Easter.

Another Easter weekend. Doesn't seem a year since the last one frankly...and here I am in the same old same old...staring at a now empty coffee mug in Cafe Crem in a rainy and wind swept Newcastle...pretty much what I did last year if memory serves me. As I write the (hardly very original) tilte to this I was thinking of the Patti Smith album of the same name...it's cover sticks in my mind from when I first clocked it in what was then Woolworths in Banbridge circa 1978  or thereabouts. It was summer and Because the Night had gotten to number 5 in the charts at the time... I was unaware that the song was Bruce Springsteens at the time and I had never heard of the Patti Smith Group as it then was but there was something about it that grabbed me and still does...her version that is. I was a teenager and there was something about the picture of her on the album cover that also gripped me...no doubt some of it was down to teenage hormones but there was a rawness and a wildness in that picture that went beyond mere titilation..even then. Nor was it a conventionally "sexy" pic...whatever that would have meant to me at the time...but it has stayed with me ever since even though I've not seen the cover again more than once or twice in over thirty years. I remember thinking she was beautiful...as I stood there that Saturday afternoon all those years ago. Of course such things are in the eye of the beholder and she would not be regarded as a conventional beauty...a term I will pass over quickly as it is pretty much meaningless. I was a geeky nerdy type who would have run a mile  from any "conventionally attractive" female so it is perhaps not that strange that I found this dark haired and somewhat gothic looking woman attractive  ...at the time I was only vaguely aware of the punk rock scene though I spent a lot of that summer poking about in the local independent record store (the late lamented Itrecords) learning what I could. It was a dingy little box of a place but it had some of the more obscure stuff that Woolys would not have touched...I used to scan hungrily through the masses of vinyl album covers packed closely together, a bit nervous as the shop tended to be a gathering point for a mix of bikers, goths and punks  (not to say some punk goth bikers no doubt). They would congregate up at the little counter and chat to the bearded owner...harmless enough no doubt but to an awkward thirteen year old their presence was a bit intimidating...usually I would walk past a few times before going in to make sure the coast was clear. It wasn't the "safe" environment of Woolworths but then maybe that was the point ...you weren't going to find Richard Hell and the Void Oids, Wayne County and the Electric Chairs or Devo in Woolys. So many album covers ...so many bands...I was fascinated by the whole culture...not that that is how I understood it at the time. Without wishing to sound like a perve I could say that my sexual awakening...such as it was...occurred in that little shop with the fusty carpet and the rows and rows of vinyl...i would always find my way to the covers of Down in the Bunker by Steve Gibbons or Roxy Music's Country Life...to name but two.  But more importantly there was another sort of awakening...an interest in music and in the culture surrounding it...a vivid panoply of images both photographic and graphic that laid the ground work for my continuing obsession for all things pop culture related...and many things artistic from street art through to body art...indeed all forms of art. Yes it probably all started in that little record shack amongst the intimidating goths and bikers...walking past it the other day ..or rather where it used to be ...there was a pang of nostalgia for a time that I only truly appreciate now that it is long gone. Around the same time and feeding into that particular zeitgeist was a growing interest in comics...especially those hard to find American imports that only seemed to be available in ...again...small and dingy little newsagents off the beaten track. One such up in Portrush, down past where Troggs Surf Shop now is comes to mind...so small that you could not really stand more than two deep but packed with wonders from Marvel, DC and others...it was from there (I think) that I purchased the Conan the Barbarian "Song of Red Sonja" sometime around 1975 that introduced me to the art of Barry Windsor Smith...another milestone as for the first time I became aware of the sheer beauty of art...I can still see those panels in my mind (sadly the comic is long since gone...though it is now eminently collectible). I can't remember the exact point in time when that little shop closed but it must have been in the early eighties...I still can see it in my minds eye when I pass the spot where it was...now the side wall of a building.  Sometimes in dafter moments I day dream that it is still there...hidden somehow behind that wall like something out of Dr Who...shielded from view in another dimension...if only you could find a way through...or back to a time and a place that throbbed with possibility and that feeling of invincible and unimpeachable optimism that comes with being an eleven year old in a comic shop uncovering wonders. I suppose that is the essence of nostalgia...whether it is the sweep of Patti Smiths dark tresses or the immersive beauty of a BWS tableau ....it will differ for everyone. And it is hard to pin down as are most things of value and meaning...the things that stir the senses in the moment  and that we would go back and reclaim if only we could ...and yet deep down we would not because somehow we know it would not be the same and it is better left in the relative security of untouchable memory. And so that is that...funny the way things come to mind as they do. It will doubtless make little sense to anyone but myself but I mainly write this stuff for myself so it's of no matter. 

