Saskatoon, SK

I arrived in Saskatoon late last night
After hitching the two thousand miles from Guelph
Snow covering every inch
Standing there sometimes
In minus fourteen
Peeing one morning
Barefoot and shirtless
In minus twenty-two
It was awesome
I'd thought of it as my greatest challenge
My biggest test of faith
In all these years on the road
Stretching right back to
USA '98
When I first realised
Some perfect
Beneficial
Groovy
Force
Operated in my life
The force that took me down to Mexico
The force that transported me
Penniless
Kept me sheltered and fed
Through thousands of miles of
North America
Europe
India
Etcetera
But this seemed different
Canada in the winter time!
Perils of
Actual death
Not just hunger
Sleeping out
Maybe getting wet
This was real
What to do
For example
When night falls
The temperature's twenty below
I've been deposited in the middle of
The vast Ontario wilderness
And freezing and frostbite and -
Well, in any case
I made it
It all worked out good
I was offered a place
Each day and night
Never spent a penny
Even though I wanted to
The magic is unbelievable
God loves a foolhardy fool
But I suppose what you're really wondering is
Exactly how did it work out?
Well I'll tell you
But first we'll have to rewind
Right back to Guelph
Right back to last Wednesday
Right back to me thinking
It's time to move on
And then wondering how
And checking planes and buses and trains
And just thinking
Fuck it
I can't be arsed with this
The thought of hitching terrified me
But I knew it had to be done
I did my trembling thing
The trembling subsided
And then I just got on with it
Well do I trust or not?
Or does God only work His magic
In sunny climes
On snowless ground?
No
Of course not
The God in my head isn't quite so limited as that
So I guess I had to prove it
Marching daftly to the highway in Guelph
Holding up a sign for "BC! Please"
And pretty soon got a ride
Straight to the front door of some friends' house
In Burlington
Good start!
The magic still works!
And confidence is instilled
One night there talking crazy Yorkshire talk
(Everyone was from Yorkshire)
And then after being deposited at a truck stop north of Toronto
The hitch began in earnest
It was cold and I shivered
It was six degrees ABOVE zero
Yowzers
I knew substantially lower temperatures were ahead
And I was nowhere near equipped
Oh well
The eccentric Englishman
Who plans in retrospect
Knows it always works out
And it did
Like I said
My final ride the first day
(After slight detour from expected highway
Thinking go with the flow)
Offers me dinner and a bed
And a day out the next day
Taking a boat to an island in Georgian Bay
Plus dinner and a bed
The following two nights as well
Gives me a great groovy hat
A big red warm coat
Some wool socks
And warm mitts
I do some healing
We chat all spiritual stuff
It's awesome
And then I'm on the road again
Sunday morning
Minus fourteen
A long cold wait
Everything white and beautiful
Loving the madness of it all
Loving my crazy new hat
With flaps over the ears
Get diverted again
But trust
And once more
Just before dark
A man takes me north from North Bay
Asks me if I want to watch the game
(The CFL final)
Stay at his
Shoot some pool
On the table in his basement
Andy the forest fire fighter
He's a great and groovy guy
He feeds me up
Sends me on my way
Says
Come back if it don't work out
If you're getting cold
But like every day
I get picked up quick
And I'm on the road again
Left this time really in the middle of nowhere
Have to walk a couple of miles
Tromp tromping in the falling snow
Whooping for the quiet of it
The solitude
And then get picked up by a crazy Christian
Who tells me he had to pick me up
Cos someone was trying to kill me
Did I know who that someone was?
Yes
That's right
Satan
Phew
I thought for a moment
It was someone real
But Satan I can deal with
So I settled down and let him 'minister' to me
Non-stop
For like forty-five minutes
And smiled inside thinking
Wow
He'd probably be doing the same if he had Jesus in his truck
And felt good that I
Never once tried to debate him
Nor point out his flaws
Just let it all wash over me
A non-reactive antidote
To all the arguments I was having
A few weeks back
And not long after that
A Mennonite picked me up
Offered me a bed
And even though it was early in the day
I thought
Why not?
