17 August 2007
04 July 2007
24 June 2007
That month back in England
Too much to do and see, not enough time... but we still managed to take over 1200 photos. I picked just a few to post and here they are on Through the Lens.
08 June 2007
15 May 2007
May 2007
We have flown to England for the month of May to travel on historic highways and by-ways, staying mostly in deepest rural Wiltshire. Days out in London, Bath, Bournemouth, Southampton, Salisbury and Poole have reminded me how exceptional this small birth-country of mine is. Time is rushing by and there is still so much to revisit but there will be a next time... You never really notice what is right beneath your nose until it is gone. How does eleven hundred photos so far sound? (No I won't be putting them all on "Through the Lens!")
01 May 2007
a fucking sad idiot
During my adult life I have lived with depression to varying degrees. I am frustrated at failing to fix all my anxieties by myself.
For the past twelve months I have steadily opened my fears and worries. I had even begun to believe I might banish the dark depressive clouds
and maintain a happy head. Just when I begin to feel level and calm a small
worm creeps under my skin. A previously tranquil day becomes hell on earth
inside my head.
If I am angry or sad or frustrated I want to try to say what is on my mind
but my words appear condescending and sulky. So I retreat into my head and stay
quiet all day harbouring resentment that the cause of my irritable mood ought
to be obvious but isn’t.
No one loved me as a child. I was never given praise or made to feel
valuable. With that background I
try too hard to be honest and compassionate so I always sound reproachful and
false. I am incapable of expressing
my emotions.
I deserve to be
the hated person that I am.
I realise I am
unlovable.
I believe myself to
be valueless.
I deserve ill
fortune.
…..
Starting thirty
years ago my wife and I had simple sex but we never made love. Twenty years ago
my lover and I had lustful sex but still we never made love.
Now I make love
but I am uncomfortable as the initiator. Rejection would ruin my already
pitiable self-esteem. How could anyone wish to be intimate with such an ugly
old fool as me?
I can’t make
decisions – why would my ideas be liked anyway? My preferences are easily
over-ridden as they are ridiculous and unimportant.
I don’t know what
to do. I don’t know what I am.
***
update 20 Jun 2014
Re-reading this causes me some embarrassment! It's fair to say that I had bouts of depression several years ago but there is little in my above diatribe that I recognise as me. Today I have a good deal more self-esteem than before.
21 April 2007
Dive-bombed by herring gulls
(What shall I listen to? Old, new, borrowed or blue..?)
... must be a herring gull chick, he thought, taking in the dull brown plumage with the huge size. Wonder why its sitting in the middle of the road.
Doctor: “What seems to be the matter with you?”
PV: “Everything doc and I’ve got it bad.”
Doctor: “Want to talk about it?”
PV: “Nope. I prefer to shut my mouth and keep my thoughts to myself all day… like I always do.”
Doctor: “Well, keep taking the pills and I’ll see you when I see you.”
PV: "Rot in hell arsehole."
Is that a pterodactyl? An ominous 4 foot six wingspan silhouetted against the scudding rain clouds made him fantasize Jurassically for a moment. With Kamikaze yells the shape plummeted toward him, veering aside at the last moment. Fuck, it’s the parent bird protecting its strayed young. Repeatedly it screamed in low and fast with raptor-like talons outstretched. Hey even the wildlife has it in for me…
It’s all downhill from here pal. You’re 49 and your best years are long over. The doc doesn’t give a damn, the world isn’t waiting for you, the gulls are suspicious of you…
He held similar conversations in his head all day. His favourites were about guilt, shame and self-recrimination. He did a good job of chastising himself. That seemed a more effective use of time than waiting for someone else to do it.
I won’t bother talking to you unless I love you, he said to no one in particular. I want to live on a desert island. He had a big heart and a head full of compassion but people barged into him in the street like he was invisible. How could he ever talk to people who were so oblivious to his sweet nature? He needed to be alone, that was the stark truth of it.
Some idiot shrink had told him, try to think of all the good things you have achieved. You have so much to be grateful for and proud of. He had never bought that. He was way off course for his usual lunchtime walk, even the gulls sensed that. The time on his wrist was well past lunch but he kept walking. Today he would make a decision.
He had a sharp plot for a novel in his head but he kept chipping away at it til all that was left was a series of fragments. Perhaps he would try piecing them together again soon.
SHUT UP! he screamed at the voices in his head. If the fools at work had only known how my depression and anxiety was crippling my physical health. Why had he never shrieked this to the banking fools, There is nothing wrong with my mental fortitude but you are hammering a square peg into a round hole and I won’t fit. I will last as long as I can but the strain you are placing on my emotional health is directly reducing my physical health. My immune system is failing – I am getting sick. It is not possible to be this miserable in my head for decades and for it to have no effect on my body.
With this admission at least now he would have a few things to say to the doc next time he went. Now, where the hell did I park my car?
... must be a herring gull chick, he thought, taking in the dull brown plumage with the huge size. Wonder why its sitting in the middle of the road.
Doctor: “What seems to be the matter with you?”
PV: “Everything doc and I’ve got it bad.”
Doctor: “Want to talk about it?”
PV: “Nope. I prefer to shut my mouth and keep my thoughts to myself all day… like I always do.”
Doctor: “Well, keep taking the pills and I’ll see you when I see you.”
PV: "Rot in hell arsehole."
Is that a pterodactyl? An ominous 4 foot six wingspan silhouetted against the scudding rain clouds made him fantasize Jurassically for a moment. With Kamikaze yells the shape plummeted toward him, veering aside at the last moment. Fuck, it’s the parent bird protecting its strayed young. Repeatedly it screamed in low and fast with raptor-like talons outstretched. Hey even the wildlife has it in for me…
It’s all downhill from here pal. You’re 49 and your best years are long over. The doc doesn’t give a damn, the world isn’t waiting for you, the gulls are suspicious of you…
He held similar conversations in his head all day. His favourites were about guilt, shame and self-recrimination. He did a good job of chastising himself. That seemed a more effective use of time than waiting for someone else to do it.
I won’t bother talking to you unless I love you, he said to no one in particular. I want to live on a desert island. He had a big heart and a head full of compassion but people barged into him in the street like he was invisible. How could he ever talk to people who were so oblivious to his sweet nature? He needed to be alone, that was the stark truth of it.
Some idiot shrink had told him, try to think of all the good things you have achieved. You have so much to be grateful for and proud of. He had never bought that. He was way off course for his usual lunchtime walk, even the gulls sensed that. The time on his wrist was well past lunch but he kept walking. Today he would make a decision.
He had a sharp plot for a novel in his head but he kept chipping away at it til all that was left was a series of fragments. Perhaps he would try piecing them together again soon.
SHUT UP! he screamed at the voices in his head. If the fools at work had only known how my depression and anxiety was crippling my physical health. Why had he never shrieked this to the banking fools, There is nothing wrong with my mental fortitude but you are hammering a square peg into a round hole and I won’t fit. I will last as long as I can but the strain you are placing on my emotional health is directly reducing my physical health. My immune system is failing – I am getting sick. It is not possible to be this miserable in my head for decades and for it to have no effect on my body.
With this admission at least now he would have a few things to say to the doc next time he went. Now, where the hell did I park my car?
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