Happy Easter. 

I'm back

Lousy title I know but truthful. I haven't actually been anywhere of course but such is the sporadic nature of my blogging that a six or ten month gap is not that noteworthy. This is just a short catch up and statement of intent. I won't ramble too much.  

Basically since I last communicated I have moved back to my dads place after nearly four years on my own. I was dreading it but in actual fact it's worked out well enough and more importantly is saving me money...the main reason I did it. To be honest I am now kicking myself that I did not move back a couple of years ago. Initially I needed the space (not literally but psychologically) that the "house" (it was never home...that's a term that's now redundant pretty much) afforded ...I probably would have gone mad had I not gone down that route so I don't absolutely regret it. Hindsight of course offers a slightly more discordant view of things but doesn't it always. Anyway I have settled back in reasonably well...I keep to my part of the bungalow and our paths rarely cross except in the kitchen or hall...that suits us both quite honestly. My main reservation was going back to living with someone after 4 years of welcome solitude. I've long given up trying to explain to people that living with your ageing parent after a marriage split is far from ideal...it is best simply to keep ones counsel and get on with things. There are of course issues rumbling away below the surface...mainly financial stuff and a big potential issue that I am customarily avoiding in the hope that it goes away...a familiar modus operandi that gets no more efficacious with age and repetition.  However it is how I roll. Business continues to be ...well...crap basically. Having a shop that is continually on a knife edge financially is not conducive to a relaxed or settled existence. So my existence is neither. The constant clench in the pit of the stomach is something you never really get used to...and it is good at making its presence felt in the wee small hours as the thoughts go tumbling uncontrollably...or the spin cycle as some call it. I have no solution to that one except to grind on and hope for the best...any small improvement would be welcome business wise but it is hard to see where it will come from. But that's a blog for another day. On the personal front FB and other social media continue to distract from the somewhat harsh and unyielding feel of things ...though sometimes they also reinforce the sense of isolation and difficulty...bit of a poison chalice but they keep me mildly sane. Indeed it's partly thanks to a friend on FB that I'm writing this...she provided a much needed spur...you know who you are. I had hoped to get back to some walking this year as I could do withthe exercise as well as the distraction but I now have a very sore hip...possibly siattica...so that may curtail things. I also have rumblings in the IBS department ...it hit around late spring last year so I'm bracing myself...I'm continually reminded by well meaning people that it is stress related and I have run out of sarcastic replies. There's other stuff too...not for this blog...a hangover of the past (well several) that may lead to some conflict very soon ...I am continually braced it seems. Then there is the day to day stuff that trips you up...blah blah blah. And shards of memory that stab at you out of nowhere ...sometimes that's the worst thing because it's sudden and unexpected and you thought it dead and buried long ago. On this occasion a glance at a photograph brought it on...only last night. And for a good half hour I was fighting off the blackest of moods...laced with bittersweet memory...or in this case struggling to remember certain things that I had not considered important for a long time...family stuff...the stuff that can jump up and bite and draw blood when you think it tamed and dealt with. I should know better. Nothing stays buried. There is no hole deep enough at times. Hey ho. 

That's it for now. 

Sun, Sea, Sand and Angst.

After one of those painfully quiet days in the shop that seem to be the norm at present I decided hat since it was a sunny evening I'd take a drive up to Newcastle and go for a walk...well a short walk to Maud's coffee shop to be exact. I pretend to myself that I'm here because it's such an ideal "sun glinting off the water" type of evening but in reality after another oppressive grind of a day I just couldn't settle and needed to get out...away from Banbridge. Of course as with much in life the anticipation is always better than the reality..it's very pleasant up here on such a balmy evening but if my mind can't settle in one place a change of venue rarely helps that much.  And so it is tonight. Same mental fog...different surroundings.

