Limbo

Just to turn back to 2009 for a brief moment, I realised what my favourite memory of that year is.

It's the 9th of December, which was the day after the last gig that I played, and the day before I travelled abroad. It's my favourite memory for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it was the moment at which I was able to relax - or begin to, at least - after 3 busy months, and also to feel pleased at the way the gig had gone the night previous. It was nice to be able to look back at that and enjoy the immediacy of the memory, not to mention the accompanying sense of accomplishment.

It was also good to think that I had seven days in Berlin ahead of me too: I had it all to look forward to in the immediate future, just as I had much to look back on.

So it was, in the best way possible, an inbetween kind of moment. Plenty to savour both in terms of memory and anticipation.

But the specifics of the place itself added to the appeal (and the sense of limbo). I was in a hotel which was big and spacious and which, though just outside of a city centre, was very much isolated from it: stuck in the middle of a business/industrial park, set back from the road, but with the hum of traffic serving as a constant drone in the background. Yes, I happen to like the hum of traffic serving as a constant drone in the background in such places, it served to enhance the sense of isolation, openness and distance rather than a more urban kind of claustrophobia.











Temporarily at rest between one adventure and the next, it was the ideal moment to pause and reflect before immersing myself in another set of experiences.