I suffer from periodic restlessness. An itch in my feet. A need to follow the path until it leads back to my front door again. I try to curb it by walking as much as possible at acceptable times. This often works and I don’t stray too far. My own natural laziness contributes too – “don’t go”, it coos, “it’s warm here, play a game, watch a DVD, read a book” – and I find myself seduced into staying. But sometimes there is nothing I can do but grab my coat, pull on a stout pair of boots and stride into the wind.
Tonight, I had something to think about and needed space in which to think it. The confines of the flat were pressing in on me and I needed to get out. I hadn’t even realised it had started snowing. No sooner had I stepped outside than I was transported, forgetting what was brewing inside my stupid head. It was so beautiful. Feathers of snow were falling, gatherings of flakes. I walked for two hours, finally coming back when Re: Stacks had come around again for the third time, my hat was soaked through and my forehead was starting to ache. I had walked in a circular fashion, starting at an empty park and then arriving back at it after following some kids on their way to a snowball fight. The only time I refused to go the way I wanted to was at the gates of a graveyard, I stopped myself when a car turned down the road towards me. I just walked. I paused occasionally; under streetlights so I could watch the patterns in the air, to place my gloved hands in mounds of snow, not to break it up, just to get some sense of the feel of it, to distinguish the shapes beneath the snow and remember what they were before. I felt the hurry and annoyance of the people around me; wrapped-up people tired by the effort of walking home, car drivers agitated at being forced to go no faster than really slowly, passengers on the train urging it on and would-be passengers at the station urging it to stop. I didn’t have anywhere to be and I felt the luxury of being able to just enjoy it. Tomorrow it will be something else – maybe a threat, probably a hassle – but tonight it was special. I walked through it, part of it, vicariously experiencing the joy of someone else’s well-aimed snowball. I threw my arms out for balance as I teetered and laughed as I fell. I recognised my own, solitary, footsteps as I crossed my own path. I lay down in the park and made a snow angel.
As I returned home, I realised that my decision was made. I had turned my thoughts over and over as I walked, not knowing how to arrive at a conclusion or whether I even should. But at some point, between stepping off one bridge and arriving at another, my mind made itself up. I lose myself when I walk at night, only to return feeling like I'm filling my own outlines again.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Hackneyed Post About Resolutions
On the basis that it has been several weeks since I last posted, I feel that it is time to do another one. And because my brain has been temporarily stunted by the consumption of far too much food and drink I am choosing to post about New Year's resolutions. Bear with me (or not. I am certainly not forcing you to read this. I definitely do not have, say, a sniper's rifle aimed at the back of your head whilst I am observing your reading habits through the view thingie. Ignore that dot of red light, honest). Anyways, here we go:
1) Do more stuff. This looks a bit stupid when written down and it's difficult to explain as I haven't really thought about how to do this without money. I just want to go on more adventures and have experiences. I think the thing I regret about my twenties is that I was far too easily content not doing that much. I'm finding it easier as I get older to care less about comfort and I want to carry on doing stuff because it's fun or interesting. This is another positive thing about being single - I don't have to get someone's permission or argue for what I want or drag anyone along with me unwillingly.
2) Eat less cheese and run more. I've lost about two stone this year and am very, very happy with the amount of weight I've lost. I would really like to lose some more but hate dieting. Therefore, instead of instilling any kind of complicated diet regime I'm going to go back to eating what I like in moderation, listening to my body and trying to limit the amount of cheese I eat. I really bloody love cheese and it tends to be my shortcut when I'm tired and can't be bothered to cook. This is a bad thing. On the plus side, I found out how much I really like running this year and, as a result, would like to get better at it. I'm also planning to do more dancing, mainly because I'm scarily uncoordinated and it helps a little bit.
It is so weird being at the end of a decade, isn't it? I just had lunch with Kathryn and we were talking about the way our lives had changed in that time. My life has changed a lot and probably in small, indiscernible ways that I could never have predicted or even understood ten years ago. I spent so much time in my teens thinking about my future and trying to get some sense, through books and films, of what this future would be like. I thought I'd know how I would react to any number of things that I've been confronted with over the last ten years and it's never been the case. I am far less melodramatic and excitable in real life than I am inside my head. I am fairly sure that the books I've read would have been really dull had the heroine, after being cheated on five weeks before her wedding, coped with it primarily by sleeping a lot - the summer of 2007 is still something of a confusing, hazy blur in my memory. Interestingly, I spend almost no time at all thinking about the future beyond the next week or so now. It feels like a waste. There is absolutely no point in my thinking about it because I can't predict it. I've never been that bothered about fitting in and will not die unfulfilled without marriage or children or property to my name. Which is good because it means I won't waste my time searching for those things or settling for something less than I deserve in order to get them. I would prefer to be surprised than disappointed, I think.
So, there you go. My aim for the year is to do more stuff and my aim for the decade is to be surprised. Never let it be said that I set unrealistic goals for myself.
1) Do more stuff. This looks a bit stupid when written down and it's difficult to explain as I haven't really thought about how to do this without money. I just want to go on more adventures and have experiences. I think the thing I regret about my twenties is that I was far too easily content not doing that much. I'm finding it easier as I get older to care less about comfort and I want to carry on doing stuff because it's fun or interesting. This is another positive thing about being single - I don't have to get someone's permission or argue for what I want or drag anyone along with me unwillingly.
2) Eat less cheese and run more. I've lost about two stone this year and am very, very happy with the amount of weight I've lost. I would really like to lose some more but hate dieting. Therefore, instead of instilling any kind of complicated diet regime I'm going to go back to eating what I like in moderation, listening to my body and trying to limit the amount of cheese I eat. I really bloody love cheese and it tends to be my shortcut when I'm tired and can't be bothered to cook. This is a bad thing. On the plus side, I found out how much I really like running this year and, as a result, would like to get better at it. I'm also planning to do more dancing, mainly because I'm scarily uncoordinated and it helps a little bit.
It is so weird being at the end of a decade, isn't it? I just had lunch with Kathryn and we were talking about the way our lives had changed in that time. My life has changed a lot and probably in small, indiscernible ways that I could never have predicted or even understood ten years ago. I spent so much time in my teens thinking about my future and trying to get some sense, through books and films, of what this future would be like. I thought I'd know how I would react to any number of things that I've been confronted with over the last ten years and it's never been the case. I am far less melodramatic and excitable in real life than I am inside my head. I am fairly sure that the books I've read would have been really dull had the heroine, after being cheated on five weeks before her wedding, coped with it primarily by sleeping a lot - the summer of 2007 is still something of a confusing, hazy blur in my memory. Interestingly, I spend almost no time at all thinking about the future beyond the next week or so now. It feels like a waste. There is absolutely no point in my thinking about it because I can't predict it. I've never been that bothered about fitting in and will not die unfulfilled without marriage or children or property to my name. Which is good because it means I won't waste my time searching for those things or settling for something less than I deserve in order to get them. I would prefer to be surprised than disappointed, I think.
So, there you go. My aim for the year is to do more stuff and my aim for the decade is to be surprised. Never let it be said that I set unrealistic goals for myself.
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