Drift

See this old and tired cow
Sick in mind and body both
Slouching through the undergrowth
of the forest, beautiful.

I’ve been relating to this verse lately.

It was one of many my grandfather used to recite to me. He’d slightly misremembered it, and I’ve since discovered it was by Ralph Hodgson. It surprises me to think there was a time in my early twenties after my grandmother had died but before my grandfather had, that, in between living it up, I used to go to Wandsworth Common and hang out with my grandfather almost every week. I’d leave my shop job, pick up shopping on the way and make dinner. He’d declare the bar open and we’d drink champagne and then I’d stay the night and go straight to work the next morning.

I can’t imagine doing that for anybody now.

I have been feeling sick in body and soul these past days in particular. I keep returning to a site of pain, as if expecting it to look different each time; to hurt less.

A blooming crater.

Sometimes, resolution doesn’t exist, even while the obsessional mind tries to fill potholes with cement that stays wet.

I’m mid-way through my sixth booze-free month. I have had one sip of some lovely pale ale and one sip of mead during this time.

At the weekend, I attended the wedding of some friends. It was medieval-themed and they really went all out. The weather was perfect, and tucking into a wonderful hog roast meal in an authentic medieval feasting hall in rural Kent, the sound of a hurdy-gurdy filtering in, I really was filled with a sense of wonderment—that two people with singular personalities could find one another in this world and end up sharing in such an iconic wedding vision.

There was an open bar, and I became aware around 6 or 7pm of feeling tired, and thinking how insanely drunk I would have likely been by this point if I’d’ve been drinking. How I may’ve made amorous advances towards someone inappropriate, or fallen asleep in the sun, or felt unable to continue participating.

That said, at times, I felt like there was no ‘filler’. I started to feel awkward, restless, to dissociate.

Once the DJs started, I felt better—comfortable on the dancefloor. But I noticed how I enjoyed dancing near people, but actually dancing alone.

It got me thinking about my relational patterns, and particularly the way I struggle in groups. That I prefer meaningful one-to-one connections and tend to feel disconnected in social situations that feel ‘diluted’.

I often find perfectly pleasant friendships and relationships dissatisfying.

To me, these feel like shavings of hard, unyielding butter.

I always want my friendships and encounters to be memorable, to weigh more, contain bonus material—a poem read aloud together, a sung song, a project, a photo shoot, a walk with a once-in-forever view, a new bird learned of, birdcalls through fingers, a picked flower.

Something that can be kept.

I want relationships that feel like they could last a lifetime and the sad irony is that often, they can’t survive the pressure of this desire.

My desires are not really compatible. I want a countryside home in the middle of the city. A deeply loyal open marriage. To be a wealthy poet.

Sometimes objects feel like freedom and at others, it’s the opposite.

A couple of years ago, I was evacuated from my home by police owing to a bomb scare. I felt ready to accept the loss (with the exception of my cat). Last Friday, Instagram temporarily stopped working. I initially felt panicked, and then disappointed by the subsequent fix.

Earlier that morning, waking in London, I found for the first time that there was nothing I really wanted to do in the city. No person or art exhibition I wanted to see. I walked along the canal, enjoying reading the names of all the boats – Progress, Daphne, Milton – possibly the best kind of exhibition. Vessels with various exteriors—floating imaginaries. I watched a cormorant diving in the canal, enchanted by its little wetsuit, its simple life.

I came upon a redundant hangover joke—a boat that was half-sunk and keeled over to the side. Atop the boat’s lifting bow, a moorhen had built her nest, and pottered there, happily it seemed.