London
The city of London.
While I was working there last summer I had some fantastic experiences.
I saw Dame Diana Rigg on stage, but missed Dame Judi Dench, also Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles from Hollywood in Oleanna. Eckhart was brilliant, Stiles a bit stilted but I didn't like the play.
The best play I saw was Democracy, a brilliant piece of work.
I visited the Tate Modern to see the Hopper exhibition.
Seeing Nighthawks up close is an undescribable experience, the paint seems to envelop you, tens of people were pushing round trying to get close. I stood at the front and stared for twenty minutes maybe, oblivious, sucked in by this neverending scene.
Other pieces I remember were Picasso's Dove, a charcoal work that captured me far more than any of his more famous or experimental works, and Studio Bankside by Derek Jarman. Watched it through twice and was reduced to tears. It is of a time apart from me, from us, of someone else's friends, someone else's happiness and remembrances in a place no longer existing, a time I never knew. Leaving, I mourned for its passing.
I have my own friends, happiness and remembrances in a time and place of my own. Though I don't feel it. I am an odd person, I do not have friends in the conventional sense, I feel like I exist within a gathering of other people. I have respect and love and I do not know why I have this, I have done nothing to deserve it.
These are the people I am with, in later times it will be different people. Every single one of them has a place in my heart and always will do, but I tend to drift.
I have never belonged, not to this group nor to any other group.
I am simply there. Let me illustrate.
While at Bradford, there were cliques, which did not mingle, except I was in most of them. There were lots of Malaysians in the halls, somehow I found myself invited whenever they went to play basketball or football. I would be the only non-malaysian there. I was friends with them but not great friends, except with Simon. I just happened to be there when these people were there. The same with the goths, the hippies, the Norweigians, the operatics, the Southporters, Bob's band, the theatrics.
I'm 23 and I have seen a lot. I know famous and non famous people. I have done incredible things such as ripping up a tree by the roots with my bare hands, climbing a cliff one handed, or walking from Bradford to Halifax on a five hour suicidal night trek, I have seen incredible sights such as the herd of cows wandering across Vatersay Bay under a mauve sunset, the sea stacks of St Kilda, the dawn mist over the broads and the great valley of the Afan. I have insulted the Bishop of Knaresborough and Dame Vera Lynn. My cousin captained Wales u21, My brother MD's several West End musicals. One of my ancestors was Mayor of Washington D.C
To get back to my point though, none of it matters, I am not a memorable person. I cannot regale friends with tales of adventure, derring do or incredible sights. I am not a storyteller, neither am I a comic, I can barely hold my own in social niceties. If I am in a good and happy mood then I can just about have a general conversation. I honestly wonder why people put up with boring old me.
But I am a writer, I can commit here, what I cannot express in life, I am, if nothing else, a complete observer, and some day in the future, when this current band of people have dispersed around the globe, in life, inevitably in death, I shall remember this gallant little group, that I watched for three years and I shall chronicle, if need be, these people, my friends, in a time and place that was ours, even for so short a time. In the future, people may read and wish perhaps that they had known these people, cared about them like I cared about them. They were all worth knowing, and all worth caring about. Some of them may go on to greatness, most won't. They'll have families and other friends in the future, they will produce art, most of it unremembered, they will die, like all people, some, before their time.
But most of all, they will have been my friend, will have accepted me, for at least some part of their life, and I am privileged, humbled and honoured to know them at this time. To have seen them mature, grow, learn, begin to become whole. Whatever the future holds, right now, and to the end of my life, these people will matter to me.
As much as this journal is about myself, it is about the people I know as well, the people who pass through my life, or perhaps more accurately the lives of people of which I pass through.
If you are reading this, mourn for our passing, as all things must pass, and then be with those you love, your friends, for things change faster than you know. Do not regret this, it is as things are.
While I was working there last summer I had some fantastic experiences.
I saw Dame Diana Rigg on stage, but missed Dame Judi Dench, also Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles from Hollywood in Oleanna. Eckhart was brilliant, Stiles a bit stilted but I didn't like the play.
The best play I saw was Democracy, a brilliant piece of work.
I visited the Tate Modern to see the Hopper exhibition.
Seeing Nighthawks up close is an undescribable experience, the paint seems to envelop you, tens of people were pushing round trying to get close. I stood at the front and stared for twenty minutes maybe, oblivious, sucked in by this neverending scene.
Other pieces I remember were Picasso's Dove, a charcoal work that captured me far more than any of his more famous or experimental works, and Studio Bankside by Derek Jarman. Watched it through twice and was reduced to tears. It is of a time apart from me, from us, of someone else's friends, someone else's happiness and remembrances in a place no longer existing, a time I never knew. Leaving, I mourned for its passing.
I have my own friends, happiness and remembrances in a time and place of my own. Though I don't feel it. I am an odd person, I do not have friends in the conventional sense, I feel like I exist within a gathering of other people. I have respect and love and I do not know why I have this, I have done nothing to deserve it.
These are the people I am with, in later times it will be different people. Every single one of them has a place in my heart and always will do, but I tend to drift.
I have never belonged, not to this group nor to any other group.
I am simply there. Let me illustrate.
While at Bradford, there were cliques, which did not mingle, except I was in most of them. There were lots of Malaysians in the halls, somehow I found myself invited whenever they went to play basketball or football. I would be the only non-malaysian there. I was friends with them but not great friends, except with Simon. I just happened to be there when these people were there. The same with the goths, the hippies, the Norweigians, the operatics, the Southporters, Bob's band, the theatrics.
I'm 23 and I have seen a lot. I know famous and non famous people. I have done incredible things such as ripping up a tree by the roots with my bare hands, climbing a cliff one handed, or walking from Bradford to Halifax on a five hour suicidal night trek, I have seen incredible sights such as the herd of cows wandering across Vatersay Bay under a mauve sunset, the sea stacks of St Kilda, the dawn mist over the broads and the great valley of the Afan. I have insulted the Bishop of Knaresborough and Dame Vera Lynn. My cousin captained Wales u21, My brother MD's several West End musicals. One of my ancestors was Mayor of Washington D.C
To get back to my point though, none of it matters, I am not a memorable person. I cannot regale friends with tales of adventure, derring do or incredible sights. I am not a storyteller, neither am I a comic, I can barely hold my own in social niceties. If I am in a good and happy mood then I can just about have a general conversation. I honestly wonder why people put up with boring old me.
But I am a writer, I can commit here, what I cannot express in life, I am, if nothing else, a complete observer, and some day in the future, when this current band of people have dispersed around the globe, in life, inevitably in death, I shall remember this gallant little group, that I watched for three years and I shall chronicle, if need be, these people, my friends, in a time and place that was ours, even for so short a time. In the future, people may read and wish perhaps that they had known these people, cared about them like I cared about them. They were all worth knowing, and all worth caring about. Some of them may go on to greatness, most won't. They'll have families and other friends in the future, they will produce art, most of it unremembered, they will die, like all people, some, before their time.
But most of all, they will have been my friend, will have accepted me, for at least some part of their life, and I am privileged, humbled and honoured to know them at this time. To have seen them mature, grow, learn, begin to become whole. Whatever the future holds, right now, and to the end of my life, these people will matter to me.
As much as this journal is about myself, it is about the people I know as well, the people who pass through my life, or perhaps more accurately the lives of people of which I pass through.
If you are reading this, mourn for our passing, as all things must pass, and then be with those you love, your friends, for things change faster than you know. Do not regret this, it is as things are.
posted by Caractacus at 01:26
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