Misreading the signs

As I left the pub after a rather lovely Boxing Day Carvery, here's what I misread on the exit door:

Thanks for nothing!




It took a moment to realise that it actually said, "Thanks for calling!"

Today I want to hold a black cat

For some reason the shift keys have decided not to work. no idea why, but sod the idea of pressing 'caps lock' every time i want a capital letter. so i will have to remain resolutely lower-case for the sake of this post. a post - from me - what a novelty.. i can't even use parentheses or exclamation marks, which the last couple of sentences would clearly have benefited from.

anyway, all day i've had this feeling that i want to hold a black cat. i had a dream last night. nothing different to any given night over the last few weeks, in that respect - most nights have been punctuated by extremely vivid dreams - sometimes genuinely entertaining/intriguing, other times unsettling/disquieting, often a mixture of all three. or four.

well last night's dream saw me at the top of a very high tower, with a close friend and his family. we were on a little circular balcony which went around the top of the tower, with railings and lots of gaps in the ironwork to see the vast distance to the ground below. the other people all seemed comfortable and relaxed, whereas i felt rather precarious and nervous. with me was a black cat which was exploring, and i was terrified - as unconcerned as it appeared to be - that it was going to lose its footing - or pawing - and fall.

the dream has stayed with me all day, as has this feeling of wanting to hold a black cat - to comfort it, or more likely to comfort myself.

that's without even mentioning the later part of the dream where i was safe on the ground and had gone for a meal in a lovely pub/restaurant, but the toilets were in full view of everyone. they consisted of a seat with a hole in it, underneath which hung an empty plant pot. i decided i ought to complain.

Woo-hoo!

I've been a busy bee today, but here was a strange interlude a little earlier on..

I was out on the high street, drawing my life savings out of the nearest ATM so that I could afford a coffee before hyperinflation really kicks in (including emergency savings so that I could afford a shot of vanilla with it), when suddenly I heard what sounded like an expression of absolute glee.

"WooHOOO!!"

I turned round, eyebrow raised, to see a little old lady walking past. Must have been her, I thought, there was no-one else nearby. She eyed me with a look of vague melancholy, and I turned back to stuff my wallet with the increasingly-devalued paper money spewing its way out of the ATM.

Hang on, I thought? WTF? Why would an old lady be whooping for joy like that? I wondered if I'd imagined it, when suddenly -

"WOOHOOOO!!!"

I spun round to see the same old lady walking a little further past, but still close enough for her to have caught my reaction. She looked at me with that same hint of melancholy, stopped, fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose.

I was wondering whether I should tell her she had the most joyful, life-affirming sneeze I had ever heard. I thought better of it though, for fear of it sounding a little weird.

She shuffled on, and I went for my barely-affordable coffee.

Brilliant Bonkers

I love this. I wish I could dance like that.

Actually, after a few drinks, I often can.

Floored

I know the last few posts I've done have been pretty minimal: this one will be no exception, at least in terms of the word count. I'm tired tonight but I've forced myself to be busy working on musical things. During a few online searches to find some particular source material to play around with (my search terms being choirs/drones), I came across this, and was - am - stunned.

Haunting and beautiful in abundance, and I'm glad I've packed up my work for the night, since this has left me utterly floored.

I think I see a pattern emerging..

The day I went to the death camps

I've written here, at some point, about the amount of books and related material that I've read, or watched, about the two world wars. My thirst for knowledge about it was based on, on the one hand, the need for historical perspective: to be able to have a sense of what informed the flow of events and how these have shaped the subsequent decades upon which they still have a huge impact.

On the other hand there has been, in my mind, a need to find some kind of insight, or attempt to come to terms with on some level, the sheer impact on human lives at an individual and collective level that those wars brought.

What this has meant, during those extended periods of reading and viewing, is a lot of exposure to material which is heartrending, depressing, bleak, unfathomable, yet also inspiring and humbling. All this, of course, in the vulgar comfort of my armchair.

Quite what it says about me that I've kept a corner of my mind open to information about such extremes of existence, I'm not sure - but there's a desire in there to try to comprehend or at least apprehend such suffering and adversity. I know that part of it is informed by the sheer proximity of such great and terrible events to my own lifetime: WWII ended a mere twenty-five years before I was born. Long enough to render me at a safe distance from it, but otherwise a mere blink of an eyelid, and still very much shaping the world I was born and brought up in.

It's too neat to suggest that this inward flow of words and images served as preparation for my visit earlier this week to Auschwitz: that wasn't my intention, though in retrospect it did have that effect. But it's a largely separate set of circumstances (not of particular relevance here) that enabled myself and a couple of friends to go there a few days ago.

Reflecting on all this, I'm not quite sure what I can meaningfully say about the experience, yet I do feel the need to express it somehow. There's the ever-present chance that I could write an extended, convoluted post which could be summed up as I really don't have the words. Also, an account based on my own subjective experience feels like it would be indulgent: yet should I try to open it up into more large-scale observations then I think I would fall flat on my face.

Perhaps my own subjective experience, indulgent as it may be, will be the only way I can express anything at the present time. Right now though I feel the need to go out and get a temporary change of scenery.