 On the journey up all sorts of stuff was popping into my head ..several blogs worth in fact...now I can't recall any of it. Maybe I should try the dictation app on the phone. Coming up with a coherent set of words to describe my feelings on nights such as this is a thankless task...nothing will cohere without fairly stressful effort...which sort of defeats the purpose of blogging in order to relieve the pent up stress. Little snippets of memory and vague flashes of hopefulness coexist with the somewhat angst ridden landscape that passes for my mind currently. Then there is the bone numbing, will sapping anxiety that tunnels through the most carefully assembled defences, probing ever corner of my mind and tugging at every fibre of my being. There is no escape from its touch...no way of shielding the thought processes from its constant ingress. You can do as many thought exercises as you want...once anxiety has a grip it is relentless in its progress and ruthless in its application. I am not helping of course by attributing characteristics to it...bigging it up so to speak. But that's how it feels.

 I had a friend once plagued with anxiety and a lot of people used to tell her that she had nothing to be anxious about....she was comfortably off, happily married, had a fulfilling job etc...but of course they missed the point. Her anxiety was real to her and extolling the virtues of the wonderful life she had served only to make her feel even more isolated...and more anxious. She had deep abandonment issues that I won't go into which rendered all talk of how fortunate she was to have loving husband/family  etc pretty much irrelevant. She still struggles with it but with medication has improved. I say all that only to highlight how serious a problem anxiety can be irrespective of people's outward circumstances. There does not always have to be an obvious or specific reason. My own anxiety issues stem from both the general and the specific. The latter is the simplest to explain in that it is quite common these days. The shop is struggling and under constant severe financial pressure. If it continues like this I don't know how it will survive. Needless to say that is a concern. Dealing with the pressure of that day to day is like being in a vice that just keeps tightening. Keeping a lid on it when dealing with customers is next to impossible and requires great concentration. This in turn breeds more stress. I am not alone of course as a small business owner but that doesn't help. So that is the obvious one...the one that looms largest in my mind this evening. 

Then there is the other type. It's much harder to pin down and of course the financial/business pressures bleed into it to an extent. It comes from somewhere deep and is less amenable to reasoned analysis. It's like an undercurrent...flowing beneath and around everything else, releasing its poison as it goes. I suspect I know where it comes from but I am not willing to go there. Some things are too painful for a sunny evening in Newcastle. Or anywhere else. It's roots no doubt are in childhood where all roots terminate....or should that be begin...they are in my DNA perhaps...my code...it found nourishment in the wreckage of a failed marriage...and before that in the fractured relationship that lead there...we all have our code as Andy Kirkpatrick so eloquently laid bare in a recent blog. The code that makes us up that is. Not the code we live by. Mine is written across a tinder box of need, frustration and self loathing ...I am greater than the sum of its parts and yet I am limited by each in turn. Anxiety gets to have a field day in such company. 

There's quite a chill in the air as I walk back to the car. That's somehow fitting. 

Turn on the Bright Lights.

It's much easier to give in than to fight.

Those words or a variation of them have hung around my life like a bad smell for a long time now. Today was a bad day. Well a worse day than usual. There are reasons but I won't go into them. There doesn't always have to be specific ones but today there were.  You need to beware the slippery slope effect. It can start with vague unease and before you know it you are staring into the abyss. That's how it works. The mind (well my mind anyway) doesn't just jump it quantum leaps. Before you know it you are spiraling downwards uncontrollably. The effort required to reach out and grab at anything that can arrest your descent is enormous...you are too busy tumbling. If you've ever slid out of control down a hill or rocky incline you will get the picture. I couldn't settle this evening so I went for a short drive to a quiet, calming spot near where I live...sadly the lake side haven was packed with others of a similar intent so I retraced my steps and found myself turning off the road to a spot I haven't visited in a while. It's a secluded lay by set in off the road and overlooking the river Bann the purpose of which I've never been sure of other than to provide a handy spot for amorous or illicit rendezvous. The last time I was sitting here would have been about six or seven years ago and it would have been about 2 am. I'd stormed out of the house after a particularity caustic exchange and had driven here down the back roads at about 90 miles an hour ...it was the only place I could think of to go through the thick fog of madness that engulfed me. I say madness because I don't know what else to call it. It wasn't the first time I'd walked/run out of the house in a state after som e row or other and it wouldn't be the last but it sticks in my mind more than the others. I was gripped by madness that night. I remember feeling like my head was going to burst. My mind was threatening to break apart...whatever that means. There's no good way of explaining a feeling like that...other than by saying that the memory of it still causes me to wince as you would from a sudden pain. I remember screaming at God to do something...to help me or kill me. And I remember slamming my head repeatedly against the steering wheel as I sat here in the darkness till it hurt...perhaps in the hope that I could shake lose the horror of it all. I can't remember much else. Not even how long I was there for. About six months later I had left the house for good. 