It's not every day you get to spend time with a family of Mennonites
Say yes to everything, right?
Especially on a trip like this
So I slept in the loft above his cows
Dug him a trench
Tossing off layers
Right there in the cold
Met his wife and 7.5 children
(He was a year younger than me)
Ate Mennonite potatoes
Even ate Mennonite apple pie
And answered questions about the outside world
Answers which were apparently "very interesting"
This was near Englehart
I was going nowhere fast
It was about then that I looked at a map of Canada
And saw just how insane it was to attempt to hitch it
In the middle of winter
On these crazy Ontario roads
They'd told me so but -
It's all folly to an Englishman's ears
Who can contemplate a provincial slice of a country
That in itself takes twenty-four solid hours of driving to get across?
I'd travelled less than three hundred and fifty miles
I'd been on the road five days
Seen pretty much nothing but snow
And trees
Hundreds and hundreds of miles of trees
And not even beautiful trees
Just scraggly
Spindly
Scrawny trees
Standing shivering and ugly
Waiting to one day
Be hacked to the ground
Sawed and pulped
Something about this trip through Canada...
It was like the scales were falling from my eyes
It had always been the promised land
Where life was easy
People were happy
Everything was better than England
I mean
I'd been here eight times
I'd lived here one solid year
I hadn't just based it on movies
Like Bill Barrett and his
Magic America
But I was seeing a different side now
People chained to their work
Everyone divorced
On medication
Wrestling over children
Bitter and
Obsessed with cash
Industries that pulverised nature
The slowly-dawning realisation
That certain pockets of British Columbia
Far from define the whole
Now it was
Rednecks in big trucks
Nice people whose greatest pleasure
Was to shoot little animals in the head
And these endless thousands of miles of
Denuded ugly trees
With no change in sight
Save for
Denuded
Ugly
Prairies
I must be mad
Standing out in this snow, this cold
My socks all wet
My toes going frozen
Nobody stopping
Waiting an hour
On highway 11
Truck after truck
Knowing
Trucks don't stop no more
Their insurance has changed
It's not '98
Nor Colorado
What am I doing here?
In insufferably large Ontario
I'll never get out
And all for -
Yes
Chasing a girl
That old chestnut
High hopes but -
What the fuck
What the fuck am I doing?
It was the one time I thought about turning back
Toronto
England
Something safe
Not the madness of -
I keep on thumbing
That's the voice of doubt
God is good
Everything'll work out
But still -
I genuinely said it
"God help me!"
And within five seconds
A truck pulls over
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Written on the door
(Pronounced win-a-peg, apparently
Not winnie)
And I think
God, I hope he's going there
Or at least far enough to
Thaw out my toes and dry my socks
And he is
And he's happy to take me
We're on our way
Oh Holy Road God!
How can I ever thank Thee?
I've said it again and again
We're rolling and
I figure we'll be in Winnipeg soon
Just sit back and -
We pass a sign saying
Thunder Bay - 733km
And I think
My God!
That's not even out of Ontario
How big is this province
This country?
It's mind boggling but -
That's pretty much it
We drove all day to Ignace
(677 miles)
And after sleeping in bunks
Reached Winnipeg the next afternoon
(287 miles)
Where we were to part
And I was to strike out for Saskatoon
Once so unfathomably far away
Now a mere 500 miles distant
Still, that could be several days
Depending on what happened
But -
Fate is weird huh?
The morning before I'd been thinking of retreat
Thinking another two weeks to get there
Thinking it was all mad craziness
Or that I might still end up in Ottawa
Quebec, somewhere
Sneaking into Vermont
(Surrendered to the road, you see)
And then trucker Ed says
Next load's ready and
Whaddya know?
It's Saskatoon
I'll be there that night
It's all happened crazy fast
Ed trucks on
(He's now done 2400 kilometres in 36 hours)
And we roll into town
Crazily-named Saskatoon
Where I now sit
In the apartment of a girl-slash-woman
I'm seriously in love with
She beautiful
She lovely
She's all those other things and more
And agan I say it:
God bless that crazy Holy Road God
For the wonders He doth produce!
Ah fuckin' men.

