blur the time frame…..  Bank Holidays….Carol Singers….Midnight Mass…..Christmas Dinner….Boxing Day sales…..I am just not able or indeed inclined, to wrestle with some of it any more.

I was interested to hear Boxing Day, being occasionally described as St.Stephens day. The first Martyr of the New Testament was viciously stoned to death. What an ugly, shameful, sadistic act. Evil, well practised art that it is. St. Stephen was painted by Rembrandt and while his Greek name translates as ‘Crown’, his Hebrew name is translated by a suggestion of normality and steady rule, continuing to reflect a certain inevitableness for those such as Siddqa and Khayyam, whose dreadful murders were released as video reportage in these past few days. Culled.

The expected peace and quiet of the Christmas weeks never quite materialises, leaving us shattered by the weight of it all. By the time we stumble into the beginnings of January, it forever leaves me with a sense of loss.

I haven’t been known, to my knowledge, to succumb to the winter blues. Shiver-brrrring around as they invariably do. I am by tendency a little bit that way anyway. I’m stuck with myself really, like any good creature of habit should be.

Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, it’s all Blues to me….<Coda>

‘Seasonal Adjustment Syndrome’ -SAD – is by comparison a poor way of grasping any understanding of seasonal change. It leaves no room for light and shade, no little glimpse of colour here and there, no green shoots, as all good sketches should have. It never inspires me at all. I much prefer to ponder my own acronyms thank you so much.

My current favourite is Optimism and Realism – OAR – may they both sail my way.

I like the restlessness of January. Constantly struggling with the light to see or read, reaching for my treasured hat to keep in the heat or leaving until the last minute, the last second even, the  ceremony of the closing of the blinds; a final resistance to the creeping darkness.

I pad and pace around incessantly, and during the days when I am not at work, browse books I haven’t read yet, compose letters I will never write and forever look through the window of my kitchen, at the potential for rain or rarely, the blue skies as they wink a glimpse of me looking back up to them.

I like the minute or two each day, that brings the morning ever closer and the evening ever further away.

A sweep of days that bridges us through the winter solstice, a truly magical time, fencing tightly the path to the big field of the New Year. Clear, cold skies. Framing with lengthening shadows, the millions of dustspecks of the solar debris that shine strongly, even in the artificial backdrop, through the drifting, foggy light source, towards and beyond the noiseless school at the back of our house.

Some things do pass me by and their apparent magnitude is re-assuringly grand. During a period of ill-health last year, I managed during my recovery, to miss whole chunks of time that I apparently lived through, (I wasn’t that ill, to paraphrase Spike Milligan), but which for one reason or another are distorted, lost somehow and trying to get back to me. My fine motor function, my inability to retain information, my newfound clumsiness, my ability to miss when I try to grasp the lightcord for the bathroom. Forever changed.

Despite these frustrations it was good to feel that change – evergradual, everinching to the place where I currently am.

I lost totally the ability to play my guitar. My arm refused to find a tempo that was sturdy enough to hold a melody and carry the jarred rush of ideas onwards. It is only fair at this point to clarify my starting point. ” …More Ringo than Django…” my polite friends suggested, with regard to my fretwork dexterity. But still, enough in my own way to know a good song and manouevre a good chorus. The resulting downtime, left me no other option than to listen to anything I could get my ears around – old, new, borrowed and blue.

Denying my luddite tendencies and armed only with a few ‘free’ mp3 sites, I ploughed my way through 50 and more years of virtual musicabilia. Soaked myself in it. Devoured it salaciously. Played it like I was a boy in my bedroom and plugged into the ‘headphones of life’ music-centre. I won’t colour your judgement by ratifying all of the details, that would be trite but, ‘Suffice to Say’ (as the song demands), enough, enough, enough and then some. While I listened, I flicked through endless imaginary boxes of records. Smelt the joss sticks and joints in numerous, dubious corridors and backrooms…talked to people through curtains of thick curlystraight hair, asking them quietly, ….got any bootlegs mate ?

In 2011 there will be just one Sunday that will fall on the last day of the month. That will be in July. The days will be longer and filled with the colours of life by then. Here, on this Sunday, the penultimate day of January our first month, it seems to provide again, temporary shelter to the business of each week. For all good Catholics, it’s confused amongst us as to being the first or last day in the week. It brings a similar pace within one spinning axis, to these frostfine days, as they regulate the smooth running of the shift in our annual gears.

There are certain subtleties to the Sunday experience of course.  I swear the sound of the BBC Radio station that I tend to favour, is warmer somehow, stoking the kitchen like an old valve amp. Walking home from Sunday morning football, still in my muddied kit and dropping cautiously, inch by inch, settling gently into the hot, vosene green, bubbling, cleansing waters. I spent my amateur years known as the ‘Singing Goalie’ and had many a careful cigarette in the bath, re-living the action. For the record, my daughter Shelley played football more convincingly than either of my two sons. That should go down well with Andy Gray and Richard Keys.

Then add as a simplistic list….Roast dinners….clean sheets….setting the alarm…that feeling of never finding sleep….drifting….and then eventually, amid the warmth and security, the early noises that bring reveille to the matters of the morning.

On this Sunday, in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and Suez, they are calling the people home. On the anniversary of our own Bloody Sunday they talk of ending the commemorative memorials.

So much finds me and so much passes me by.

For those who for one reason or another, we haven’t had contact with throughout this time – old friends, family, children, those recently lost to us and always, those unwittingly forgotten in the midst of it all – be prepared to coax or urge them back with a message, a letter, a kind word or an invitation. Allow yourself or nurture even, the surprise of a happy accident. To Phil….Mark….Peter….and whoever else I may have missed. Goodbye Guys.

Trish Keenan, dare I say it, was one such who passed me by. Despite that 50 year virtual re-run of the history of music that I mentioned, she and her band Broadcast passed me right by. It’s not as if I don’t actively seek and secure new listening experiences. So much of what I would go as far as to expect to find here, (as a casual glance at the current titles littering my work space might suggest), would, you might think, include at least one of their offerings. But it doesn’t. I am almost ashamed to admit it. The nearest I get, after scouring the CD drawers of my bedroom, is a couple of freebies in Uncut and Mojo. Left refracted and short changed by her passing, the news came too late to be included in the current pages of these worthy magazines. Sorting through the newspapers that build a neat pile at the side of my chair in the kitchen, ready for recycling, I came across her obituaries in the Guardian and Independent respectively. Racing through the columns. Wanting to leave a little to savour. Feeling uncomfortable to be drawing life from her posthumous spirit. I have in these short few days since, absorbed as much as I have been able to find of the available material. 21 songs so far. Taking me on again through the endless night. Gold. All of it.

Whatever is meant for you won’t pass you by.

Goodbye Girl. Love you all night.