Things change.

I have written here in a while. Not in nearly three years now in fact (I wish my brain didn't insist on thinking 'in fact' was one word, when will you learn!) If anyone missed this blog sorry it's been so long.

I guess the natural inclination is to give a long list of things that have altered in these circumstances, or, for those with incapacitatingly disorganised memories such as mine, to state random things that have happened, most recent things first. The new spell check function informs me incapacitatingly isn't a word, well it should be.

So things that have changed. I'll be getting married in a few months, all being well with the world. I guess that's predictable, if popular social media is anything to go by. Admittedly it will be a hindu-jewish affair, which is probably not so run-of-the-mill and has certainly not been without it's thought-provoking moments.

I look after little ones in the hospital, most days, in London, but soon to moving ...

And here are some things that have been made x

Reunions are tricky!
J

Doodling during the death list

One of the particular idiosyncracies of the hospital where I currently reside, eat, and work in is the 'death list'. The death list is the process in which all the patients who have died are read out and respective teams are asked to state where the death was 'expected' or 'unexpected'. The queerest  part of the process to me is the strange and unexpected responses people have. In most cases the expected deaths are received almost joyously, whilst those which are seemingly 'unexpected' are met with a mixture of surprise, horror, interest and general muttering. Personally I find there is an inexplicable desire to doodle during the death list. Strange feeling to think that one day I exist only as a list of personal details to be muttered about in a room of 30-40 strangers. Hospitals are weird.

Is it better to accept, account for, or overcome one's weaknesses?

Absences

I've not written for what feels like an age (and is probably at least  32,000,000 seconds). In that time I have had a fair few of those noteworthy moments that make you wish you were an elogant enough thought-former to string them together into some sort of meaningful sequence and tell everyone about it. Unfortunately, I'm mostly not, and as a result this collection of thoughts has withered almost to nothingness.

A small selection of things (in no particular order) have included: starting work, seeing a woman run over outside of work, seeing Iceland, sticking needles into people's backs/arms/eyes/feet/lungs/abdomens/necks, losing count of how many times I've said 'Im sorry', improving my hebrew (slightly), not improving my fencing or cello, and seeing many of my friends get married and have babies.

It hasn't been the easiest of periods, but I miss writing to you, and I promise to try and not forget to think here.

On writing

I dreamt last night that I was walking amongst some empty landscape. On the ground, as a far as the eye could see, there were books and papers and journals, pictures and paintings and pieces of music. Layer upon layer, some collected in piles or stacked up neatly, some torn or burnt at the edges. It was a misty place and completely silent. I was only able to walk slowly, as, in the absence of a path, I wasn't sure where to walk and didn't want to damage the papers under my feet. To begin with I explored each and every text or image, agonising over who they may be, looking for names or handwriting that I might recognise that might make me feel less alone. In some way every sheet looked familiar, everyone appeared to be a person that I might have known, perhaps a map even, but their presence did not make me feel any less alone. I became quite downcaste. Then, feeling that I should not waste time, I began enjoying the nature of experience, scrunching leafs of paper in my hands, tearing them between my fingers, throwing piles of papers up in the air and watching them slowly descend in the gloom. This invoked feelings of elation, complete freedom. As I sat down, short of breath on a large pile of accountancy notes, I understood that absolute emptiness that I saw. I took up a long receipt that extended for metres from my hand, twisting in a large helix further than I could strain to see. I took out a black pen from my shirt pocket and began to write, anything I could think of, as many digits of pi as I could remember, the names and ages of all the people I knew, small doodles of butterflies and flowers and mothers with babies. I kept going, on and on until my hand began to cramp and the ink in the pen became faint. Then I lay down and covered myself with the sheets of an old newspaper, reading on the sheets nearest to me that Marilyn Monroe will marry Arthur Miller and that Red Army troops have invaded Hungary, before falling back to sleep.

Not deserving of a title

Sometimes when I sit down with myself, to write or try to read, there is a feeling that when all the business, in the sense of busy-ness, is taken away, when completely alone, there is really nothing there. There is no voice to talk to amongst myself. There is nothing within to make me smile or push me forward. Strange, considering that looking on I'm sure it looks that I'm an entirely sensible, well-travelled, well-educated(ish) kind of person. It's hard to really understand that however you're feel at this moment isn't how you've always felt, and it isn't how you will always feel; that even in ten minutes time someone may come into the room and you'll have completely changed course. Not in an insincere way, not that you're trying to seem like a cheery amenable person. Just that you only exist when someone is there. Even now it doesn't seem reasonable to have had all the thoughts that have led to these words without any conscious conversation, just with them spilling out from some void. It really is peculiar.

When Keats is close.

When I have fears that I may cease to be well.
Well, I will cease to be,
Cease to be well.
I will cease.

When I think of all that I could have been doing.
When could I have been all that?
I think I could have been.
I think of all.

When I think of all the pain that I have caused you.
All that pain when I think of you.
I have that pain.
I have you.

Now I know of the time that slips away from us all.
Time I know now, slips away.
Now away from All.
I know now.