The end’s not near, it’s here
Insatiable thing my muse. I mean, truly insatiable. If my muse were human, she’d be a mess of smeared lipstick, slurred speech and post-coital hair-do from too many encounters. Quite the little harlot. As I type this, I’m closer to dawn than I’d like to be. Cinderella abandoned her prince four hours ago. She’s probably awake too, and missing the fabulous shoe she sacrificed for the sake of a happy ending. It was upon realising Prince Charming was a retifist that Cinders decided to run, though not before forsaking her patent leather Mary Janes.
Speaking of endings, the end of the year is upon us. Well, not yet. It’s poking its head from a gap in the curtains. It’s been a strange year. Forgive the unintended cliche, but it really has. The all-pervading factor in my life this year has been death. Death on a large scale. Death of people whose loved ones are dear to me. Death returning from its resting place to remind me of my losses. At night, I have often closed my eyes to dream of my own death, only to awaken hours later, wondering how many nights this was going to be a recurrent theme. To dream of death, they say, is to dream of new beginnings. Now, I’m not one for superstition, but never, in the two decades I have been sleeping badly has that statement meant so much to me.
The past 365 days flit about like photographs begging to be saved from a fire. Only there are very few memories I wish to salvage. For the most part, things remain unchanged. Deep down though, I’m a different person.
Things have happened this year. I have needed to reassess who I am, and what it is that I desire from life. I have been faced with difficult choices. I have encountered new, or previously dormant areas of myself, and almost always, this has resulted in pleasant surprise. Only one thing has remained constant, a linear companion in the squiggly, unpredictable journey that is this existence. And that is my gratitude.
An hour has passed since I first started writing. It is now 05:14 on Monday 31st December 2007 and I am still restless. Some things will never change. I hope you have enjoyed the festive season. I hope the negativity of this year is buried with the last digit and that the pleasant memories are carried through to the next chapter.
Happy new year!
I love the personification of your muse, very amusing. I totally identify with your comment about not having any reason to be unhappy, but sometimes you just do. Despite being a more artistically-minded person, I belive it’s just hormones, rather than having a morbid personality. At least that’s what I hope!
Will miss you and everyone else too Anita. The end of an era. Hopefully I’ll catch up with most of the people on reading their newly published novels and I’ll be able to bask in everyone else’s fame! According to Wil, Gareth’s going to win the Booker!
Tom, I’m glad you like the muse personification. The things we come out with at 4am. I know what you mean though. It’s the artistic curse, no? We just have a more vivid view of the world. I guess we’re thinkier than the norm too. My persistent sleeplessness allows much time for thinkiness (un?)fortunately. It’s not morbid…it’s the reason we write :)
xxx
Luke, what do you mean, ”bask in everyone else’s fame?” I’m expecting an invite (and a glass of champagne), to your book-launch party too! If your book’s anything like your blog, I’m sure it’ll do very well :)
xxx
I feel awful for not reading this sonner. You perfectly capture the quiet moment when time only has meaning in stories. And the numbers on a clock are powerless to stop you living. I am writing this at an earlier hour, but 2 hours later than I had planned. There is that voice that belongs to reality: ‘you’ll regret this. You promised to get up early to run round the Crescent’. I am an ‘utterly boring noninsomniac’ true. But I like to live transiently. What is wrong with a few hours less sleep?
I have a good feeling about this year. I said so today and when I got home, Federica said exactly the same! So it is not just me. This will be a good year.
I must somehow write poetically about death this term, I know. Perhaps you may be my inspiration?
One of the most uplifting things to do is write about the positives in your life. My mother would heartily approve of this post. Why dwell on past sorrows? Though I would not deny anyone sorrow; as Keats wrote in ‘Ode to Melancholy’:
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty–Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
I did not mean to reprint the whole poem, but it cannot be split without its meaning fragmenting. Sorrow is an essential part of humanity. So saying, it is not productive (cold word) to immerse ourselves in our misery; rather learn and embrace and accept that no matter what happens in our lives, we will be richer for it. I am not sure whether I can accept this. As I write, terrible fears arise, whose truth would shatter my world (cliched as that sounds) and make me want to scream at life ‘why?’ And yet – as so many authors have shown – this way lies madness. Acceptence and forgiveness are more difficult to understand than we realise.
I will miss everyone. This degree and university symbolise the best decision I’ve ever made. And the one that has had the most impact on my development as a person.
Here is to us all and 2008.
Dearest Lucifer,
As I said to you earlier, thank you whole-heartedly for such an insightful response. I’m so pleased that it provided some inspiration. I really have no reason to write at all if it isn’t to move people.
xxx
This is such a beautifully written post! I can’t believe you said that you’re no good at writing stories. Fool!
I do agree with what you and Tom mention about being unhappy with no reason to be. I feel like until last summer I lived my whole life like that. The weird thing is, though, that now I have reason I feel like I don’t want to be unhappy. Bitterness is not good enough. There is too much beauty in the world to dignify tears over diseases.
Says me, anyway, at the modest hour of 4.13 pm after a cup of tea, but not quite wine o’clock.
xxx
p.s. I tried being an insomniac once, I wrote about four lines of very poor poetry, spent an exhausting fifteen minutes trying to brainstorm a rhyme for what turned out to be a made-up word and then fell asleep on my space-bar. Turned out to be a very long poem. Not a lot of words though…