With gentle skill he probed away at the curb to determined its depth and stepped off without a hint of a stumble, just a nice evenly balanced step. The cork of the cane kept bobbing in short spaced intervals just in front of him until it hit the first collection of stacked paving stones, then the rhythm of movement changed to very quick taps sweeping in wide arcs. His head tilted back and fro as if he was watching something only he could see. I could only guess he was using some sort of spatial location awareness to build up a 3D map of what his cane was feeding him. With precision he picked his way through the gaps of the paving stone stacks, navigated over the paved and unpaved road sections and then confronted the cars. I really thought this was going to give him some grief, because really they were a wall with the last one sitting to one side of a street with traffic. As his cane hit the first car he instinctively must have known what it was and quickly turned his body to take a sideways tack on the object, in the direction of the road and traffic. I remember holding my breath a little bit and thought if he walked out onto the road I’d scream and run over, but as I was formulating this in my head he had found the edge of the car’s back-end and shimmied past it just brushing the bumper with his pants leg. The cane’s end found the curb, which he then stepped over, and off he went up the street resuming his rhythmic tap-tap-tap broad sweeps with his cork tipped cane.

I couldn’t help but smile in admiration for the man and I whispered a very quiet, Well done, mate, to him as he walked away.

I am confronted by obstacles in the same way as the blind man but the difference with me is he accepts his obstacles as a part of his environment – his life – and he finds a way around them because he must if he is to continue walking forward. I know myself that I don’t accept the challenge of all the obstacles in my life with the same gracious acceptance and skilful navigation. Of course you could say he has to graciously accept the physical obstacles of his environment and navigate around them because if he didn’t he would never leave his home. As I’m feeling philosophical this afternoon, I’m going to say this is really just a metaphor of life for those of us with eyes.

I’ll never know his name, and will never speak to him, but that afternoon that man showed me something that I’ll remember for a long time to come.

Andy.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

From the time I was an early teenager I would visit psychics with my mother as she was a person that believed heavily in such people. If I was asked why, I would have to say it was because of her circumstances. Mum had a hard life during the decades of her 30’s and 40’s; unceremoniously dumped then divorced and left with two kids to raise, I think she was looking for hope more than real answers when she would go to these people. Most of the time though they would tell positive stories out of a hard past, and convey happy future events that were generically vague and something anybody could tell you if they came from that same cultural background. It was simply a clever twist of words from a person attuned to body language being told to someone looking for some hope. Let’s face it, if you’re the sort of person that regularly goes to psychics then you’re the sort of person that is willing to believe anything as long as it is what you want to hear. For me personally though there were two or three occasions when someone would tell me something genuinely and specifically accurate from my past, and detailed events that would actually take place years later. These rare chance meetings forced me then to admit the possibility of forces at work that are outside the scope of a non deterministic universe.

In my late 20’s I moved to Europe and suddenly the world expanded to full size. I did a lot of traveling around and saw many things that spanned the length and breadth of human culture. There is really nothing like extended backpacking travel to show you that life in your own back yard is a very small part of life everywhere. I started to question a lot of the ideas that I had taken for granted while growing up in Australia, particularly after a trip to India and Nepal. For me the experience of coming into contact with people of deep spiritual beliefs from the east was profound to say the least, it led me to periods of intense introspection concerning my own understanding of reality, life, and fate.

It was a profound feeling; surreal in the blur of emotions that whirred through heart with each turn of the plastic holders. I looked at the pictures of the younger me, surrounded by the younger people I knew, some of them still in my life, others gone like last summers sun shine, and remembered.

I was a different person back then, happier, more carefree, yet always intense and chasing something deeper and constantly moving. Many of the pictures showed me now what I had failed to see back then too; that there were people with a deep feeling for me, that went beyond what words they would say.

Looking back I could see me then and look at a person that was free from the realities that were to come, but also see a person who constantly doubted everything that he saw around him and felt like he had to push forward onto something else that he could barely understand; a future free from doubt.

It led to this place here and now.

