Tag: Reflections

With the nausea and light headedness comes the dark.

The craving of melancholy, musical choices change to the minor keys, the quiet and downbeat. Lyrics flow over old wounds.

It is different now, the detachment of old is gone. Replaced by a floating view, looking down on this place, the swirling moods that ebb and flow.

Sleep comes, the dreams slide from view and in the morning the mood remains unblinking and groggy.

Sometimes it needs to be smashed, broken into pieces and scattered to the winds. It is merely a passing moment of life, it does not need to be reviled or pitied.

And sometimes it needs to be coaxed quietly into the light where it will slowly and quietly fade away.

Let it be acknowledged and allowed to be what it is before it dissipates. The final reveal is broadcast in a smile.

It’s sometimes just like sleeping,
Curling up inside my private tortures.
I nestle into pain.
Hug suffering.
Caress every ache.

Björk – Play Dead

I’m ok, it’s just a little bit of self-observation. I find it interesting to see that when I’m ill, and my energy levels drop, I tend towards melancholy. Just a minor case of the mehs.

Some of my watches

OK, let’s get one thing out of the way. Yes, I will be buying an Apple Watch. Probably. Most likely.

I’m not sure when, and it’ll certainly only be a final decision after I’ve had the chance to hold one in my hand and try one on my wrist, but for me it looks like it hits a sweet spot of design, user experience, and my continuing paring down of the artefacts of my life.

How does adding another gadget help with the latter? Let me explain.

As I mature, a phrase I prefer to use these days in preference to ‘get older’, I’ve been stripping away the superfluous items of my life and concentrating on items that hold some level of value, where that value may be judged on a monetary basis, through sentimentality, or just that is useful to me and gives me a better sense of value than something it is replacing.

The latter is most exemplified by a recent purchase of an OXO Can Opener. Whilst you may think £15 is a maybe a little on the steep side for a can opener I can confirm that each time I use it I know I have an item of value in my hand, it is well designed in every aspect, from the materials used to the implementation of the function. It is a far nicer experience to us that than the old one.

And I guess that’s where I place the most value, in the elusive qualities of a well designed object. It can be something simple like the can opener or a complex item like my car; true fact, one reason I bought my Honda Civic was because I preferred the feel of the switches over the Mercedes A-Class.

What can I say, I like the things I interact with to feel nice to use and yes I know that is entirely subjective (that’s why I won’t buy an Apple Watch until I’ve held one in my hands).

For me that’s why I’m such a fan of the Apple products I have. Whilst I have other gadgets by other companies – the Samsung smartphone issued by work is a nice enough piece of kit, as is my Kindle Voyage – but they aren’t things I appreciate, they are just things that fulfil a purpose. I appreciate the feel of my iPhone, the gentle clicks of the scroll wheel on my aging iPod Classic.

So I’ve been coupling my desire for nice user experience as I’ve slowly stripped back the things I own. I’ve been replacing items with a deliberation around things I WANT to use and through that journey it’s been interesting to observe how my aesthetic tastes have changed.

And that change is no better viewed through the history of my watches.

I’ve worn watches for as long as I can remember, from my first Swatch watch (a garish neon Fluomotions, hey it was the 80s!) through various Casio digitals (yes, including the calculator watch) which I largely got from the somewhat dubious source of the ‘left behind’ box in my Dad’s school (he was a P.E. teacher, amazing how many watches were left and never claimed!), through to the watches I own today.

It’s only been in the last 15 years or so that I’ve stopped viewing watches as purely utilitarian, that my eyes have been opened to the fact they are designed and can be worn to be admired.

The blue faced Skagen watch (in the image above) is the watch that turned me around on that, and whilst I’ve flip flopped back to more chunky models, I always end up back at the classic look, simple and functional but elegant in approach. So far my Braun watch (also pictured above) holds the place dearest in my (design led) heart.

I don’t tend to spend a lot of money on my watches, as they have been purely about how they looked and, if I’m honest, I prefer the more minimal designs.

I wear a watch almost every day, only taking it off when I go to sleep, when I’m on holiday, or if I’m just lazing about my flat. I currently have two in rotation, one for ‘day use’ which is a bit more run of the mill, the other for when I’m out and about as I feel it is more design led, prettier to look at and says more about me.

