I

In the mornings I shower, rather brief, as I was raised in the tropics. One would often sweat through the night, waking to wet sheets. However, of late, as I reside in southern Europe, this habit comes to question… Albeit, much has encountered such questioning as I face the most trying winter experienced in memory. I find myself reluctant to leave my apartment, lazily eying the cold rain run along cobbles, day passing day, every morning watching the streetlights quiet down, a late reaction to their decisions hours earlier.

So, I spend all day inside, & I shower each morning, but what am I cleaning? Wetting my hair for comfort, melting away the stiffness through my back and neck, cleansing my mind somewhat.

Possibly, I am not cleaning…

In the past when I am drifting thru periods of depression and world ending, I gravitate towards showering regularly, it acting as a period of time I need not concern myself with anything more than the body. I remove myself from a collective temporal flow, a challenge to do, especially in folds of the city planet.

When else do I feel this ease to resign myself? To let be? I suppose, to a degree, when I am ill. Although, even though I know I should let myself be, the fact that I cannot function “normally” (ie, productive) causes me distress, often leaving me spiralling in an already tender state.

Hm…

II a

I am currently staying with my uncle on his farm in the Alentejo, central Portugal. It remains to be wet, cold, dark; but when I look out the window, I am enveloped by country, open space, world. As well, I see a surreal assortment of strange sculptures made of scrap metal. Monuments of creativity living within the natural, a coexistence. Recently, he was robbed and erected sentinels to ward off invaders.

I took the bus here from Lisboa Oriente, the route involves the crossing of Ponte Vasco de Gama, the second longest bridge in Europe. I have been listening to Volcano Choir again. The bleak sky while crossing over, the land immediate to the river, a wave washed over me – I feel it is evening at the airport waiting to board. In having such a strict schedule of transit to adhere to, I am able to remove myself from the normal flow of time, but now with community, of sorts… I do not know these people, I do not speak with these people, yet, together, we are forgiven of straying from any typical routine. Relinquished of momentum.

Time, and expectation thereof, is eased.

Aside,

Something else presented itself – the last time I traversed this route, returning to the city, a mounting wind stirred in my chest. The season turns, I thought, excitement building for my first time living thru such cold, the clouds, the coats, the draw inwards. I’ve not yet read the book but its name came to mind, “If not winter”. I could feel tears surfacing, but the city was near, my lake was frozen over.

II b

I write as it pisses rain outside, welcoming the routine. Even after one day my heart eases, as, while my actions remain largely unchanged (I wake, eat, coffee, return, rest… with something else surely taking place at times) the lack of external pressure from an ever present society makes itself known. My mind falling on the streetlights asserting their message, “Here is night. Here is day.”, imbuing time with a necessity. Such absence stands tall, time moves without arbitrary markers.

Despite efforts to decentre productivity from my day to day, it arrives quickly, with grace – creativity lives here, in natural time. However, I suppose these systems of time we are taught of (or, forced into), may be subverted, or adhered to, in city or country. (ie, I stand outside time by showering, albeit, out of a habitual desperation)

But I ask, how might I sustain myself living outside time? As whenever I experience such, that ratty voice to my right will mutter “But how will you make a living? This isn’t real life! You are a child, grow up.”

A feeling of dread wastes me. An old, quiet, dread. I ready myself to return.

This grief is familiar.

III

I was not shown many examples of people viably living in such a way. (here, there are ties being made between this focus on time, and a more general ‘alternative life’)

A first was “Into the Wild” when I was nineteen, this story ending with the avoidable death of our friend Alexander. But even so, after watching the film I was wide eyed inspired, turning to my dad and saying, “I want to do that”

This idea is always treated as naive, idealistic.

A week later I drove some hours north and lived out my car for half a week, bringing with me a few grams of weed and two tabs of acid. On my third day, lightning sounded overhead soon after coming up, relegating me to the interior of my 2001 Hyundai Elantra. However, as it is the tropics, storms pass quickly; and as I was trying to regain some semblance of internal stability an older hippie bloke pulls up in his van with two hounds – a confidant, a guide. We talked and he brought me thru the rest of the day, I played him a song on guitar. Afterwards I would struggle to come down, a sense of disillusionment haunted me, a struggle to connect with routines imposed apon me. Perhaps I saw a better way of living and didn’t want to return, especially to suburbs.

But I only had these two reference points, one dead, and one deemed homeless. They were merely characters.

IIII

How is this ending? I want to flail.

Oh woe is me, woe is us.

I feel an aversion to finishing with a grand call to action (Here are three things YOU CAN DO), nor do I feel able to… Instead, this is a slow personal change for now – ongoing, unsolved, learning, unlearning.

Recently I reached a breaking point similar to my coming out, allowing myself to be dissatisfied with how things are – saying “there is change that needs to happen. So, I read books, I fall in love, I let much of my usual life be challenged, asking “is this what I want?”

Even here, these words, many ends present themselves, but listening to the divining rod I finally found myself walking in a direction that felt wholly right, this is what I want to write.

I don’t know how the answer ahead of time, but today I watched my uncle clean the fireplace, I ate small bites of 85% cacao, I stood outside with freezing hands holding a zoom H1 portable recorder capturing the sound of pans and old metal he has hung above the garden bed – metal windchimes.

Of course, then, the sun came out.

,,,

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