deep folds

I am sitting in a cafe with my laptop - something I've never really done before. It used to be, for many years, that one of my favourite past-times was writing in a journal at a coffeeshop. It's interesting how activities lose their appeal sometimes. I started to associate journalling in cafes with being depressed, not knowing what else to do with my time, and not having the mental energy to do anything else; the journal entries became a repetitive log of unhappy thoughts. Eventually I stopped journaling. Then when I got better and my mind started to perk back up, I started this blog. I still like to write in a journal, particularly for the pleasure of just putting pen to paper. But when it comes to recording ideas, my fingers keep up with my mind more easily when I'm typing. So my blog has become my journal, except when my thoughts are just too personal, or when I want to write outside.

I used to dislike seeing people in cafes with laptops. They always looked so isolated to me. Deliberately self-isolating. But here I am with the sun flooding in the window and I'm looking around and watching people while I type. It feels good.

Here is a picture of one of my new favourite past-times:

(That's me on the air-mattress. In my backyard.)

Monday is my New Year's Eve. I've said this before: January 1st doesn't have any real significance to me, other than a symbolic end of gaiety and the beginning of truly bleak winter. No, no - Labour Day is my New Year. For the wild, exuberant blow-out of summer comes to an end, and the beginning of September is like a sober return to routine and work. It's true that it's been a long time since I had summer off - the work never really stops - but the deep impression of that pattern doesn't fade. As usual, the smell of autumn brings a touch of melancholy and apprehension, a trace of anxiety and regret - regret that sometimes borders on grief - to feel the summer's warmth and abundance and easefulness retreating. I love Autumn and know that for the next few months I'll be rhapsodizing about the quality of air and colours. But that doesn't change the fact that it's hard to let go of the bloom and embrace this phase of diminishment. It's a time for sowing seeds and preparing as best one can for winter by carrying forward as much summer energy and optimism as possible.

At least I'm coming to understand that this is not a bad thing, for the melancholy is beautiful and reflective. Every cycle of the seasons takes me through the cycle of life and is practice at accepting aging and death. It's bittersweet, it's complex, it's painful, but it's rich. It takes me into the deep folds of my mind.

[I think I'd rather Spring be the New Year, as that would make more sense in terms of life cycle. But alas, I am grown used to a Year that starts with old age, dies, comes back to life, and lastly blooms.]

So: I mentioned in my last entry, in a whisper, that I'm in love, and as much as I want to keep that private and separate, there is no separating it from the flow of my ideas or the direction of my life. Being with someone is a dramatic change after my long period of singleness. Suddenly I find myself making plans in tandem, no longer just a lone adventurer. Happily, however, he is as much a solitary spirit as I am, and even when we are together, we give each other more space than I even knew could be possible. I like to think of us as a pair of ravens... (Though I don't know anything about the habits of raven couples. It might be a terrible metaphor.) I cannot express how startled I am to realize that this balance of autonomy and partnership is possible, and how happy it makes me.

It's a transition time in many ways. I've just started a new decade and a new relationship. Presently it will be my New Year. Soon I will be moving, maybe to a new place on Bowen, maybe to another island. I'm going to try to work from home, and emancipate myself from the city.
I'm going to make my life more like a camping trip. Things need to become simpler, not more complicated.

...And travel will, as much as possible, be by boat.

..