Feeling Iffffffffy

Don’t worry, I don’t get like this this very much, but….

I think that one of the reasons I sit down to write this blog is to try to sort through, or lay down or maybe place somewhere, some of the jumble that sloshes and swishes around inside my brain.

Why?

To stop my brain drowning? To bail out? To learn how to swim through it? To water the garden?

So this might be a bit of a shambles this morning…

What wakes me up?

The Alarm some mornings, too many mornings given a choice; the sun when I sleep outside, or a woodpecker; thoughts this morning.

Too many, swirling around, ok can’t get back to sleep though I’d like to, so let’s sit on the bench and write.

A trip into the conditional world.

Imagine.

Imagine?

There’s no heaven?

I was listening to John Lennon yesterday, a very young John Lennon – recorded by the BBC.

I had been wandering the occasional streets of Toulouse and had stumbled on a little store that sells vinyl – I knew it was there but had forgotten, and although, I don’t buy vinyl, I always, when I remember that the store is there and I occasionally find myself there too, stop and look at the album covers.

I did/had, this time and in the window was a CD of obscure recordings of The Beatles at the BBC.

It caught my eye.

I went in.

The store is run by an old guy – by which, if I’m honest, means “about my age” – and the only other customer was a young black guy – by which I mean “attractive dude” – who was checking out the turntables.

I waited, and when the old guy said hello I asked if I could look at the CD in the window.

He was surprised – probably because he had forgotten there was a CD in the window, but also by my accent – he got it, I checked out the track listings, and - being as most of them were early rock and roll and skiffle tunes written by other folk, we got to talking Beatles and their early recordings.

I told him a story about going to the BBC studios on Lower Regent Street when I was a school-kid, to be an audience member for the recordings of the John Peel Radio Show – something that meant nothing to the other old guy.

I don’t know why I told him this – I was probably feeling lonely and needed someone to talk to.

John Lennon has/had a beautiful voice.

And listening to him speak can make me nostalgic about my youth of which he was an occasional, if virtual part – as I never met him face to face.

Or side to side, come to that.

Imagine.

Imagine you were lonely and sitting on an empty bench.

Imagine that it were a beautiful summer’s eve, that you were close to a river, that a soft breeze was blowing from the sea not so far, that the light was the summer’s eve light that only really exists in fairy tales and that the new moon was about to rise.

Imagine that you started to imagine that someone might come and share that bench; that evening; that light; that moon.

Or that you wished that they would.

Someone to talk to.

John for example, who can’t.

If you KNEW that they weren’t coming, that they couldn’t come, that they wouldn’t even if they wanted to – then that would be knowledge.

But what if you THOUGHT they might, thought that they could, that they might want to even if they wouldn’t – then that would be a thought.

Nothing more.

If you knew the knowledge made the thought insane, and you thought about it too much – for a summer’s eve length perhaps…..

You would have to consider yourself insane, no?

Or to THINK you were insane perhaps?

Or KNOW it?

Or QUESTION it?

That way madness lays, here be dragons?

People don’t make maps of these things do they?

If no one came, you couldn’t feel stood up could you?

Could you even feel disappointment?

Can an imagined thought that you know is unreal lead to sorrow?

Or would you just feel very foolish?

I have never studied philosophy, although I read almost all the book, the Norwegian one about the girl who finds mysterious letters in her letter box.

What was it called?

It should be part of my knowledge – as I know this, or knew this – but I have forgotten it.

So are forgets the third part of an unholy trinity – knowledge, thoughts, forgets?

And why isn’t my spell check highlighting the word forgets?

Has it too forgotten; can machines forget?

Or can we only forget if we can think?

I should KNOW this!

I feel like I should know a lot of things – I should know more about Ibsen (I said this yesterday I think; no - I know), and fractions.

Whilst I was wandering, lonely as a cloud through the occasional streets of Toulouse…

Can clouds be lonely?

Whilst I was wandering, lonely as a clown, through the occasional streets of Toulouse I stumbled on a shop I know about that sells games, and I bought a new game, number two in a series of which I have the first.

Timeline.

And in the shop, the old guy that works there – a different old guy, by which I mean “younger than I” started to play the game with me, I guess he was a clown too.

And fractions came up.

Do you know when they were discovered?

I didn’t, and then I knew, and now it’s one of my forgets – but it was, I think - I mean I forget - about a thousand years before Christ.

Which is a long time ago.

In the eternity of things.

I think we should all KNOW stuff by now that were discovered so long ago – it should become part of our genetic thingies.

Then we wouldn’t have to learn them again (and again in some cases).

Or am I being unrealistic.

Unrealistic in knowledge, thought or forgets?

Or is there a fourth part to the unholy trinity?

Which would make it a quadrinity?

Or does that immediately mean there is a fifth?

Knowledge, thoughts, forgets, unreals, and means?

Ok, I’m awake now, the jumble is un-jumbled – or at least laid to rest so that it can sleep and I am free to be whatever I am.

Feeling foolish on a bench somewher.

Or off to make a cup of tea with the kettle that is….

Shit, I have just remembered that I put that on the stove before I sat down to ramble this.

So there’s a sexinity!

Knowledge, thoughts, forgets, unreals, means, and remembers.

But…. I left out questions.

And foolings.

Which makes eight.

Which is perfect.

Why?

Because I would like to bring this incoherent jumble to a close, preferably in a circular fashion – and wasn’t it John Lennon who sang……..