Saturday, 19 April 2003

Autumn Longing Bah. I wanted to write on autumn and longing but scared I'll make a hash of it in my current state. Too bad: I'm writing it anyway. We're halfway through autumn here, and we've hit a stretch of perfect autumn weather. The nights are cool but not so that we yet need the heating on. The mornings are crisp and dewy. The mist clears by mid morning, revealing the most-stunning clear air and gorgeous golden light. It's the kind of light that makes me wish I could photograph or paint, the kind that genius artists catch and splash over the canvas to bring it to life. It's lovely. The days are warm, say 20C (68F). Perhaps late in the afternoon a haze will begin to form, as the air takes on a chill. And soon it'll be time to go inside, close the doors and windows to keep the warm in. But before I go in, I sit and watch the hills opposite in the fading light. I watch the airliners climbing overhead, the birds returning for the night. And it's then that I suffer this most-intense longing: real, empty, hole-in-the-chest, hurting, wanting to be somewhere, a life elsewhere that never was, unrequited love, all of that kind of longing. Except I have no idea what it is I'm longing for. None. Every year it comes around and does this to me. It must be carried in the evening mist, and it soaks itself into my flesh and bones and makes me feel this way. I see images: I see things like stone buildings and and french gardens and oak trees and vineyards and wine and log fires; I see myself, soaring high above in some kind of silent and perfect aeroplane, climbing up and up; I see myself standing on a mountain top, watching night fall on the land below. I feel something like, but not quite, alone. And so it will be each night until spring comes again. The feeling doesn't ever go away completely but it's not so bad in the warmer months. And I don't think I'm alone in having it: a quick search on Google for "autumn+longing" produced a few links to poems and writings. But, introspective as I am, I'd like to understand a bit more of what it is. 11:34:04 PM    comment []

Off the Wagon Non-drinkers can skip this one; you won't understand and I don't want your thoughts, however well-meant. I've never hidden the fact that I drink a bit more than the medical establishment considers right'n'proper. Not huge amounts more, certainly some way short of what they describe as "very heavy consumption" or similar; not enough, I was told, to have any short-term health consequences. But still more than I should. And AFDs (Alcohol-Free Days) are more likely to be 2 per year than the approved 2 per week. All this is by way of setting the context for the following: Tonight marks my tenth straight day without a drink. Ta da! It started off last Thursday night. I'd been a little lavish in my consumption the night before -- you know the ones when you wake up the next morning and your brain is insistently trying to force its way out of an eye socket. Anyhow, I'd run out of my cheapish, Monday-to-Friday, guzzling plonk. I'd packed all the good stuff in boxes and taped them up, not to be touched for a couple of years or so. Normally in this situation I'd just buy a couple of bottles on the way home to see me through to the weekend -- when I go to the discount wine retailers and spend big. But this time I didn't buy anything; I decided I'd give myself a decent chance to go without for a night. And it worked; it was either go without or find a good reason to explain opening the decent bottle of fizz in the fridge: I went without So, the next night was Friday. And somehow I found it easy to get through again. It was somewhat harder on the Saturday as we spent much of the day picking chardonnay on a family vineyard, followed by a long lunch with plenty of wine. But I made it through. And now it's another Saturday night. Some nights have been easy, some particularly hard. I probably would have had a drink tonight were there a bottle lying around. I'm not really sure how long I'll keep this up, probably because I'm not really sure why I'm doing it. I suppose I have a vague desire to let my body recover from what I've done to it over the last few years. Also, the sad truth is that, as I get older, drinking of an evening -- in the early part of the evening at least -- isn't so compatible with attention-hungry children and family life in general. It's too hard, too much effort every night to keep going when all I want to do is lie down and have a little sleep, to enjoy the wine but all the time remembering not to go too far, too fast, enjoy it too much. So yeah, the truth is that, lately, drinking has been causing me more annoyance and pain than it has provided pleasure. And for as long as my family needs me -- about another 20 years -- I don't want it to be that way. That's why I've stopped for a little: I've hopped off the merry-go-round for a while because it's spinning too fast and I'm dizzy. When the world stops spinning, I'll feel OK to take hop back on and take a ride, but not for as long, not as fast as before. I think that'll happen in a few days from now. I had expected to feel better than I do. You know, if one habitually drinks enough to give most people a nasty hangover, surely one has to feel a l-o-t better if one stops? OK, not immediately, but perhaps within a few days? Well, I don't. My severe and chronic allergies are partly to blame but still, it's not what I'd hoped for. For the first few days, I suffered a sore neck, that grew into a tension headache fit to kill a cow, that then grew into more stiffness and soreness in my shoulders, back, and even my chest. I'm tired too. Really tired. I find it hard to wake up in the mornings. I wrote a post on alcohol substituting for sleep, but I wasn't joking; I can go for extended periods on short sleep if I drink a lot. And the stupid thing is that I'm so wound up of an evening now I can't get to sleep, tired or not. I'm also drinking more tea and coffee which, I concede, may partly explain my inability to get to sleep. And yes, I'm grumpy too. I've always considered a decent glass or three of red to be my just reward for wading through the crap-filled sewers of modern existence, so being denied it -- even by myself -- doesn't sit well at all. But the worst thing of all is that I've lost all my drive, motivation, creativity, mental acuity -- all of that. I can't write much and, when I do write, it's in short, awkward sentences; I have little conversation to offer, even with close friends I don't know what to say; I can't read anything too complex. In short, while I might feel a little clearer of head in some ways, I basically feel as though I've been lobotomised. It's horrible. I think -- not sure here -- the above is because I'm stuck with my stresses and anxieties all my waking hours; I can't magic them away for a few hours. So, maybe I'll just have to start dealing with them. Just as soon as I can think again. 10:41:35 PM    comment []