I guess the thing for me is that the photos showed that the people we are and were are not separate, but the same, we simply choose to forget or ignore those sides of ourselves that time moves into the background, but they are not ever truly lost. Our essential self can always change and modify as we grow with time, but we never have to leave behind the best parts of ourselves that we want the most. It seems as we get older the pressure of life always makes us feel that things get harder, but I think that’s just how we interpret changing responsibilities, and that our position becomes one where more is at stake with each decision we take.

Looking through those pics I was reminded of some important things, and for me at least, it has made a positive change in remembering the good things about the life I was given. And also, to do something I’ve forgotten to do that is important.

The next 10 years deserves those lessons.

Andy.

Almost.

For me the slow turning of the season into autumn is a reminder of not only the quiet persistence of nature, but the nature of change.

Gradual and inevitable.

We may not notice the slow change of a life heavily sedated in repetition, but like the seasons that roll into each other with graceful obviousness, change does indeed come.

Sometimes it’s easy to hold onto the illusion that things will never change, and end up taking for granted all those things in life that should remain precious. I think we do this as a consequence of having memories that fade away over time;  no tumultuous emotional experience will remain so, with each turn of a day, a little bit of the pain is lost. And then one day you wake up and find out there is no pain, and there is almost no recollection.

And it’s not wrong, it’s simply the nature of change.

Andy.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot the last few days. I understand why dad got divorced, and why he went into the relationships with those women that came after. I understand this because to some extent I’ve lived to see being faced with the same choices. The difference is I did not repeat his mistakes, because I knew what they cost.

As sons, we all learn from our fathers, however all my lessons were seeing what roads not to go down; what behaviour was wrong; and what thinking would eventually lead to tragedy. I suppose in the end I feel lucky that at least I have been able to take something positive from his role model despite his actions that were anything but.

I have met a lot of people in life complain that they had a rough start because of their family. Fathers, or mothers that never showed them enough attention, or love, or gave them enough material things to satisfy them. Some of these people genuinely had tragic childhoods, while others only perceive it so when the reality was, they had quite sheltered upbringings. If it’s one thing I can say now with conviction, it’s that we as individuals must go beyond the limitations that surrounded us during our early years, and become better than the sum of the individuals who were with us at that time.

If we don’t, we will only walk the same paths.

Andy.

Tags: sons, understanding

I wasn’t even paying attention to what I was listening to, as I was getting very intense into the work at hand, making everything on my weblogs just so, when I became aware of the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise in some sort of primal way, and feel my lips pull back in a half smile, half frenzied snarl of lust. Some tune was banging out that I couldn’t remember the name to, but at a subconcious level a flood of experiences unlocked and flowed over me!

Wow! For the next 7 minutes I was taken on a ride that was almost orgasmic in its effect! I couldn’t sit still, at one point I got up and started jumping around my computer room like I was back on the dance floor in Si Hall’s flat in the middle of Amsterdam on fuckin new years eve, man! WHOOO HOOO! I could almost feel the exctasy flowing through me once more, and see the laughing faces of the people that were there that night. I closed my eyes at one point and almost, nearly almost, could hear the sounds of the party lilting through my living room, as if I was back there. Ahh, the bliss! A time of love and glory my friends. It was a night to remember, and one that I will take with me for the rest of my days!

The tune happens to be number 7 on the second disc; I Dream – (with Tilt). And even now, nine years after its first debut, I still think this is one of the best progressive electronic compositions ever made! This is one you crank up loud and ride the rush! Mind you, the whole of the second cd is just goddamned fookin amazing, ey! And seriously worth listening to.

This revelation with music is one I have recur in my life at long but regular intervals; I’ll go a year without really feeling intense about anything, and then I’ll have this moment of enlightenment that totally blows me away as I come across an old tune, or music composition that almost makes me cry with pleasure and memory.

I guess that’s what makes the experience so fantastic; to have it fade, and then come upon me again with an intensity that rocks me to the core.

Andy.

