So I woke very early, stressed by the multitude of changes I've been asked to make to an academic article that I've written.
'Just pull out of it; you're a shit writer!', said one voice in my head. 'You have had a traumatic accident and everything looks hard after something like that happens', said another.
I couldn't stand them arguing, so I got up to escape and set to work, not on the article itself, but on the many things that have to be cleared out of the way before my head is in the right place to start.
This is the first morning for five weeks where I've woken up feeling normal. At the weekend I took a mega-dose of Codeine and spoke in slurred speech all day on Saturday; a train journey on Sunday was so surreal I still can't work out how much of it was imagined, and how much real. I do know that a woman on the train deliberately flung her suitcase out of the rack on to what she thought was my broken arm; she had been being very aggressive to the woman sitting next to her during the journey. But she wasn't the weird one; it was the drunken toffs who over-shared details about their forthcoming grand wedding, guests, hen night, shooting arrangements and just about everything else very privileged people talk about. Oh yes, and they were homophobic, too.
The Codeine sent the pain away though, and the laundry is done and put away, newspaper articles sifted through, interviews three-quarters edited, and perhaps tomorrow the floors will be clean too.
And look at it out there- almost spring! The goldfinch has been tweeting since six, and outside the wagtail are waddling down the road. Two sets of soldiers in their uniforms on parade.
Almost time to go to Work Mk 2; no sabbatical there, but I'm not complaining. Not any more, anyway.
2 comments:
I think you may have nailed why I don't use trains unless I absolutely have to. Not that coaches are without problems, but you pay much less for the trouble and the behaviour of other passengers doesn't seem as upsetting somehow. I think it's the lack of privilege you get with coach passengers that makes the difference.
I generally agree with you there Cazz- apart from one terrible overnight journey from London to Newcastle when an inebriated elderly gentleman fell asleep on me, and I had to inhale his tobacco and alcohol aroma for almost eight hours. Every time I gently uprighted him, he collapsed on me again. I have never been so glad to get off a bus.
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