the ghost right out

Barefoot wine opened with the corkscrew. Random glass head filled with smoke from the apple shisha. Chivas and ice and dreams of South Africa 2010. Why not? I see the winter wonderland out this random victoria road window now - with the randomest collection of classic people below, ready to ring in what's next. Down to 9 minutes. Make 2009 worthy of the caviar dreams you have held it in. June 5 2004 held its unique place in the realm of anticipation. But now all depends on May 8 2009 and working backwards. Think of that. If you are alive, this time, I know you'll be on that fucking flight. Ultraya 09 baby. Buen Camino. Just remember how you got there. Let that be the only resolution.

Here is the Rainbow I've been praying for

Well, not quite, but now an oh-so-soon 13 weeks, one of them in the Yucatan. Potential to line-up Amalfi, the Camino all but certain (with harmonica!), Emirates and Haymarket ready to welcome the bearded pilgrim back to civilization in style.

Both the gym and spanish lessons to begin in earnest on the morrow. 2008 ending as good as it was enjoyed, it must be said. 2009 has much to aspire to, but the odds are in its favour. Stay the course. As the one Times and Transcript quote of the day you have read this year states - "Do not turn away when you are so near the goal."

Indeed. One more on the 31st, before this beloved year receives its deserved send-off.

Sweets Grown Common Lose Their Dear Delight

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear:
That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new and then but in the spring
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my song.

Ah, Sonnet 102, retrieved based on a legal-based dictionary.com inquiry into the scope of "merchandise". Philomel, weaver and nightingale; the hypercatalectic (11) lines 1 and 3; the enjambment of line 9; in all, an amazing work of art, and a nice counterpoint of ponderance from the rest of the holiday work.

That which shall be over, of course, disgarded in favour of rough roads and open skies, monsoons and manic seeking. As in Winterson's Atlas, the freedom in simply walking away. The heavier the burden, the greater the sense of liberation, the broader the expanse.

Friday's are always like this. Even when, as now, it marks not a brief halt to the daily work that must be done, there is that element of depth. It is what we seek out there, on the road. More Fridays. Although, as the Bard reminds above, not too much.

#9 Barrington

Fascinating little session today, as the work continues without end and recognition of the quality prompts further thoughts about the extent of the 2009 plan. Might it be worth thinking about a 9/12 option. And it is, even though it would make the camino less a walk into the unknown. But there are opportunities being left behind under current machinations, and holiday thoughts on that score are not out of line. (He thinks as he exits the bus to pick up season 2 of quantum leap...)

Yesterday

Churchill's again, in Saint John. How long ago was it? April oh-seven? Seems a decade. Just finished the oysters, Stella going down smooth, Guinness and prime melt surely on the way. Another way-stop, finishing up this leg of the career. A frustrating one (in that the end result won't be as desired), but not one that's of concern. For the road ahead holds a Yucatan February, and then profound release down the Camino way, which looms ever grander and more central in the 2009 visions. We wait to see if the first detour will take us down toward Napoli - the paradise of those in a state of intoxicated forgetfulness. Or so said Goethe.

Yes, he thinks as he smiles and looks around and as this Prime Melt arrives. This is not the life for me at 30. And so the elaborate deception and proceedings in place to change it. In all the thinking to come in Spain - let us cast the consciousness back, at one point, to this.

It is solved by walking

Hilariously - "on battery power" - and THEN! Light!

Still think now that the 9pm ferry is the one, despite Sweeney and Roach.

"When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels." -Edward Dahlberg

"It's a battered old suitcase and a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal." -Tom Waits



And this is my favorite and as good a justification of leaving as any:

"Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken." - Frank Herbert

"No Yesterdays on the Road"

Who is William Least Heat Moon?

After taking the advice (is this the first Rum and Root Beer friday? Likely. And shit, he says, as the Irish guy we like walks in with his guitar... We back-up.)

Ok, after taking our own counsel against Chives and for the downpour, printing the quotes and heading out into the rain, we are here at the end of the table reading quotes and drying off. But now probably going to wait for one song (and so a second Guinness?) while we type some of these out:

"There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it." -Charles Dudley Warner

"One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering." -Alfred North Whitehead

"Traveling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.". -Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.". -Susan Sontag

FUCK - THERE'S MORE but the Celtic Corner power has gone out!! SO -

Worthy of a post all its own, a revelation of another quote so fundamental as to be long lasting:

"The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where man can lose himself... What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. NYOTR."

