Author: dpf

El Viento de Djemila

Just come in because the wind is too cold. It’s the longest day of the year. I was up at 0330 to walk the dog and have a cup of tea, and then read (House of Mirth, half way through), and snoozed and got up; listened to the World Service (0530) over breakfast, then worked… until about an hour ago.

For a while (i.e. for the last 10 years), I thought I had give up on humanity, too many stories, too much caring, too much empathy, too much exposure (e.g. to the hell hole of Kings Cross) – and that’s why I am here, surrounded by dusty aristocrats and sheep.

But (… I laugh) the life spirit seems at last to be returning. So what do I do now. Today I was reflecting on recent interactions, and it made me think how different (and difficult) we all are. We have constructed our likes and dislikes, and just add to them with time and experience. How on earth are we going to meet someone who… of course here the Kleinian in me reflects on how all our current narrative of ourselves, contains an Other (yet one of our internal objects) – who of course is the who we are “looking for”, but never seem to discover – since discovery involves finding something/someone new, and that involves the painful refutation/Popper accommodation/Piaget of change. Blah, blah, blah…

I think I am probably quite strange. I hate the concept of “baggage”, it seems to deny the complexity of life, and the unique path we all take. After a long journey, I now like myself, I like my life, I love where I live, and I love the space and time I have to breath (and read).

Regeneration is that slow process of recover from shell-shock, from naivety, from idealism, from too much self-less-ness. And I am excited about the future – new ventures, time to read (of course), learn some jazz piano theory/improvisation, the salsa club tomorrow night, maybe take a flying lesson with Dave in a PA28 later in the week….

Schmoozing the room… or not

I’m completely hopeless as schmoozing, at working the room (whatever that means), I only really function one-on-one.

Anyway I’m sitting hear, late evening sun, looking out over the fields of early summer. The hay is so tall that in the morning, Lenny (my dog) and I come back drenched with dew.

Separateness

I am looking for a break from myself and the streets I have walked along. Adam Phillips writes about the need for difference or separateness, for an almost carnivorous element of loving (“devouring”) the other. I have always been too close, too understanding, too empathic… too selfless.

Decompensation

Too close to home. The singularity. The fractured narrative. Descent into misanthropy.

I was walking down Pall Mall, just near St James Palace, and there was an old cardboard box in the road. I stamped on it with all my might. I could not bear to see the letters “NHS”. I was so angry.

Regeneration

I burned out in 2001 whilst working as a community psychiatrist in the hell hole of Kings Cross. It’s left me quite misanthropic – but it’s strange how you can find soul mates in that waste land… the exciting objects (I’m a Kleinian).

Despite the recent springtime of regeneration, I remain deeply cynical. I think religion is a form of illusionment. Reality is much harder. Camus wrote in The Wind in Djémila – “For human truth lies in accepting death without hope”.

Neoteny

Cold winter’s night.

I was delivered at home in Ickenham by Dr H in the early hours of 15 February.

The easterly winds continued into February, which developed into one of the coldest months on record. At Kew Observatory there was no recorded temperature above 5 °C for the month and only twice was the overnight temperature above 0 °C. No sunshine at all was recorded at Kew for twenty days from 2 February, whilst across England and Wales the month was the second-dullest February since records began in 1929, with only 30.8 hours of sunshine or 1.1 hour per day.

On 20 February the ferry service across the English Channel between Dover and Ostend was suspended due to pack ice off the Belgian coast. In some places snow fell on 26 days out of 28 in the month and a temperature of −21 °C was recorded at Woburn, Bedfordshire, on 25 February. As a result, railways were badly affected by drifts of light powdery snow and three hundred main roads were made unusable. Several hundred villages were cut off. Ice floes were also seen off the coast of East Anglia, causing a hazard to shipping. – Wiki

Well, my mother and I survived the fourth trimester, and here I am, still.