I always wear a watch and, as most people who know will attest, I am almost surgically attached to my iPhone. So it seems obvious that I will get an Apple Watch.

I’m more than happy with the way it looks, the cost I will either make my peace with or it will be the barrier. If I buy an Apple Watch would be the most expensive watch I’ve ever bought, but more than that it does seem that as my focus over the last couple of years has been around having less, of cutting down on the unneeded, simplifying the items in my life, it would be almost frivolous to buy another gadget that I don’t fully need.

Yet from what I’ve already heard the Apple Watch is actually a better fit to what I’m trying to do. Reports suggest it would mean less time on one gadget (my iPhone) and shorter bursts of more efficient time on another (the Watch). I already try and keep the notifications I get on my phone to a minimum and many only need a quick look, or glance, rather than an interaction.

This isn’t me trying to justify spending the money, what I’m really driving at it how much real use and value, might I get from an Apple Watch.

As I slowly step back from a lot of social media, and continue to slim down the things which I don’t perceive as offering me value, or items which don’t give me a nice experience, it might just be that adding something might be a better step forward.

I remain undecided. The gadget fan in me, my biggest distraction in my internal battle of wills when it comes to ‘having less’, is being held at bay by the price barrier for now. I’m using that time to try and assess whether I want an Apple Watch, need an Apple Watch (I don’t, but then I don’t really ‘need’ an iPhone either, right?), or whether the gadget fan is twisting my longer term desires to get something new and shiny.

Part of me is glad I can’t stump up the cash right now, part of me is glad that I will have the chance to ponder this over the coming months.

And yes, fine, I’ll admit it, there is a part of me that is already planning to get myself one under the guise of an early birthday present.

Time will tell I guess.

(pun unintended)

You do not know me.

I do not know all of me.

What you read here is not me. It is a small part, a feather plucked from my plummage.

Sometimes it is shiny and bright, the dazzling blue shimmering in the sun. Sometimes it is dull and brown, a soft down of comfort. Occasionally the feather is jet black, absorbing light, hanging heavy on the page.

And that’s the thing, we are all complex people (we are all our own unique fucking snowflake) and through social media we can pick and choose which parts of us we expose.

Some people enjoy the peacocking of social media, their lives painted in vivid technicolour, bright daubs of achievement are all you ever see. You marvel and admire how shiny their life is, how wonderful they are, how aspirational to be so luminous!

But of course that isn’t them, not the real them. They will have days where they achieve nothing, they experience doubt, they have insecurities. Their lives are not perfect. The facsimile does not reveal all.

You are not missing out. You are no worse than them.

You are no better than them.

Everyone has dark moments, shadows they try and ignore. Everyone can be mean, short-tempered, impatient, annoying and selfish. It is in all of us. Some people know their shadow well enough to be able to angle the light just so, tricking your eyes into thinking it doesn’t exist. Moments of blackness flit past your eyes and are gone before they can be recognised.

A polished act. A mask.

Everyone has a shadow, but I think the trick is to embrace it, to welcome it in and know it better. Let it become a manageable part of who you are, rather than a face that you hide away. Acknowledge it, speak honestly and openly to it, and hopefully you can find a balance that suits you both.

You and your shadow.

I’m have been pretty candid on here at times but there remains some things I have not, and will not, write about.

My dark places are mine, my shadow does not loom over me but follows me quietly. We both like it that way.

One thing that has continued to take me by surprise, despite the overwhelming evidence that suggests it shouldn’t, is how many benefits there are to being open and honest in your relationships, building a trust that makes so many other aspects of the relationship so much easier.

What that really means is being honest with yourself and that’s one of the things that being poly has really helped me with. I’m forced to look at myself, raw and exposed, to face up to my own shortcomings and issues rather than putting them away in a box.

This is nothing to do with being poly of course, it’s something I should’ve been doing for years but those boxes were so easy to use, so much easier than facing up to the facets of my personality I didn’t like.

