It's been a while since I was last in, I've been meaning to write for ages about different stuff, here I've finally found a cause.
Earlier this week I was listening in to my usual late night radio of Something Understood, whilst the articles may go beyond my comprehension late at night, the music is somewhat relaxing normally. Not sure however of this weeks Brian Eno Ambient 4 On Land.
I've been working hard, harder than ever to bring a project into line and on time the last few months.I've moved to a Kent Town, all too well known for it's old spring, beautiful walks and commons, and well you couldn't leave except for the high rate of busy bussle that gets me down every single day with the persistent we must rush here there and everywhere.
Tonight however, was different, the mist was coming in or the cloud was coming down, it was warm and a little muggy. Dusk was setting in when I got off the train. I met the thick wet air. Clingy and pushy air. The street lights eerily just coming on and the cars too far away turning the corner up ahead of the path leading between the park field and the housing. Looking over the old metal fencing, painted all of a few years ago, the sheep grazing.
I knew tonight was different, I was free, I understood, had enlightenment of my project and had seen the reason to continue on without really seeing the tigers in the pit or my sudden death from workaholism, which I'm not allowed to do, but forced into.
Gradually, making my way home from the train station I'm casting back on things I once knew, looking at the train stations on the way home as we pass through each one, imagining how life has changed over the last hundred years from people on push bikes with top hats, and newspaper delivery boys to tonights vending machines with metal chairs. Nothings changed, everythings changed.
Hence, casting back to a time a stood at Stoke station in the creeky late night, I'm visualising life as it was. The old bobby on the beat converted into Transport Enforcement Officers and the like who sit on the trains once in a while. No longer with whistle and coat, flurescent jackets and a casual smile.
Up the path, between the sheep and the road ahead, no one around, just me, to wander and wonder at the changes, the wet plants waiting for another day of sunshine or a cosy form of rain.
They say the towns best when it's wet and I don't think their wrong. It's got a whole other life to it, the different sounds and smells, the light, glstening off the pavement.
The pictures never come out how I want them to in this weather, it's nigh on foggy the mist is set in so hard, you can't hear too far ahead. But you can hear your feet and see the jogger, with her pale blue trousers coming over the road, ready to bounce past you, without a blink of an eye their gone.
It's the experience I think, the experience of being able to look back, sentimental I guess. I've been very sentimental, one of my close friends has gotten married recently and two more on the way. Life is changing, were growing older, and really we are just trying to remain like ourselves from fives years ago, university the time of our lives.
Walking up on to the main road, the faint traffic sound, the odd car, the announcement that your not alone but certainly out of the way. It's getting late. Somewhere, people are curled up at home, but you're out and about. Down the winding road, a flash back to driving in the worst christmas eve snow in a generation - Manchester to London - leaving at the crack of dawn - literally 6am - taking it easy and learning the route again with new conditions.
It's an experience you see. I might go on about fieldwork and enjoying it, I do, but it may not be just about the fieldwork itself, it's the going out to do something, that's why I like walking, it's why being on top of Moorland collecting weather data and standing on an old glacial till is one thing but viewing the surroundings and understanding them is so different. (Never forgetting the extreme Remembrance Day cold of Dungeness, sitting and counting beach pebbles - an eternity at the time but my, what a memory now). Just to peruse, just like seeing the sheep on the footpath is an experience. Meanwhile you're there to take back the aesthetic visual, feeling, hearing, there all influencing.
That's why I had the courage to randomly read the newspaper left behind on the train and I found an advert for walking in the Lakes 4 Lakes 3 days, that's quite a mission. I might do it. I know of one I want to visit, all on my own, because it's reputable for always being misty, damp and slightly out of kilter, a lack of tourists, makes you suddend feel like your in the wilderness, and for once I felt that coming home tonight again. I've found a point of enjoyable randomness where I don't know what's coming but it's happening. The imagination has to do the rest, otherwise it's all too much to cope with.
The disappearing red lights of a small car into the mist, so distant you can't hear it, but you know that when they've gone you've got this huge road to yourself, its not late anybody could be around, but I've been given this experience and no one else could have had it. Maybe it's the dusky light, maybe it's the damp warmth with the cold to touch plants, maybe it's the fact that it's the Kent weather in general. Who know's I want more, I always like the inbetween times, not day or night, not hot or cold, not dry or wet. It doesn't happen much, but when it does it's a winner.
Quiet Night - Anna Ternheim
To Be Gone - Anna Ternheim
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