Love Poem #9

If you've ever spent any time on Guardian Soulmates
As pretty much every single London-type person has
You'll very quickly realise
It's mainly the same thing
Over and over and over
"Beautiful awesome male
Seeks beautiful awesome female"
"Beautiful awesome female
Seeks beautiful awesome male"
When I realised that it made me want to bang some heads together
Dream up a system not so unlike Reverend Moon's Korean mass weddings
Find some Wise Old Soul
To take these
Beautiful Awesome People
And pair em up
Say
"You and you
You'll be good together
You'll have difficulties
You'll argue
Sure
But in the long run
If you stick at it
I promise you
You'll be good
You'll have fun
You'll love each other loads
You're beautiful and awesome!
Don't you see?
How could it not work out?
And anyway -
I'm wise and know the future and
You've got to trust that"
And then they'd nod
And pair up
And walk off hand in hand
Uncertain
Excited
Resolved to see it through
Just like in the good old days
When people tolerated one another's differences
And realised that being with someone only 98% perfect
Is still better than forever chopping and changing
And seeking things that don't exist
It's arranged marriage, basically
But arranged with an understanding of the two people involved
The Wise Old Soul KNOWING
That they will one day love each other massively
As Beautiful Awesome People
Are inevitably fated to do
If they just give of themselves a little
But, alas, there is no system like that
No Wise Old Soul
And so the singles go on searching
Beautiful Awesome People
Growing ever older
Always wanting somebody
Always people available with whom to make it work
But somehow never getting there
And the question is "why?"
Why in this world of so much choice
Do we so often
Fail to choose?
Shall we blame society?
Blame our freedoms?
Blame Old God Hollywood?
Forever commanding
"Thou shalt be perfect in body, mind and soul
Before thou canst be considered deserving
Of someone who finds you lovable"?
Or maybe blame our fears?
Blame the deep-down fears
That forever keep us searching
Not willing to lay ourselves bare
For instance -
I once met a man
Who wanted love more than anything
But every time it came knocking
He would always reach a stage where he had to admit
He was afraid of it
And the way he'd handle that
Was to decide that his lover was imperfect
And then go looking for another
He even wrote all that on his dating profile
Told the world
"I'm afraid of love
I'm afraid of the vulnerability
I'm afraid to get hurt
To hurt another
To reveal myself
To not be able to fulfill my promises"
"And I'm afraid of women
Of what they'll want from me
Afraid of mortgages and children's college fees
A mean-spirited boss
I'll be forced to work for
To pay for things I myself have realised
Aren't even that useful
But which I feel pressured to provide
For future non-existent children
That I may or may not have
With an unmet future woman
I may or may not meet"
"I just thought I'd better get all these things out front
Before we go on that date
So you know where I'm coming from
So you'll know why I blow hot and cold
Because the more I like you
The closer those things come
And the more I'll want to run away"
I paraphrase, of course
I can't remember exactly what he said
But I liked his honesty
Despite how daft it all sounded
But then it's hard being a single Londoner
In a world ruled over by Old God Hollywood
His pronouncements from up on high
Ringing in their ears
"Thou shalt never find someone to love
If thou aren't flaunting a six-pack!"
"Thou shalt never find someone to love
If thy income isn't enough to buy
A new iPhone for thy four-year-old
Every single year!"
"Thou shalt never find someone to love
If thou hast flaws and fears
And sometimes want to curl up in a ball
Moaning
'I can't do this'
'It's too much'
'I don't know what to do'"
"Thou shan't ever find someone to love
If thou aren't always funny
Don't have all the answers
Can't immediately figure out the way"
But, alas, the men I know
The men from Guardian Soulmates
Those Beautiful Awesome People
Fail to keep these commandments
And thus are doomed
By Old God Hollywood
To forever wander
The cold streets of Singledom
Looking
Searching
Wanting
Pleading
Chopping
Changing
Growing older and...
Alone
All those Beautiful Awesome People of their youth!
And then one day fifty-five
And life will never be the same again
Shame about those fears
That kept them from going for it
Shame about those moments
When they got caught at the crossroads
Of love and uncertainty
Felt their hearts spilling over
Became overwhelmed
By what they thought that meant
Unable to go on
Their fear of committing deeper
Their inability to express those feelings
For their fear of how the other would take it
They got stuck
They couldn't figure out what to do
And they never had the wisdom
To simply tell their other
"I don't know what to do"
Neither the wisdom
Nor the balls
For to do so would be to break the tenth commandment:
"Thou art a man and thou solvest all thy problems by doing things
And not knowing what to do is a sin"
But couldn't they simply say
"Dear God
I don't have all the answers
I only know what I'm feeling
And it's kind of hard for me
Can't I work it out with my other?"
Would that really be so bad?
Or is it too much against
"Thou shalt be easy-going at all times
And take responsibility for the whole world
And keep it all to thyself"?
Old God Hollywood
Thou art good
But sometimes I do feel
You've laid a heavy yoke
On my poor brothers' shoulders
And look where it's got them
No wonder they break the least of Thy commandments:
"Thou shalt not settle for second best
For to do so would be to avoid LOVE and GROWTH
And LOVE and GROWTH are the very purpose of life"
Phew
I'm glad none of this stuff is too much for me
Glad I've got it all sorted out
Know what I'm doing
Don't blow it
When I meet
Beautiful Awesome People

Guelph, ON #2

Still in Guelph

A lovely time

An amazing catch-up

And feeling useful too

You know how when you land in somebody's life

And they say

Oh

Wow

This is just what I needed

An answer to prayers?