Journaling, aside from being a horrid bastard of a word, has helped. In the past I would write reams and reams of self-analytic prose, reading it back I can see the beginnings of where I am today, the pain and uncertainty, the fear of change, the hope and pity all mixed up into ramble after aching rambling.

I’ve talked about it all since then, twice over.

Kirsty and I talked a lot during our early days together as we reeled into each others arms after the ending of our relationships. We discussed love, jealousy, trust, desire, selfishness, and more as we each explored our basic needs and expectations both within the frame of us and of ourselves. We stepped back in time to dark places, uncovered them to the light and watched as the dancing shards of the mirrorball reduced them to dust. We talked it all through. It was painful, brutal at times, but it got easier. We slipped, stumbled and recovered. Each step back a chance to check our place so we could walk forward together.

It got easier and easier but still, to this day, retains the surprise of what it reveals.

When I met Clare I still had some realisations to come, a second love amplifying the first and I latched on to what we had. A bonus in so many ways, a tribulation in others as we dived once more into the dark places of our pasts, finding new routes through them, out of them. The more we talk the easier it gets, the more evidence we show each other, the more accepting we are.

It gets easier and easier to talk. The surprises stay because of my fears write large in my imagination.

I write all of this after talking to both of my dearly loved partners, to tell them I needed a little more space than I currently had, that I wanted to step back a tiny way to give myself what I know, deep down, that I need. It is a time change not a time for change that I hesitantly proposed. It was a conversation, an offering on the table to discuss and reason with. It could be altered and changed, compromised to their individual needs.

The hard work of being honest with myself got me to those discussions. The realisation that I taking a little more time for myself doesn’t mean I love them any less, I know that is true because I asked myself that question. Was I pulling away because the love was fading? Was the distance being driven by something else that wasn’t in my view?

No. I am managing my own need pure and simple. I am being honest and trusting that they would indicate if it impacted them in a way they did not like, if they were not happy.

There are many benefits to being open and honest in your relationships, but for me the main advantage is the trust it builds, the trust that makes so many other aspects of the relationship so much easier.

Whilst it may be Chaucer that popularised the notion of romantic love being celebrated today, it seems that social expectation has taken hold and placed us all at the behest and behemothic budgets of a massive industry.

Cards to buy, chocolates to order, flowers to be delivered, candlelit dinners to be enjoyed, discrete Ann Summers packages to be unwrapped in the bedroom.

It’s all very formulaic and about as far removed from romance as I can imagine.

Of course it’s easy to dismiss all of this. A roll of the eyes whilst you point out that you don’t need one day to prove your love, and the clarion call of ‘commercialisation’ is an easy one to fall back on but it is exactly this pre-packaged, mass market, off the shelf approach that irks. The lowest common denominator isn’t far away I fear; the Valentine box containing a card for ‘the one’, chocolates, a single red rose and a lurid red and lace lingerie set. It will be prominently placed in all the best supermarkets, indiscreetly labelled as “all your romance in one place”. How depressing.

It’s been many years in the making, the gentle conditioning that has ebbed into our lives unchallenged, tricking and treating its way into the common psyche.

But then what harm some flowers and a card? What harm of such a day that brings love into focus,  that forces it to the forefront of our busy lives. It can’t be that bad, can it? In a world full of pain and anger, headlines thrust into our views to remind us the world is a bad place, an evil place. The world needs more love, everything in black and white.

And so it is that our integrity is diluted, the cliffs of my belief are slowly eroded until I look around and realise I do not recognise this land, where am I and how did I end up here? In my confusion I wonder what my beliefs are now, I question what I hold dear about the notions of love and romance, of that spark of connection with another human being and start to wonder if my approach has been so wrong all this time.

I find myself confused and conflicted. The sway of the masses is strong, my island of belief grows small but I will stay here until I too crumble and once more fall into the waters from which I dragged myself a few years ago. A sodden rag of bewilderment, I will stumble forth and buy on command.

I say this from a position of love. I am very lucky to be in a place in my life where such rambling proclamations can be made.

I will confess I bought and received cards but, more importantly, I spent time with my loved ones. It’s taken me a long time to realise the real value of love can’t be measured by one day.

There will be flowers, chocolates, romantic meals and discrete packages bought and received in the future but not by any other schedule than ours.