Two Little Boxes of Love and Evil

It has been a few days since my last post and I'm now well over a quarter of the way through the story. So, what's been happening in the last few days? I don't want to bore you with the subsistence stuff, although, I am processing, who and what I am on a regular basis and, those of you who know the real me will be aware of my reluctance to call myself a writer - I'm just someone recording words at the moment which, may be the same thing, but I am not a published writer, so, I'll wait for that day to come along and then maybe enjoy the status then although, I doubt it. I have, however been going through the motions and aligning my own views about artists and their internal struggle and wondering about how pretentious this is really - sat in a huge house away from home and lover and subjecting myself to a luxurious purgatory. Friends have been concerned about my welfare and, until today, I have had a sort of routine until I realised it was 1.30pm and I had not had a single cup of tea. I had boiled two eggs for lunch (tuna salad) and I had the thought, would they keep me going until dinner - until the end of the week? I had a romantic image of someone like Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls, someone on the outside, someone excluded from an artistic movement, surviving on the simple and surreal nourishment of a humble hen's egg. Or was it croquettas? Spain and reality come so quickly back in to view.

I wanted to talk today about this in a way and, the effect words can have on someone - I remember during my counselling training the tutor trying to explain the types of personality disorder and the world of Gestalt Therapy and he eventually claimed, a tad too cockily, for my liking, that in fact, I was obviously Grandiose - which would explain a yearning I have for recognition but not the lack of empathy presented by narcissistic types. I am empathic aren't I? Coming from a big family where one (oops, there I go again) can become easily lost, I think I had the desire to perform but that was seen as wrong somehow and I was discouraged from showing off - maybe by the time five of us had flooded through the womb, they had had enough. No matter.

So, I hope that explains why I may embark on something in one mode and then have to explain why I am something else in another. I do feel that I am a writer, but upbringing has convinced me to keep my head down - what would I have been like if my folks had encouraged me as opposed to putting up with me.

After my father died, I found a press-cutting of a review of the time I played Amadeus at Spring Street in Hull, it felt so incredibly sad, and, I'm reduced to tears as I write this, to think that he must have secreted it in an album, unable to share his emotions about it with me - good or bad. I know its not uncommon for fathers to be supportive in a 'be there with you' sort of way and I have lots of other things to thank him for (maybe this is one, ultimately, who knows), but I had appeared in two Gilbert and Sullivans' at school and he never went to those either! The family didn't discriminate - none of the others went either! Maybe he was intuitive about my talents who knows - I still see the bitch who wrote the review for Amadeus; maybe she rang him and said; "Eric, just don't frigging bother!" He will have read the review though and I'm sure if there were any good points raised, he would hang on to the 'garbled and indistinct' bit to reinforce his self-embarrassment in me. See, I said words were powerful and, look, I'm blubbing again - a grandiose embarrassment!

Continuing the psychic theme, the last reading I had at home SJ (Jacquie Sanderson in the book) who had predicted the whole Spanish bolt-hole, came up with another shocker - that she had my passed relatives and they were all shouting, "Just go and do it!" which is sort of... no, it IS really nice to remember, that when I picked up that yellowed piece of newspaper and unfolded it, he was reading it with me over my shoulder like he did when I was a child ...

He was a real influence on me, I can remember watching him hit away at his typewriter in his office when I was young, I was actually allowed in to keep him company and it is a lingering memory of him in the attic room; the smells of stationery, ink and rubber. He enjoyed writing and being eloquent  - maybe I got the grandiosity bit from him after all.

My oldest school-friend Roger, tunes in on Facebook most nights when my fingers are tired and my eyeballs are dropping out and asks how it has been going. Last night, I wanted to go to bed early as I had written nothing all day and got into some 'doingness' as Colin and I call it - meaningless objectivity to take away the thinking. Rog' knows I am referencing some characters from that period; I told him about Stephen giving me permission to write about our story when he came through at a psychic event. He then went on (he is a psychic fan and practitioner) to say that night times are when they probably do visit and it is not uncommon for them to sit on the side of the bed as you sleep. "You what?" I asked, "Who, what?"

"Oh, you'll probably wake up and find him sat there looking at you." he ended in a calm and matter of fact way.

To paint a picture; the house is the highest in the village next to the tower and close to the church and crypt and yesterday was a beautiful sunny day until this conversation when the weather changed completely, like in a movie. The wind howled all night and I could hear the furniture moving on the terrace above, thought about getting up and dealing with it - I decided to stay in bed with my visitor at my side...  But I am still alone...

If you would like a clearer picture of how it feels for me at the moment, well most of the time actually, take a listen to the The Glare by Michael Nyman and David McAlmont. The original track entitled The Glare was written about Susan Boyle - check out David's writing blog for his notes (which are fantastic as are the lyrics throughout) - there you have it, I'm on the spectrum with SuBo and yes, my grandiosity would have preferred someone exotic, like, say, Yves St Laurent, Genet or Brel, but will have to make do with an unsuspecting purity.