As I sat in my flat today I was doing some idle browsing around YouTube. Not with any intent or purpose, but just randomly looking at images and letting them fill my head. Without even consciously thinking about it, I typed in Mike Oldfield – one of my favourite muscians – and found his Tubular Bells video. This really captured a feeling inside of me on so many levels it’s almost impossible to describe the flow of thoughts as they occurred. Seriously this would have to be one of the most amazing and intense peices of music ever composed, and to listen to it over and over again gave me goose bumps each time. I think to have been there at the concert would have been taking part in a very special event at that time and that place. And it was thinking about what it must have been like to have been there, that I realised events will always move as time moves, and we will always be travelling through a cycle of life.

I guess we are always reinventing ourselves in cycles as well. As people we aren’t constant, we are in a constant state of flux; evolving with each contact of the minutae of our environment. Some of these we can consciously effect, but many we can’t. This is what makes some changes within ourselves more visible than others.

I suppose for me this return to my blogging is important because it means coming out of isolation. It doesn’t matter that noone reads what I write, what is important is that I write it. After all, the feeling of reaching out and having an effect on someone the way Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells had an effect on me, is really why I write. I’ve been touched by some extraordinarily good writing by a couple of bloggers, and I like to think that my writing could do the same for at least one other person out there in the internet.

Coming back, I’m not going to go by my alias anymore. I feel to some extent, I’ve outgrown it. Originally it was there because I wanted to maintain some sense of privacy, because I like to write about work sensitive stuff like drugs and, well drugs. But anyone who really wanted to could find out who I am, so there is no point trying to hide behind a name. So now, I’m just going to go by my name; Andy. And you can all – all four of you who read me – get to know just that much more intimately!

Andy.

I got into the swing of things, being picked up by the general crowd fever of excitement and thirst for intoxication; I didn't want to be left behind, so I put my own head to the table and went with the flow. A little while later, when the clock struck midnight, I held my sparkler in the air and twirled it at the stars while singing Auld Lang Syne, my heart full of cheer.

I remember looking around the room many times during that night of the party, seeing the faces of the crowd, most of whom I knew, and remembering the history behind them. The last year had been a good one despite how terrible some of the bad days of my breakup had been. I could think back to a lot of fun times with this group who I had come to call my friends; they were a balance to everything else that was painful. I felt happy to see out the old, and in with the new, with them by my side.

It was around 7am on that day of the first when we finally put on our coats and headed outside to the dim grey dark early morning, that is the norm for winter in Europe. There were only 2 people left around the table, now all covered in party litter, like a ships bottom is covered with barnacles. My little group was one of the last to go and by that time our feet ached and our heads were blurred and sluggish. Little matter, it was a whole day to sleep it off, when sleep would come. The important thing was, it was a night to remember, and a long kiss goodbye to that babe of a year, 2007.

Padwanna

My flat is on the second floor. When the office window curtains are open, the world can look in and see me, as easily as I can see the world outside. For the first couple of weeks, I used to sit at my desk with the curtains closed. I wasn't comfortable having them open when I would sit down there, no matter what time of the day or night it was. I can't really articulate in words why I felt like that either. I guess I just didn't like the feeling of strangers looking at me when I was doing something deeply personal, like sitting in front of my computers. It's not that I have something to hide, but there is an intimate world behind the screen that I get sucked into, and it's not something I share.

Today however, for the first time, I was sitting here, at my desk, in the late afternoon, with the curtains open. The sun was glowing bright orange and shining through the thinning branches of the trees across the street. Each of the branches becoming more bare with each passing day as their leaves turn light brown, then dark brown eventually falling to the ground. People were strolling through the falling leaves; some walking dogs; some walking kids; some walking hand in hand; and some walking alone, yet all of them walking through the falling leaves. There was a serenity in that moving moment of scenery that was beautifully accompanied by some silky smooth lounge tunes from my favourite radio station ETN.FM in the background.

I realised at that moment, that my beautiful view was not just about what was in front of me, but also being a part of it. To see something, and in turn being seen, makes you part of the canvas that is the picture of the world.

I've not closed my curtains since then.

Padwanna!