That's pretty nice

And scary too

Wondering what I am

Who's pulling the strings

These decisions of mine...

Seemingly free will...

But anyway -

There are so many things I'm digging about North America

The positivity of the people

The way houses don't have fences

Front porches

It's all so inviting

We speak the same lingo

But, wow

We're so different in so many ways

I came here in December 2001

Sort of inspired by a Rob Breszny horoscope:

'You are far from your true home

But soon you will discover

The land of your descendants'

And for a long time I wanted that

And I'm kind of back there again

I felt at home in Vancouver

I feel at home in Guelph

I miss England not

Save how cheap the supermarkets are

I dig it here

Sincerely

And also I'm afraid

Of a great many things

Well - three

One is this feeling that Life wants me to hitch-hike across the country

One is the looming prospect of knuckling down and writing

Either putting up or...

Well, shutting up seems incomprehensible

And the other is

Love

Am I a good man?

I so want to be

I've been afraid a lot lately

I trembled before Exeter 

I trembled before coming here

I tremble, and still I walk on

It always turns out amazing

But some things are harder than buying plane tickets

Landing uncertain in unknown cities

Sleeping in sheds

Guelph, ON

Back where I was nine years ago
Reminiscing
Loving this town
Feeling...
Well
Ya know
Canada:
It's so far, soooooooooo good
That's all I want to say

Toronto, ON

And now I'm here in Canada
How strange!
Not really thinking about it
Just kind of -
Okay!
I'm an ant!
I got flipped upside down
Caught in somebody's coat
Flicked off their sleeve
Three thousand ant miles from home
And now I -
Just flip myself rightside up
And carry on walking
Who knows where?
But the ant sure seems to

Tears #2

I also cried on the plane
This really amazing movie
Where Kevin James is a fat biology teacher
Who becomes a cage-fighter
To save his school's music program
Cos the bespectacled Korean girl...
And Henry 'Fonz' Winkler...
And the really unlikely love interest...
And...
Cheesy, low-grade Hollywood always gets me
Point being:
Maybe my Athens/Amma tears don't mean so much
I'll cry at owt, me

Exeter, Devon #4

And now I'm off to Canada
Bought a ticket last Tuesday
After waging a very real war
For several days
And several thousand words
A battle between my desires
And the conundrum of 'surrender'
A puzzle I don't really understand
But -
In any case
I'm off to Toronto tomorrow
And then Vancouver Island
For the next six months
And already it seems
As though the Universe is conspiring
Supporting
Leading me, perhaps
To something
Unexpected
Amazing
The divine hand
Reaching down
To lift me up
Move me about
Greek god
Chess piece
Clay man
Style

Tears

I cried...
When I was at Amma's
Reading about her charitable works
Simultaneously moved
By both the tragedy
And the goodness
In the world
And when sitting in the darshan line
Not really feeling anything
When -
Tears out of nowhere
Attached to no thought in particular
Also after my first hug
Maybe my 60th in total
When an altogether new response
The urge to curl up foetal
Pull my hood over my head
And weep uncontrollably
For reasons my conscious mind knew not

I also cried in Greece
Three times
Unexpected tears
At a glimpse of
The Temple of Zeus
In Athena
Weeping, maybe
Not just for 'the birthplace of Western Civilisation'
But its fallen pillars
Suggesting, perhaps
That this is also where it died
And then on the road to Delphi
Hitch-hiking randomly
'Losing time'
Going nowhere
Cursing my decisions
My indecisions
My lack of rides
Worrying over those I would not meet
And how to find them
And then
The sudden glowing remembrance
Of all the mad
Stupid
Random
Times
Wrong turns
Mistakes
That led me to Dave
To Mexico
To the Canyon
To Shawn
And Shane
And John
And -
God, how amazing is and how much this Universe loves me!
How lost I thought I was
And yet I was ever on my way

