Cold and White

There are some more pictures here.

A variety of heads

The man was adept at injuring himself and today he decided to take it to the limit. He approached the huge engineer’s vice in his garage workshop, brushing back his hair. The vice jaws yawned open as he span the fat T-bar easily. Like bobbing for apples in a bowl he pressed his head down until his nose touched cold iron. Now he wound the bar slowly clockwise, feeling the first pressure on his temples. As he turned the bar hard, high-pitched singing screamed in his ears momentarily. A loud crack silenced the sound and his vision was suddenly blurred. He stood uncertainly and lurched onto his driveway and reached with horror to feel his shattered head. Waves of nausea flooded over him as he fumbled for thoughts, would anyone notice him now…

**********
His bed felt cold and the pillow hard as stone. Where were the red digits of his alarm clock? “Hypothermia on the rocks please…” he mumbled to no one through stiff lips. Tomorrow morning paramedics would melt his cheek from the frozen sidewalk and lift his stiff corpse. His very good friends would laugh when they remembered Saturday. How he had drunk a whole bottle of scotch through his fucking nose. His eyes had been bleeding as he staggered onto the sidewalk. “If I get tired I’ll just lay down.” He tapped the side of his nose confidentially at the lamppost.

**********
You would never guess this suited gent had just lost his job, his house, his family and his wealth. He was in control now that every sensitive word in the books on self-development had prepared him for his predicament. He knew he was in a good place in his head. Life would be sweet and fair to him because he had given more then he had to give. A red-nosed beggar muttered from the pavement. The suit found two coins in his pocket and pressed them wordlessly into the beggar’s brown hand. Now he turned sharply to cross the street. A bus ploughed into him and dragged him eighty yards along the road leaving a long thin red streak.

Waiting for my life in boxes to arrive

These are somewhere between "there and here." I need all the contents quite badly:- 2 large ebony elephants to stand on a shelf; 12 photograph albums; 700 CDs; 110 DVDs; 50 books; filter coffee maker; motor cycle leathers; toolbox; hi-fi (oh and a few clothes and other basic essentials.) Meantime I make do with what I have.

Tagged by Doughgirl

6 Weird things about me.......

1. I have six wrist watches but don't wear any of them.

2. I was too scared to fly in a plane until I was forty-five. I have flown every year since then and this year I have made ten take-offs and landings, the final one in an eighteen seat aircfraft.

3. I smooth all bank notes in my wallet and spend the dirty ones first, saving the crispest little beauties for last.

4. At 30mph in my car I shift into top gear, whereas on a motor cycle I am still accelerating hard in first gear. (Actually that's not so weird!)

5. When I climb a staircase I always count the number of steps.

6. This year I switched from wearing exclusively white socks to exclusively black socks (with denim.)

The Remedy

Nature is notoriously parsimonious with pleasure so many try to engineer their own. Throughout recorded time humans have sought a higher level of happiness to soften the hard edges of life. Lush leaves in Amazonian jungles have long competed with fiery liquids distilled from grain. The trouble is, chemical stimulants have a woefully short-lived effect on mood. Mind-altering they may be, but not for long.

I wanted a happiness molecule, a slice of hormone pie. "Anyone know how this hypothalamus works?" I might have shouted. "How do I dial up more Adrenaline, Testosterone or Serotonin?" Many years ago I swallowed a big daily ration of liquid brewed from hops to numb my pain and distort reality into something more sufferable. I chose to swamp my brain’s natural chemical balance rather than try to understand it. "Hey bartender, gimme a pint of Endorphin!"

I read but failed to grasp the wise words of philosophers who spoke of the courage to change what I can, the strength to accept what I can’t and the wisdom to distinguish between the two. I was miserable at work, at home and at play but instead of addressing those issues and developing solutions I drank the day away and pretended tomorrow was light years away.

What I really wanted was steady and reliable happiness but my immature mind and undeveloped aspirations had not figured out the most effective solution. Oh, and I was also waiting for a certain someone to be born and grow up, although I didn’t know that then…

***
In 2006 these events have happened to me concurrently.

Divorce
Early retirement
Major change in life habits
Sons leaving home
Sale of house
Emigration

I show signs of anxiety but they pass. Matters beyond my control still frustrate me but I take a deep breath. In my thirties I would have collapsed under the weight but approaching fifty I have somehow acquired the strength to cope with these experiences.

I wonder if you can ever proclaim you are cured of the thought processes associated with addiction but certainly the evil seed can be rendered dormant or even impotent. Skills acquired during sobriety form a foundation and it is up to us what we build on it. For many years I regarded building that foundation as my sole objective.

My long march through time took me through bland countryside, along narrow, mundane roads. I saw the horizon but distant panoramic vistas remained just that. I existed in a world of waiting, strengthening my foundation. Eventually I had put sufficient time and distance between me and my youthful demons for enthusiasm and interest to raise their sleeping heads. I began looking more closely at my surroundings.

True, I had achieved some stability and reached a plateau of comfort. But there must be more than this, oh so much more…

***

I had tricked myself into believing I was waiting only for some catalyst to explode me from my rut but in truth I had been prepared for longer than I thought. When love came she arrived hard and fast without warning but I was ready. No respecter of age or geography she wrenched me into a new life of excitement and potential, a beautiful life in which two souls can live like one.

Every day a natural chemical rush tells me this is life and how it should be lived.

"All I want is 20/20 vision
A total portrait with no omissions
All I want is a vision of you"
Blondie – Picture This

Packing a life in boxes

... in a material sense, all I ever wanted fits into a dozen small tea chests. But reduce life to its core value and all I ever needed is just a long-haul flight away. Possessions are what define us so I will ship my boxes and enjoy opening them under a different sky.

Vanishing point...

... is reached sooner or later.