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Oh me oh my the demons are very familiar this week

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I greet the sunrise, Eulogise another night I had known too well.

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Goth flowers appreciation post

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22 years ago I woke up on the deck of a ship, in roiling seas, no land on the horizon. I had no idea how to pilot the vessel, I had no idea where I was, or where I was headed, I had no means of contacting anybody and whenever I tried to explain the situation to myself the words tumbled out, misshapen and murmured. I spent the best part of six years just trying to work out which way was up, the sky and seas were amorphous, grey, tumultuous. The motion of the vessel so violent that I rarely had time to establish which way I was supposed to be orientated. I was a passenger, and seemingly an unwelcome one, and I did everything I could to cling to railings, to get my bearings, to find any sliver of sunlight breaching the clouds above (or below?).

Eventually I started to understand, albeit in naive language, and more than that I realised that this wasn't normal. I started to recognise patterns in the waves, they were far from predictable but on a very broad level I started to understand which way I might get thrown and I started to develop a feel for when to brace, anything to try and trim down the fear and panic and anxiety and worry and upset that being caught unawares would amplify mercilessly. I started to read the wind, the clouds, the chop of the water's surface, the creaks in the decking beneath my feet. I dared to touch the wheel and controls and while I felt I was struggling to learn much that could propel me out of this predicament, my awareness of my surroundings mostly allowed me to recognise when I was doing something explicitly wrong. There were mistakes, there were missed cues, but I was trying, and while I never saw land I maintained the belief that one day I might. Until I didn't.

I don't know, truly, why I woke up that day feeling more lost than ever. The skies seemed more menacing, the waters deeper, the ship recalcitrant to my every attempt to steer myself through the uncanny nightmare I'd woken to. I just knew I no longer felt like I could possibly survive, the futility of my failures, the impotence, the seemingly impossible scale of it all. Fear defeated me, shame stood over me and berated my quivering carcass, the seas once again threw me left and right, up and down, forwards and backwards. I am not ashamed to admit that I earnestly wished for the sea to swallow me, I yearned for the courage to stand up one last time and throw myself overboard. The storms were urgent, unrelenting, they once again drew an obscured horizon, I fell for what felt like an eternity through an ever deepening sky, sure I would hit the cold, grasping ocean at a moments notice, begging for it.

It fills me with great sadness to admit that I became entirely accustomed to that feeling, that perpetual motion, that capricious misery. I try to view it as a triumph of human resilience but it's hard not to see it as an immense failure. Unable to overcome my pain I simply accepted it, yielded to it. It is only by good fortune that I survived this period of my life at all, I don't know how, or why, but I did.

And so, in time, the oceans calmed again. I feel undeserving of the good fortune, it mocks me, revealing the folly of my helplessness, but the only thing truly inexcusable would be to ignore it and wait for the waters to foment again, so again I wander the ship, I try to understand the controls, I try to read the horizon. I still feel lost. I still feel desperately alone. But while the waters allow it I have to try.

I've been really struggling recently, I feel like there's no means for me to make progress, I have no way of meeting people, nothing I do feels enriching or rewarding, I still can't pull satisfaction or pride out of anything I do. So here I am writing tortured metaphors, I guess, hoping to elucidate anything from my own rambling that might cast a light on the path forwards.

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“A world of grief and pain

flowers bloom—

even then.”

Kobayashi Issa

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Companions

Etching on zinc 40 x 50 cm

Available in my store

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A random assortment of photos from the year, to serve as an addendum or visual continuation of the last post

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I guess it's been a short while, although I've no reason to believe anyone has read or will read any of this. We're almost halfway through 2024, and I've been reflecting on my "progress" towards moving in the general direction of wellness, prompted by a few things but honestly it's rarely far from my mind.

In some ways it's been quite a good year, I've been enjoying hobbies I'd not engaged with in a while, continued painting mini's, branched out from making regular/tiger bread to making and maintaining a sourdough starter, which has, entirely to my surprise, yielded some reasonably successful loaves, I've even managed to get a handful of CBT sessions from a referral my GP made a long time ago. I've managed to find the motivation and energy to, in general, get more control over my life, the space I live in and try to establish good habits. It still feels very much like a chore, like something I do because I must and not something I get any pride or satisfaction from, but while it doesn't fill me with positive feedback, it does alleviate a small portion of the generalised shame, guilt and malaise I felt for years up until this point, and despite my nascent cynicism I know I have to accept that as a good change, that there's no switch to flick that will miraculously cast light on all the shadows and that this *is* what progress is.

I've played guitar, and found the money and energy to repair a couple of my first guitars which had fallen into disrepair, a hobby I'd really not engaged with properly in years, I'm still mostly revisiting things I could play before but I definitely feel more confident playing them, and I've picked up a few new things along the way that clearly represent growth within the space which is good.

I've been walking regularly up the hill to my parents' house and back to let the animals out, to drop bread and other stuff I've made off (it's the only way to ensure I stay in my dad's will, I joke, although as with a lot of comedy there's a nugget of truth at the core of it) and although it's only maybe 4000 steps, half of them are uphill which for some reason has always caused me undue discomfort, so again, that represents some progress, and being relied on by my parents is a welcome change, even if the tasks are typically incredibly minor, the feeling of uselessness they once instilled in me is being eroded slowly.

I've made a to-do list with repeating tasks to keep on top of stuff like regularly showering, taking the bins out, doing laundry, cleaning towels and bedsheets, hoovering and mopping the floors etc, and for the most part I've done a good job of sticking to it, there's occasional procrastination (sometimes for good reason, sometimes for no reason), which again, despite a lack of positive feedback, all represents reasonable forward progress.

The CBT was...not particularly helpful, within a few sessions the therapist was clearly just frustrated with me, which I understand, for a lot of people I'm sure it's revolutionary but I'm already well aware of the theory, so while I genuinely tried to engage with it and practice it, it just never really did much to help, she would seem aggrieved whenever she asked how my mood had been that week and I gave the same answer, and by session 5 she would largely just insist that I get diagnosed with autism in the hopes that the Integrated Autism Services could help me. That's fine, I'd like them to too, I suspect I'm on the spectrum (and every single medical professional I've ever met has suggested the same) but they're overstretched beyond belief and clearly my case doesn't warrant urgent attention, so that'll be another years long waiting room it seems.

In general, despite the progress, I mostly just ache, physically and mentally, every day I just ache deeply. My bones are tired, my mind is tired, it's better to feel this way and do the things I'm doing than it was to feel this way and not do the things, but it feels like a technical success, there's just no joy or pride or feeling of achievement. I know I'm harsh on myself, these things feel simple, they feel like the bare bare minimum, I don't feel comfortable celebrating them, but for me they should be worthy of celebrating because clearly they aren't the default for me for whatever reason...but the reality is I just feel like I'm awarding myself a participation medal for barely participating.

I can't find ways to meet people, I can't afford a car and I'm stuck where I am, I'm hoping the summer helps change that as maybe more stuff happens in the immediate locality, but at least for now that's definitely one of the biggest disappointments, I really try to find things to do, places to go, but I'm so astonishingly smothered by circumstance.

This has been far more rambling than I intended, but I guess the precis is; I'm doing some of the things I should've been doing the whole time because I know should be doing them, I'm trying, I'm not abjectly failing, but it doesn't feel like much of a success. It just...is. And that's both a good and a bad thing.

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when Franz Kafka said “alas, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that I'm not in the right place.”

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Tim Mossholder

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From the October 1978 issue of Natural History Magazine

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camellia sinensis, chinese variety, 十八学士shi ba xue shi (eighteen scholars)

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Olafur Eliasson