I cried too at Delphi
Staring at the spot
Where the Oracle once sat
Similar reasons to those in Athens
Tears of sorrow
For the passing of the age of oracles and gods
The material world
That has taken its place

The struggle

Here's my struggle
I've mentioned it before
It's kind of linked to one that goes:
The world is my oyster
And I know it
And there's nothing that gets in the way of that
Except knowing what to do with it
And making a choice and
I guess
Sticking with it
I don't like making decisions
I like it better when someone tells me what to do
But that doesn't seem to happen anymore
Or, at least
I don't know anybody who would know what was best for me
So...
I implore the Universe
Say
"Name it, Man!"
I'll do it
I really will
But the Universe seems strangely quiet
The answer generally being
"It's for you to do whatever you want"
I can get into that
For a time
The idea of me in charge
Creating my reality
This physical realm
Like the sculptor's clay
And me sitting grinning at the wheel
Ready to get my hands dirty
But what to create?
That's the question
And though I know the answer
(An awesome relationship!
To write!
To do something good!
To travel and have excellent adventures!)
I never seem able to get down to it
Number one, I vacillate
Number two
More than that
I can't get over the idea that there's a God up on high
And that this God wants me to do a certain thing
And that's what's best;
Indian holy men
Who seem in the know
Say:
"Surrender!
Self-denial!
Thy will be done!"
And my angel-channelling friend says:
"Be a leaf in the river of God
You can't know the way
Only God can
Let go"
And loads of other things besides
Yet
Neale Donald Walsch's 'Conversations With God'
My Bible
Says
"You're in charge
Do whatever you wish"
It's confusing
And even my angel-channeling friend says
Whenever I beseech him for answers
About some woman to marry
"The Universe'll never answer that one for you
It's completely up to you"
Aaargh!
Which one is it?
And how do you surrender anyway?
For if I stopped
Running my life
Wouldn't I be a mere potato in the street?
Would God take me to the toilet?
Brush my teeth?
Get me out of bed?
No
That's daft
So then we flip the other way
Laugh uproariously
And say
"I can do whatever I want!
Go wherever I choose!"
And dream plans of mad travel
Girls
Saying anything to anyone
Being whatever I feel like
That's what makes more rational sense
But that doesn't work either
For instance:
Last year I wanted to go to Canada
But I lost my passport
In mysterious circumstances
Took it as a sign not to go
And, as it transpired
There was a very good reason for it
Many good reasons
I learned tons
And it was good/God
I bet I could count dozens of times
My plans have been thwarted
Weird things have happened
And I've surrendered to the circumstances
And it's turned out for the best
Aren't the greatest things in life
Always the ones that come unexpectedly
Unplanned
Out of left field
Somewhat spookily?
So there I go again
Thinking that's what I need to tap into
And remembering also
Visions of people and places
That have guided me so beautifully
But then remembering times too
When I've just jetted off
Not knowing what I was doing
Totally unsure
Totally following weird desires
And that's always taken me amazing places
But...
What of I Ching that guided me to stay in Canterbury
And when I did
The unexpected awesome thing happened
Like three days later?
What of I Ching denying me various schemes
For what later transpired to be very good reasons
Or the few times I've gone against it
And seen how disastrous my own will can be?
It's very clear:
Something larger than me is in charge of my life
And yet
I still have to make choices
Decide how to traverse the day
Put in effort
Probably there's a middle way
I'm just not seeing it
Probably, as in all situations
Where only two possible solutions arise
It's the third one that's the best way to go
I don't know the answer to this
I guess it's a slight variation
On the tiresome old argument
About free will and
I'm not terribly interested in that
I just want to live my life in the best way possible
Not waste too much time
Get as much happiness and fulfillment out of it as I can
Maybe there's a clue in there somewhere
Maybe the issue is actually
Learning faith
Learning not to think ahead
Learning to buy into funny Mr Universe's game
Of constantly stretching my limits
Until I one day come to the point of realising
Everything's always there when it's needed
That there really is no need to do anything
Until it's necessary
Nor know anything beyond time
Nor, really, think beyond this present moment
I dunno...
I'm 37 years-old
I'm incredibly happy nearly all the time
I live nowhere
Currently sleeping in my boss's spare room
He and his wife seem very happy to have me there
But to where will it all lead?
What would I become