This Top-Proud Fellow

BUCKINGHAM
This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I
Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book
Outworths a noble's blood.

NORFOLK
What, are you chafed?
Ask God for temperance; that's the appliance only
Which your disease requires.

BUCKINGHAM
I read in's looks
Matter against me; and his eye reviled
Me, as his abject object: at this instant
He bores me with some trick: he's gone to the king;
I'll follow and outstare him.

NORFOLK
Stay, my lord,
And let your reason with your choler question
What 'tis you go about: to climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first: anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England
Can advise me like you: be to yourself
As you would to your friend.

BUCKINGHAM
I'll to the king;
And from a mouth of honour quite cry down
This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim
There's difference in no persons.

NORFOLK
Be advised;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself: we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire that mounts the liquor til run o'er,
In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:
I say again, there is no English soul
More stronger to direct you than yourself,
If with the sap of reason you would quench,
Or but allay, the fire of passion.

BUCKINGHAM
Sir, I am thankful to you; and I'll go along
By your prescription: but this top-proud fellow,
Whom from the flow of gall I name not but
From sincere motions, by intelligence,
And proofs as clear as founts in July when
We see each grain of gravel, I do know
To be corrupt and treasonous.

Back again a week on - free drinks ahead, but fearing still the need to pay a proper penance for last week's indulgence. Perhaps the reputation is firm and so little new damage has been incurred. Yet it is the uncertainty of the specific action/accusation that lies uneasily. Alas, in such a world with its complexities, to be worried by matters as trivial as unremembered revels. In seeking out the Shakes, I came across this gem from one Douglas Engelbart that gets quickly to the rub: “The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate.”

Remember how the mere repeating of this quote prompted a look at the photos and the realization that a night of knowing frowns may be best avoided. Fraser (at least his camera) was the one to capture the sadly perfect shot for posterity. It is one to print and save for laughs in future climes.

So, the choice is made. Scotia Square for the ingredients, a run across the harbour on the boat and back, and then some festing with Nasser and co. Where that leads, who might say, but it has the merits of anonymous enjoyment, reflection, and rejoicing. What more is there?

Look up at the closeness of the full moon and wonder.

And bookmark that moment out of tiredness today at noon, in discussing compliance CBL foolishness, when the mind reeled in its full confrontation with the why this one-consciousness/perspective philosophical debate. You could always stay. But that is another reason why you must go.

Those tumbling dice were cast awhile ago now, and there is no picking them back up.

Only Connect

"Fractures well cured make us more strong." - George Herbert

The infinite capacity for self-deception. The longing. The possibility for new beginnings. The burden of responsibility in absolute freedom. Wandering off is the way back. (Jung and "individuation" as pilgrimage to joy?).

The clock of feet. Tick, tock, it beats, as the snow crunches underneath. And so far, survival, and recordings of dull eyes looking back that bespeak a challenge.

No Matter What

"No matter what, you've got to believe in your destination baby."

Another day rolls by with little activity, a classic Premiership match with Villa taking it at the death, a NYG loss, and now BtDkyD.

Tales of the Camino last night - the Goose Game, the need to remain non-judgmental in the walking (and also in everything else for that matter, as hard as it can be), the potential for fraudsters who live off the pilgrims, "you must beer", "this is camino"

Oh my, tomorrow and beyond. The slowly awkward, difficult embarrassment and hidden humiliation. With no good answer to the quest or question of "why?". I wonder who will pose it. This time.

What Happens (Next)

So, a mere 20 hours on, and there you have it. Another night unremembered, collossously (sp?) drunk, against your better counsel. Haven't had a night like that since, well, the fast ferry to Nuweiba. You can now look forward to a Monday at the office of awkwardness, and other random encounters too. It's fascinating in a sense, the one-sidedness of not knowing how you are perceived based on such antics. Based on unknown discussions and unknown actions. Whether there will be a Comstock-esq call to follow, for example. The emptiness of mind, the suicide of a night, the gradual unraveling of consequences. You think to yourself you'll avoid it but with the initial choices and after you hasten ever faster toward it. It is fascinating. The snapshots. You feel sometimes as though you could write pages on it.

