i am back in belfast. have been for a week now, but i think i have been having trouble admitting it to myself. well, it's not been about trouble so much as transitioning. there is a reason why we get jetlag. our bodies needs time to catch up, especially with our tardis-style transportation systems, where we enter a room and emerge seven hours and two bad movies later to a different continent and time zone. plane travel really baffles me. i wonder why i let myself do it so often. in addition to the disastrous environmental effects (and our increasing demand for plane travel is simply not sustainable. sad skies...) the psychological effects experienced are just plain weird, pardon the pun. we get to places in an instant but turn up and realise we aren't quite ready for where we have landed, however 'familiar'. we haven't watched the earth turn or the hills pass or the tides change... we've just shown up, fallen out of a pipe like the warp zone in super mario bros.
so, my body is confused. i keeping napping. which is naughty. and delicious. my mind and heart have been trying to adjust to the place my eyes and ears are saying i am. they are telling me i am in belfast, and yet i am still disentangling myself from a pace of life in america which sustained me for four weeks, and from the incredible memories i have of my time...time well spent with people, with myself, with, dare i say, god, and a lot of good books. the best of which was the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky. thanks to beth for the recommendation. and for good conversation near a fire in crawfordsburn since my return.
so, belfast it is. walking at shaw's bridge on my third night here, i remembered why i love this place. how rural it is. the fact that you can be standing outside exclusive boutiques on the lisburn road and ten minutes later be standing on a bridge overlooking the river, throwing pooh sticks into the flow, trees craning to reach you, birds singing summer melodies, not a house in sight, not a car to be heard. we are only a city in the way tony blair is 'first among equals' in the labour party. more like a large town living up to the cliche that, if you look down any of its streets, you'll find a green hill in the distance at the end.
tonight i made banana bread and watched the launch of big brother. it was quite amazing. the banana bread that is. i soaked the sultanas in black bush whiskey before i put them in. mmm. thanks to suzi for banana-mashing skills and sarah for the nigellaesque inspiration and cake tin. as for BB, the only appropriate response is as my friend saga said: 'oh me oh my'.
i also really enjoyed work today. though i am still not entirely sure what my job is. but i think it has something to do with being. which is marvellous. a lesson in being. now that's worth getting out of bed for. though perhaps not at 7am.
i am reading how the light gets in by m.j. hyland and listening to a lot of the red house painters, especially songs for a blue guitar. i am more grateful than i know to chris for the warm welcome into the world of mark kozalek.
it is funny, referring to different people here. i have on idea who is out there. who you are. i guess that is the warp and woof.
well, that's it from this voyager. journey well.