Who would swap sunlight for sanity ? Given the choice, who would make it. It can be so bright here planting snowdrops that it would not be swapped for sanity. Not at all. It is happy defining its own band of normality.
I had been expecting Alan to arrive before. Because he had telephoned to say he would arrive before. I'm not sure why he telephoned, he wouldn't normally but this time he did. He telephoned to say he would arrive before. To warn me? To build expectation? Before he came he telephoned to say he was coming. And I can't really say i was surprised when he didn't, he came the next day instead. That didn't really surprise me at all.
He came and he was in no hurry to be anywhere else. He comes to me when he is in no hurry to be anywhere else. And we sat down to a heavy coffee drinking session, as is our habit it would seem. He told me a story of a man who had a heavy good vehicle license, but who was noit very good at driving a heavy goods vehicle. Who made this quite simple for most people to see. The story seemed to have no point. There was no punchline. There was no humour and no minterest. Unless you are interested in a man with red hair who burnt out the clutch of a heavy good vehicle while on the first job he had had for some years. I'm afraid I didn't understand the reason for the story. All it seemed to do was fill the space between the start of coffee drinking and the end.
There are a series of subjects that are difficult for people to talk about. Clearly one of these is sex. Another is money, or rather the presence of money, people are very lucid about its absence. And this difficulty is very strange. It does not stop the subject being discussed, but nthere seems to be a social imperative to make it an awkward discussion. Clear concepts have to be gently avoided, or only hinted at. The words used have to be changed. The obvious vocabulary has to be avoided at all costs. Talk of doing nicely and it can be sex or money it will mean just the same. Somehow people are afraid of the power of the words themselves and have to find substitutes. In time even the substitutes become so well known and accepted they are too specific to use, and substitutes have to be invented.
If a string of short sentences are more powerful than one long one, I can feel that to be true, but could not see why. A long sentence has a powerful local specific effect. Short sentences can be more emotional. A point can be made by short repetitions, each moving forward slightly. A long train of thought can be interrupted by questioning thoughts and dismantled. Less so a short sentence. It remains pristine between the capital and the full stop. Short sentences feel cutting. Short sentences have power. Short sentences attack. Short sentences dismember. If it is repeated often enough anybody will believe it to be true.
innocence and personality and self-image have curious interactions. It is enough to know something or to see something to be touched by its guilt in part. You do not have to be involved in causing it. Simply being a spectator in some way taints you with its colours. It is like interactive television giving the viewer control of some aspects and then showing pictures of moon rockets exploding. The responsibility seems to carry oiver. The interactions are very strange. Perhaps it is self image. Somehow it is strange people can be so linked together even when they are not touching.
Mark telephoned me. Last time he called was six months or more ago. He wanted to know where the dustbin bags were in my parents house. It was strange. Very short and strange. This time he telephoned to ask how to build a wooden bed. That was all he wanted to know. Would I do some drawings so he could work out the construction. it is all very strange. He is not getting as much business as he would like. When he is driving the van around London he likes to get caught in traffic so that more people can read the sign on the side of the van. If he sees a likely looking client he sounds his horn so that they will look round and read the sign. He cleans chandeliers for a living. He drives a large white van. It is all very strange. When I speak to my mother I can say exactly what she will say. Not so with Mark. Perhaps nobody will ever be able to tell.