Dipping my toe in…
Sunday 14 May 20:19
I find myself back in the conservatory at my parents’, listening to the excellent FlamAndFlange podcast featuring amiable electronic situationists Rosebud, having consumed the strong cup of tea my mother placed in front of me, and previously a few of the pink strawberry laces my wife sent in our daughters name after I sent with dad as envoi the peace lily I’d been overwatering in hospital when he picked up my guitar leads and pedals from our little family home.
Dinner was grilled (I think) marinated chicken with new potatoes and brocolli. I was too hungry to think about photographing them for my new Instagram feature, in which, inspired by reading Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries over my time in the local psychiatric hospital.
Prior to dinner I had a game of backgammon with Emily over facebook. She’s one of the few people, including my dad, a know to get a good game out of. I taught Emily to play, and must have done a good job because she regularly beat me at the game over the time we spent together. I hadn’t been in touch with Emily since getting married, out of respect for my wife I said, but really I felt torn because the relationship was originally born out of friendship, as can be the way of such things.
Trying as an exercise akin to the Buddhist nighttime practice of rewinding through the day. In that practice one is supposedly capable of rewinding into previous lives, but it will be a miracle if I get back to this morning. Much as I’m feeling pretty good, my mind is shattered by the psychosis I suffered four weeks ago, which was the culmination of more than a year of prodromal disorder, and we, the psychiatrist and I, used the opportunity of the crisis to rejig my medication quite radically, hence feeling much better today but not without suffering and causing a fair amount of chaos.
This episode was alluded to in the email I sent speculatively, like a digital message in a bottle, to comedian and columnist Stewart Lee, after being interviewed by the illustrious Russell Taysom. At the end of the interview he asked if I wanted to do it again, with less hostility, after witnessing a degree of humility from the once egomaniacally solipsistic yours truly. I conceded I had been given something of an emotional kicking, and been put in my cosmic place, but I had enjoyed the candid interview, hostility included. I interviewed Russell once years ago when undergoing a brief stint studying journalism at Kingston in 2006/7. He said then with characteristic ironic hyperbole that the interview would be uninteresting because interviews are only interesting when there was conflict between the interviewer and interviewee, but then went on to disprove his own contention by sharing rather fascinating factoids about his illustration practice and its origins, specifically that as a child, people only listened to him when he drew something, rather than when he spoke. Carl Jung spoke about our childhood activities as useful guides for how to spend our adult life, and much of my childhood was spent dreaming, drawing, painting, playing music, and writing, and that is how I hope to spend the rest of my days.
Funnily enough, I have been catching up on the worksheets for the conflict resolution course I signed up for prior to becoming psychically untethered. Maybe some of it is taking root. Marc and Tom came round earlier to visit, and I managed their company happily for two hours before Marc asked if they should leave me in peace, and I courageously assented that I needed them to bid their leave. They are good friends now, and have been for some time, but can, like a lot of people, be draining after a while. Probably part of the reason for the braindrain was that I was reminded about the separation with my wife and some circumstances around it which I had been putting out of my mind since talking a little with Judith about it in the lovely garden of the Friends’ Meeting House after the service. I told Johnny I’d managed to sit still for an hour and rather than congratulate me or just acknowledge it he asked rather adroitly why I would have any problem sitting still and what was on my mind. I said I thought a lot of people would struggle to be peaceful for an hour, my mum having admitted the same in the car, and asked what was on his mind if he felt like sharing. He said not to feel attacked by him please and he was permitted to try and help. I said I needed my mates to be mates, and he left it at that. Thoughts about armchair Jungians came to mind, but I didn’t text them for the simple reason that it would be the pot calling the kettle black.
