Best comment of the day, from Pond Lady Jo, as I got out: 'Oh look, your legs match your costume.' It's bright pink, or the bits she meant were. Probably for the best. The rest of it's blue, and that would be seriously bad news.I'm sure I took notes this morning, but I can't find where. Back to memory, and the bits that really stand out. The fog. Oh, the fog. It was beautiful thick and carrying that smell, kind of cold sulphur. The smell of being inside a cloud.
Normally, as I cross the heath, it's dark when I get off the train and it gets light as I walk across, as if it was me switching everything on. By the time I'm at the top of Parliament Hill, it's kind of day already. I know there's an element of illusion - the station is at the bottom of a leafy hill, with lots of highish buildings, so some of it is about getting nearer to the open sky. Some of it is that, but some of it is the beauty of the pond's timing. We are only allowed to swim when it's light, so they open it on purpose, and I get that joy.
Not this morning, though. Fog as I walked across - not even any layers of landscape, it was so thick. Just tree shapes and crouching photographers everywhere. And on the way back, still thicker! Fog just everywhere. It's a bit womby, when you think about it. It's all enclosing and wrapped up. It's cold, of course, and not that cramped, so that's where the simililarity gives up and dies, but it pleased me for a while, so stay with me.
I found a lady on the floor. Oh dear, that makes her sound like a sock or a shopping list that someone lest. In my First Aid quest, I mean. There was a young blonde lady sitting on some cobbles holding her arm and her head. An older man was with her. She'd slipped and hit her head. Must have been spectacular. She looked dazed and she was a bit nauseous, even though she was walking around ok.
She worked in the school at the Royal Free Hospital. If she'd been going anywhere else, I'd have insisted a bit more, but I figured that if she's in a hospital, she'll be in safe hands, surrounded by nurses. She let me walk her that far, and then I left her to it. I promise I wouldn't have followed her if she'd said no.
On the train home, a small girl (6-ish) inadvertently burst into a Rhianna song. It was so sweet, not because of what she was singing, but how. It was so natural and not on purpose. Hannah Rye used to call that Juning... when you burst into song and you mean it, but you don't know all the words, so you mouthe it and some of it comes out all lame. Apparently, there was a girl called June who did it all the time. I never met her, but 30 years later, I still think of it as that.
Music on trains is of the essence. On the way home, I nearly lost it. A lady was playing some cheeeeese-fest of a ballad... oh, it was Bleed or whatever that song is by Leona Lewis. So funny. It was playing full blast. At first it seemed like she was just being really inconsiderate, but then it became evident that she was trying to turn it off. It kept happening, though, really loud.
My urge to bum-dance, or wave my arms, or even proper get up and boogie was MASSIVE. Like, humungous. And what stopped me, again, is that granule of not being sure whether I'd actually be behaving like a mad lady. It's all about the knowledge. If I knew, like the man at Impro Everywhere, that there was a hidden camera, or that another willing dancer would get on at the next stop, I'd feel different. Or if I just had the confidence to say fuck it, I know I'm not mad, but I find this funny, so I'm going to do it anyway. I didn't do it this time. Never say never.
Once again, though, what I did do was get the giggles really badly, and keep coughing unconvincingly into my book.
My book - OH, my book. I think I believe in love again. Thank you, my book. I have just finished The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields. It wasn't the best bit I've ever read, and some of the detail left me all skimmy and move-on-like. BUT the bit where there are two people that fall in love (oh, the cover gives it away - you won't be surprised) and the description of how it is for them when they do... well, that made me all wide-eyed and excited about what may happen.
I've heard it from so many people - that at one point it was 'just different'. That all of a sudden, beyond the bounds of reason or logic, someone was there and the feeling was different. It was just right. Chemically, heartily, stomachally right. Not that it was perfect - that's not what I've heard people say - but right. And not always immediate, but often so.
And maybe that can happen for me. I've spent so many years believing it can't. Maybe it can. It'd have to be someone who doesn't mind all sorts of things, from twattishness to showing off and talking shit a lot and who doesn't disdain me for being a hippy in my heart. So why the fuck not. Oh, and swearing. It'd be quite good if they didn't mind that too much either.
I've had that feeling with houses - places to rent or buy. And with friends. I remember meeting Sarah Lonton, and within seconds, thinking 'oh yes'. No further than that. Just yes. Her good eggness showed through and though I didn't logicate about us being friends for a long time, something knew it. I felt instantly at ease.
But not yet with a lover or a partner. Yes, Berlin boy is a treat, our meeting was strange and easy and intense all at the same time, and perhaps something will come of that, but he is Safe Bet Category number one: people who live in other countries. Not on. I need to give that up. It keeps you protected from actually having to do proper intimacy, that does. It's nothing, or skype - which is a gift, but isn't real - or makes you overdose on the person's presence (think starvation, mirage, foie gras).
Oh god, the big bit that I want to say today, that I fear will go on, I haven't even started it and it's after half past eleven.
It's yoga again. I went back. Class three tonight. My yoga teacher continues to charm me (Safe Bet Category 2: teachers who are not inappropriate in an age way - I'm a grown-up - but in an authority figure way). But that's by the by. Secondary. Big time. Here's the thing:
We did a posture tonight, the Diamond (vajasana?) that's very simple, apparently. I should be doing it now, to help my late-night beans digest. You sit between your splayed heels and you focus on your heart centre and your third eye. You keep a dual focus of attention. You get them flowing together.
The way he explained it made me smile and smile. If you're not in touch with your heart, he said, you use your analytical mind - the seeing, naming, categorising bit. You observe, you label, you store it away or sort it with like things. You fit it into things you know, or the instant you get a whiff of knowing it, you make assumptions, drift off into your head and stop taking in. You could, that's all. Not that you do all the time, but that's the concept.
If you're only using your heart, like when you're crazy in love, full of expansion and flow and gratitude and bounteousness, bathed in love and flow, then you don't always reason that well. We're talking extremes, again, but you get the picture.
By opening the heart and mind together, so the theory goes, we allow our mind to observe infused with love. We see through the eyes of a child, with wonder and without pre-knowledge. We're still amazed, every time, at the colour of the sun, the taste of peaches or the softness of velvet against our skin. A leaf is magical. A cloud is a monster. Yes, we're still categorising, in a way, but the heart lets the wonder in. And the mind - well, the mind has the words, the tools, to articulate what it sees.
It still labels, but not always the 'right' way. It can communicate this wonderful juice the heart bit sees, and share the glow. Maybe that's why I've loved writing this blog so much. I get to see with the eyes of a child, or a wagging dog, or a curious loon, and I get to use words and images and feelings to describe it. AND I get the privilege of sharing it with other people, who make it come alive. Goodness me, I'm grateful for that. It's wonderful.
There - that wasn't too long, was it. Nearly there.
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