I think there comes a time in everyone’s life, where a period of introspection is needed; a reflection of the preceding pages while the ink that marks them has yet to dry. It is here, at the turning of a new chapter in my life, and at the beginning of a new decade, (no not the 2010’s), that I find myself deciding to start a blog. It’s purpose, it’s outcome or even it’s content, are as unknown to me as the sequence of events that led me to starting it. Well, that’s not strictly true. The idea was born out of my desire to write, lest I let my life lose meaning. Not in a macabre manner, just in the sense that when I do write any mundanity that threatens to envelop me is cast away, like poison Ivy stripped from the walls of a house.
Regardless, I hope as I write, that the words, sentences, paragraphs and eventually pages, amalgamate into something truly representative of my values. That is to say, that I hope that I can overcome my own innate ‘writer’s curse’ and can continue this project to completion, rather than letting it collect virtual dust in the annals of my laptop, only to be unearthed years later like some long forgotten artifact pried from an ancient casket.
I’d be lying if I said I knew much about blogs, and for someone who went to university to study the art of writing, I find myself doing very little in regards to studying its differentiating forms. Usually, my thoughts are left to linger on scraps of paper and non tilted word documents never to see the light of day again. The little that I do know about blogs, is that, beside their more professional uses, they can form a coalescence of thoughts in a more tangible manner than said scraps of paper. Coupled with the fact that for the first time since leaving university, the words I lay upon the page are free from oversight, (my only masters spell check and limiting my procrastination), I find myself free to write as I so please.
Yet, as I settle into the surroundings of my new home I couldn’t quite quantify, in the standard written form at least, the feelings that envelop me. Only by mystifying it, contorting that maelstrom of feelings and thoughts that swirl about my head into the abstract, as all aspiring writers do, was I able to understand it. Basically, I wrote a free verse poem about my initial thoughts in the city and despite my best judgement, I’m going to share it here.
Here lies one man’s sanity.
Lost in the sanctity of a city,
One not capable of understandment.
Not by I, nor the faceless statuettes,
Who contemplate such madness,
As to walk these streets alone.
Ebbing, like coloured candle wax they drip,
Layering upon their forefathers,
Swallowed up beneath the marble arches.
They float inside clouded bubbles,
And afraid of bursting, they covet others clarity.
Fearing the unknown.
Honestly, after writing that poem, and especially after reading it myself, I’m more confused than when I started. The only thing that is has solidified in my head, however, is the strange contradiction that is the Londoner. For all the talk about the wonders of the city, (of which there are many), the sheer nonchalance in the face of them by the people inhabiting this city amazed me. When I arrived, I quietly gaped in awe of every building. I developed such a habit of doing so that I thought my neck might twist permanently upwards, in some cruel irony leaving my eyes to wander the clouds for eternity. I have been to London many times, in fact I was born here. But something about finally being immersed in a culture, one that I had long thought to be part of me, made me respect my surroundings with a fervour I hadn’t known I possessed. But, as I often felt about Malvern, the town I’ve spent most of my life, there’s only so long you can stare at a painting until the colours begin to fade. Like said metaphorical painting, the sense of wonderment that I first felt is starting to fade.
On where that dull sense of familiarity has crawled from, I can’t say. More than in any place I have had the chance to live, the days escape me here. It’s a strange feeling, again one which evades me, but I will spare us the musings of my poetry this time. The beginning of this blog makes it appear as if I have written this as soon as arrived; pen on pad with one foot still on the train. But, at the time of writing I’m entering my fourth month living in the big city. I had intended to start this blog much earlier, it’s first draft appearing all the way back in November, but I’ve found that this city doesn’t afford you the luxury of rest.
Since I arrived, my life has become a flipbook, every page of it containing an intricate scene bursting with colour. However, now that I’ve started flipping the pages, the book is moving so fast that I’ve forgotten what the individual images look like. Instead, I’ve been left to ponder the sum of the parts, whilst still not entirely sure of its whole. This isn’t a complaint however. Growing up in the countryside I cried out for such an abundance of activities and I am fully in the process of immersing myself within them. But it must be said; it’s attractions are limitless and it’s appeal inexhaustible at times. That does nothing for me when the days slip away and I can be left blinking wondering how many, if any, have passed at all.
As I look into the future, I can’t help but think that this next decade is the one that may define succeeding chapters of my life. By the time this next one ends I’ll be thirty two years old, at which point sharing a small flat with my brother and a mate might not seem like such an accomplishment. If this blog still exists by then, it will be interesting to look back and see how well/misplaced my hopes for the future were. Or, if I have delved into the rabbit hole of consciousness too deeply and it has become a grandiose form of the scraps of paper which still litter my house. Regardless, I’m finally here, and despite any negativity I feel I may have conveyed with this blog post, I’m wholly excited to see what comes at me in the coming months. All I can do is look ahead and wonder; what lies waiting for me on the next page and am I ready for what will be written upon it?
One Fellows Journey 