As I sit here now with the light fading in exactly the same spot a lot of those buried emotions are resurfacing as I knew they probably would. They have of course taken on a new and slightly different edge. Pain always adapts and evolves. Darwin would have approved. Writing this has settled me a bit. As to what brought me here...not sure. Partly a need to reconnect with old hurts perhaps ...if that makes any sense at all. A place can do that. Perhaps also to make sense of more immediate turmoil. But that is too ambitious. Maybe to explore the connection between the two. And they are connected...though not in an obvious way. That's how the mind operates. 

I began by saying that it is easier to give in than to fight. And it is. I'm very tired. Tired of the grind of things...of the constant fire-fighting that is my life...of the struggle to keep everything going...of the fear and anxiety that gnaws at me incessantly...of the constant need to keep my guard up...of the way I feel about myself most of the time...of the anger that writhes and burns and won't go away...all of it. For a little while tonight giving up seemed more appealing than usual. But I think I will fight on...for now. 

It's time to head back to the house for some food and a bath. Interpol are playing at full volume. Turn on the Bright Lights. Not sure if it's a metaphor but it'll do. 

Decisions Decisions.

Decisions decisions. I'm not sure if saying it twice helps...I doubt it. I've opined before that one of the key difficulties that any sort of major life upheaval/trauma throws up beyond the immediate issue(s) is the affect it has on a persons decision making capabilities. When you are pushed into a corner (or feel that you are) everything intensifies...like a slow (ish) release fight or flight response that leaves you at times a bit caught between those two options. That's what it feels like anyway and one of the consequences is an increased tendency to find even quite small decisions problematic. Much in the same way I suppose that small, fairly insignificant things can become huge almost life and death issues. I remember some time back practically tearing the house apart looking for a particular hoody that I'd mislaid as if it was the holy grail itself...I was vaguely aware of how ridiculous my increasing state of anxiety over the whereabouts of this particular garment was (at least in the part of my brain that was still functioning rationally) but it did not lessen the rising panic over something that was really not that important. I had other hoodies. But I needed to find that one and I wasn't quitting till I did. Of course it had nothing to do with clothing...I knew that through the fog of irrational concern that was around me at the time. It's like when I (still) get really angry with the remote control of the TV and begin to converse with it as you would a mortal enemy...or the lawnmower cable when it keeps catching on that annoying rocky outcrop at the side of the house and breaks the connection (I actually shouted an expletive at it the other night and that I'm certain was audible to next doors occupant, while in my imagination  I visited all manner of horrors on the idiot who had put the rockery in such a stupid place). The rage generated has little or nothing to do with immediate events. It was the fact that the TV is in a house I don't really want to be in...as with the grass etc...my grass is somewhere else and I'd still be cutting it if life wasn't such a bitch and things had been different etc etc...and on it goes till you are in a frenzy of self-recrimination over allowing yourself to once again be dragged down that cul de sac of anger and rage. Then you are even angrier at being angry. And it's "her" fault (you can substitute what or who you want) for putting me in this situation where I'm cutting someone else's grass and watching TV in someone else's house. Let me repeat...THIS IS NOT ABOUT GRASS.  I don't care about grass one way or the other...in fact as a chronic hayfever sufferer I would happily live in a grass free world altogether. You get my drift. The problem is not grass or TVs or rockery placement...it is anger. The sort of anger that burns and broods and writhes, clawing at your innards till it bursts forth in a torrent and goes for the jugular of whoever or whatever is in the vicinity at that moment. It is a relentless, indiscriminate & unstoppable force that on the inside eats like acid and on the outside spews the debris in all directions. It is often followed by a feeling of guilt and an emptiness bordering on desolation...it is never sated...no matter how frequent or forceful its expression. For some it is a struggle with it in general terms...for others it's related to specific events and people. I'm in the latter camp. Of course you often start in the latter camp and cross over to the former. Such is the insidious nature of the beast. Counselling and "anger management" may of course mitigate it or even allow a certain amount of controlled release but in my limited experience it often only papers over the cracks. Anger runs deep and it runs long. It's resilience is hard to break down. I know this every time I cut the grass...or swear at the TV remote.  One small plus is that my own acquaintance with intense anger has made me a bit more sympathetic to angry people in general...well I hope it has anyway. Anger comes from pain. And some people are in a lot of pain. Even the annoying ones. But what about those decisions? I had not actually intended this to be about anger but as if to prove a point it's ended up pushing its way centre stage. Perhaps that merely indicates how close to the surface mine is. And to a degree how all-pervasive it is. The ability to make decisions is as much undermined by it as by other factors......anxiety, insecurity, instability ...all these things bleed uncomfortably into each other.  A very close friend recently said to me that it is generally better to do something than to do nothing. The context can affect that obviously but in my case they are right. I've more or less decided to move out of the rented accommodation I've been in for nearly four years and go back to live with my father. I moved out originally as I needed my own space ....that has not really changed but I can no longer realistically afford to stay there. Taking such a decision may not seem a big deal...I was told as much yesterday by a well meaning acquaintance...and in the grand cycle of the universe it's not. But it is to me. It's yet another choice I'm making that I don't want to make. As was the choice to live here in the first place. As was the "choice" to leave the marital home in the first place and go back to the house I grew up in. I wanted none of it. And for that reason anything associated with it is always, in its own way, going to be a big deal. And it will always be tainted in some way by that anger that won't go away, however much it may abate in intensity. 