Remember this, though, the quiet and security of this room. This new "home", a mattress, a closet, and a few bags of clothing and boxes of books. "Nasser? It's 2.". How even this is comforting, as a place to hide. Are you hiding? I don't know. But you need to think whether the British Visa is necessary - but even writing that I think it is, even if not used immediately. So more properly you need to think about what to do come May 10. Fortunately there's the Camino for a'that, and other conversations/reunions besides. Re-union. I never thought about that word like that before. I like that. I like that about this to - the shoving aside of conventionality involved in being so damn ridiculous. Yes, the sight can bring about ugly reprecussions (is there a concept of preprecussions?) but there it is, even if at the end there is nothing concrete to show for it, to replace it with, to say "here is my alternative" as if it were a true one.

I don't know. And because we don't know, we go on. I can't wait to see what happens next.

The higher Nilus swells, the more it promises (...)

MARK ANTONY
[To OCTAVIUS CAESAR]
Thus do they, sir: they take
the flow o' the Nile
By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know,
By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
Or foison follow: the higher Nilus swells,
The more it promises: as it ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
And shortly comes to harvest.

LEPIDUS
You've strange serpents there.

MARK ANTONY
Ay, Lepidus.

LEPIDUS
Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
operation of your sun: so is your crocodile.

MARK ANTONY
They are so.

POMPEY
Sit,--and some wine! A health to Lepidus!

LEPIDUS
I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.

TFI. Christmas party about to begin. The gin flowing nicely in these early stages, and with it a return to the traditional Friday reliance on Master Shakespeare seems apt. Recall this time last year, and so let's tread carefully around such land mines even as the hold over consciousness loosens in the coming hours. Ah yes.

What else? "It's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come." The countdown is now firmly on, at last. And with it the sadness that comes with any change, any departure, I suppose, but such is the way of the world. For I have stared long enough out these windows at the interior of the harbour, and long to set sail in the opposite direction. To renew, in a very real sense, the sensations and callings of that time five years ago when the end of law school approached and the world seemed limitless. So it does again, especially after such a year as this. Such a year of magical traveling as this. Oh oh oh. "Five years have past; five summers, with the length of five long winters! and again..." And the tears of it are wet.

Yes. Go join the fleeting cackle of celebrations. And enjoy the aspects of this life that you are shortly giving up. The future nights and days that you are losing...

In way of retro(pro)spect:

"What does one learn in going around the world? ... You go to learn that the world is very large; that men in many and in most of things are very much alike; that like pursuits and thoughts are rife with mortals everywhere; that men who go in ships and those upon the land, that men who trade in stores and they who work in shops, that they who who minister to wants of earth and hopes that reach beyond the tomb are very much alike, most stardingly alike; that men are selfish after all; that all have goodness after all; that no one, of all that is bad or good, has any sure monopoly. The sun that shines on you at home comes forth to shine on all; the silver moon that you adore has just as silvery beams for us and all who live in foreign lands...

You learn in traveling round the world that gold is gold the whole world round, that silver lies in most men's thoughts, and all men work for pay, - for hearth and home and things to wear and feed upon. What else are we doing here?"

What else indeed...

Be Prepared to Stop

Another day. (Another headache, another heartbreak.) Another day in the march toward... What would you call it?... freedom, redemption, the numinous, the road, what's next, what's necessary. And a momentous one, even if planned and executed as imagined, or better than imagined.

Consider, truly, you are really where you want(ed) to be - never back to the old apartment after the Holy Land. 11 Dewolfe. The freedom to choose BS. Old Peculiar. To finally put the (beautiful) face to RS after this time. And the difficulty in disuising the intended path from the investment banker turned math teacher turned promotioner.

"People show doubt too fuckin' much"

Is that too much to ask? Is that question ever asked with an expectation of a no? No predictions about the likelihood of JW..

"I felt like I was dressing a barbie doll. No adjustments necessary, gorgeous clothes, good bargain."

Thirsty for conversation. You need to start a new routine. The end is less than 4 months, less than 120 away. Long enough to be true.

(Bird,bird,bird.. Bird is the word.)

Ah December. Be prepared to start.