Such is life. 

A swan, some ducks and David Gray

Not often I do one of these 2 days running but I felt the need tonight.   This blogging as therapy could end up being hard work. Was at a bit of a loose end this evening and having drawn a blank at my usual points of contact I headed out to the Corbet Lake...a small stretch of water just outside town frequented by the local fishing fraternity and a haunt for some very colorful water fowl. There's a small car park set in against the road in which you can sit and view across the lake as I'm doing now. As I write a couple of ducks have taken up residence near to the car...I have David Grays New Day at Midnight blaring away in here but the ducks seem unperturbed...I'm not sure if it's because they have good taste in music or if they have gotten used to the comings and goings here...probably the latter. A particularly stressful day at work has given way to a flat and non descript sort of evening. Just me, David Gray and some ducks...and a swan that I've just noted. Could be worse I suppose. I've only recently discovered Gray properly...I was aware of him obviously (Babylon and all that) but had never really paid much attention until someone sent me this album recently  (now that dates me) and it's been like the soundtrack to my life of late. Funny the way songs impact you ...in ways that I'm certain the writer never intended. I find Gray rarely disappoints in that regard. There's almost always something lyrically that tugs or resonates whatever the songs. Particularly if one is in a certain frame of mind. I've heard these 12 songs countless times but I always seem to get some new little nuance here and there...or maybe I'm just too susceptible to mood."Meet me on the Other Side" is just finishing...

 "That trick ain't worth the time it buys

I'm sick of hearing my own lies"

Yep...those nuances keep coming. 

Murlough.

One of the reasons I came back to writing this blog was following another one...http://writing2survive.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2013-12-31T16:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-12-31T16:00:00-08:00&max-results=8&m=1 

This person lives near me (though I don't know him personally) and I liked the idea of the title of the blog...well rather than liked as such I suppose it resonated with me and of course I found the content interesting and arresting at times. I chose the title of my own blog ...Breathing Underwater (if you remember that far back) with a similar kind of intent to the aforementioned albeit for different reasons at the time. The point of course bring that you can't do it...well not unaided. I could have called it "drowning but staying alive" but that would have been a tad cumbersome. Having said that it would have avoided confusion in the search engines between my little blog and purveyors of diving equipment but that's by the way. No harm done..as yet. I don't give out advice on hazardous oceanic activities and they (I assume) don't write strange blogs about nothing in particular. I liked the idea of writing stuff down to help me process it ...and of sharing this odd (and by definition impossible) journey with anyone on the Internet who was vaguely interested (or who had mistakenly logged in expecting a tutorial on scuba equipment). Several years on I'm not really certain of the efficacy of such an endeavour...or if it really helps to turn your feelings into words. Of course the general principle is sound enough...but I'm not sure about the practice in my case. But I will persist regardless, if for no other reason than it fills up time. As I write this it is a sunny day up here on the County Down coast and Newcastle is buzzing with people....not really how I like it but I can't have everything my own way. I used to come up here two maybe three times a week after the "big upheaval" of a few years back and walk the stretch of beach from the Sleive Donard hotel to where the large warning signs for Ballykinler rifle range adorn the sand...I would stop at various points along the way and gaze out at the sea from the waters edge. I would go there in all weathers...even the depths of winter...to the point where I should have been able to identified every grain of sand on that beach. Well I exaggerate...every other grain perhaps. But you get the point. Sometimes I'd have music from the iPhone blasting in my ears...sometimes just the wind and movement of the waves. Other times I just walked, locked into a state of "not thinking" at least as far as certain things were concerned...allowing the embrace of the sea air and the never really changing spectacle around to overwhelm the "spin cycle" of anxiety and anger and whatever else that was my constant mental narrative  at the time. Sometimes it actually did....at least intermittently. I remember particular snippets..one especially sunny day when the gleaming water actually gave me a flash of that sense of wellbeing that was completely alien to me at the time (if I ever had it)...so much so that I recall staying there a very long time and if not quite basking in it allowing it some ingress. Another day the wind was so strong it was blowing a sandstorm and I had to walk backwards into it eventually taking shelter at the rocks till it passed...the ghostly movement of sand is still etched on my mind. And then there was the day in winter (December I think) when it was bone numbingly cold...the exhilarating sort of cold that penetrates the very marrow and blocks out everything but it's own razor sharp chill. There were many other days (and evenings) of course but those ones for some reason stand out. On particularly grim days the thought of that beach and being on it later that evening or the following weekend ...or  just the view of it to be honest in my minds eye...kept me going. The thought of not getting up to Murlough for an extended period...I am talking a week or so...would fill me with what I can only describe as slow release panic. In those early days I was still a believer...so prayer ...both silent and verbalised...was part of the equation. As the further parts of the beach were  almost deserted I would head to particular spots (and usually to the waters edge...or if the tide was out to the furthest point where I could firmly stand) and I would talk to the God who I believed was still in control of the chaotic events of my life. Usually  I would mumble to myself but occasionally I would become more vocal...I do not recall crying to the heavens as such but I certainly cried on occasions and I'm certain as the intensity of feeling increased so did the level of my voice. Mostly though it was drowned out by the wind or the sea noise though I do recall thinking that if the occasional passerby saw me standing with my lips moving they would have thought me mad...not that I was that concerned. I can't now remember the specifics of what I prayed..though I do know there were specifics...I was a bit of a talker when communing with the deity. Looking back now and thinking about it the intensity of those encounters shocks me a little...it seems not only from a different lifetime but that it was a different person standing there. Much has changed in my head since then and yet much remains the same. Not least my complete about face on the God front ...but that's another story. 

And so to today and Murlough. It's been a couple of years at least since I did the beach walk outlined above...despite being up in Newcastle most weeks I've confined myself to the town and the coffee shop, viewing Murlough from a distance. Over a year ago when the winter storms caused severe damage along the coast I had heard that part of the beach had been swept away and had meant to check that out for myself but I never got round to it...seems it was an exaggeration. I walked incessantly after leaving the house (I no longer regard it as home...I will always have a problem with that word) but not so much this last eighteen months or so...I have a problem with my hip (which walking exacerbates) but that is perhaps too handy an excuse. Last evening a friend of mine asked me if I had what she described as "a thinking spot", somewhere specific I would go to clear my head and weigh up decisions etc...the question carried a lot of resonance and I immediately thought of Murlough...and that particular spot on the beach almost midway across where I did a lot of thinking and praying. She suggested I should go back there again and I said that if I was up there today I would...and that is exactly what I did. It took that little push and I am grateful for it. It is always much easier not to do things than to do them...I am an expert in the former. It was sunny & breezy this afternoon and by the time I made my way round to the beach the tide was well out, which I always prefer at Murlough...you get these islands of smooth sand on the far side of the stones, the latter well pooled with water and requiring a bit of dexterity to negotiate. I headed to the first expanse of sand I came across and stood facing out to sea...there was no one about despite the lovely day it was and the sea was restfully foaming in that way that it does with just enough breeze coming off it to lightly chill through my cotton tee shirt...but not enough to make you shiver. I recalled the last time I was there...or thereabouts...I still believed in God and would have felt it perfectly natural to talk to him out loud. I felt no such inclination today but it did feel slightly odd just standing there...old habits die hard perhaps. I didn't do much thinking...it was good just to be there again in that familiar place that had been such a constant backdrop to my life for so long ...and despite the changed dynamic to my thinking it felt like I'd never been away. I resolved to get back into a routine of coming here again...albeit in a new dispensation so to speak. I thought about my friend and wondered if she had gone to her own "thinking spot" as she had said she would. I stood for a few more minutes looking out at the horizon then turned and began the walk back to the car park steps. 

It felt like I'd accomplished something, even though I knew I hadn't.