If I just surrendered to that?
I woke up this morning
Singing The Beatles' 'Nowhere Man'
And having googled the lyrics
I feel really quite troubled
What the fuck does it all mean?
And mad as you think I am
I'd be a fool to ignore these songs
That just appear in my head
Especially after that episode with the
"Stay With Me"
On the mountainside in Greece
(It was just a few minutes before I discovered that monastery
And I did stay there
And it was great)
So...
Ah! I love how writing about my actual feelings
Gets me all in a tizz
What to do?
How to figure out?
Twelve hours ago I was all ready to buy a plane ticket to Canada
Got the dates
Got a place to go
But...
Haven't thrown an I Ching
'Cos I'm scared of what it'll say
Even though I trust it
And know it knows best
And sees what I can't see
And don't know what else I'd do if I didn't do that
Which I guess all adds up to
Throwing one
I
Did throw one a few weeks back
It said: "Be receptive. Follow, don't lead.
Listen."
Not long after that a friend offered to buy me a ticket
Offered a place to stay
The works
But...I kind of took control myself
Cos I have money
And ideas about times and places
And always want the best deal
Whether I'm paying for it or not
And -
Nowhere man, don't worry
Take your time, don't hurry
Leave it all
Till somebody lends you a hand
Which, really, brings us right back where we started:
If the answer's coming
And it's my lot to surrender
To wait for assistance
To...
But I've still got to get on with my life
Can't stay here forever
Now the work is done
So then I think,
Well let's just hit the road
Go back to Exeter
Sleep in my shack
And resume my perfect happy hobo life
But is that surrender?
Who's deciding?
Fuck
You know what?
Sane people don't deal with these issues
They just get on with it
Book holidays went they want to
Do what they wish
And have a nice time doing it
But at the same time...
It's a long time since I met a 'sane person'
Who had anything that I wanted
Who had a fraction of the joy
The peace
The enthusiasm
And the excitement
Weird old world, innit?
Weird old me
Weird old everybody
Weird old...
That's another thing that strikes me:
Just how bizarre it is
When you think of the way
Pretty much anybody spends their time
Think about it
Think about our hobbies
Our jobs
Our procrastinations
The hours we spend with things that have no value
Billions of us
And then we die
Some men devote their lives to hunting yetis
Excited by hairs found in trees
And persevere even when scientists tell them
"That's one hundred percent horse"
Some women scan groceries for a living
Day after day
Decade after decade
Some people write millions of mad words
That no one will ever read
Some people just watch TV
Others do awesome things
And have grand plans for the future
And then die in really retarded ways
While still young and beautiful
I've been thinking about this a lot the last year or so
It must mean something
Say something about me
About where I'm at
But what that is
I'm not quite sure
It's kind of like:
Nothing really matters
So you might as well do anything
Which - again - brings us right back to where we started
And the whole dilemma of whether
We're masters of our own universe
And can do whatever we choose
Or whether there's a higher power guiding us
And the smartest thing is to go with that
The higher power's definitely guided me in my time
Guiding me now, I suppose
And I guess what I'd really like
Beyond everything
Is to understand that higher power
To meet it
And to experience that mystical yogic bliss
I've long read about
'Cept the thing with that
As opposed to say
Wanting a nice car
A new kitchen
Two weeks on the beach
The new Dan Brown
Is that I know the way to all those things
But only the higher power knows the way
To the higher power
Shit and balls!
It's pretty frustrating, no? ;-)

Leeds, West Yorkshire #2

Nine days in Leeds
Amazing how fast
Those four blissful weeks in Exeter
The divine time with Amma
Can be vanished
And replaced with something...
A little less gleeful
A little more stressy
Despite the big cosy house
All these creature comforts
A steady income
And familiar faces
I'd rather be homeless in Devon!
I was much happier there
Believe it or not
There's more to life than money
And having a roof and a big TV
(he jests)
So a change has got to come
But -
Oh, don't get me wrong
It hasn't been all bad
Or even remotely bad
Just different
I've helped out my old boss
Done three long days' work
When he was short-staffed and in need
I've completed my refereeing assessments for the year
Promoted, all being well, to Level 5
Only 4 more years and then I'll be at Wembley
Hahahahaha!
Something I needed to do
Something I wouldn't have felt satisfied not doing
Delaying my progress in that another year
All for the impatience of getting away
But now I'm free for winter travels
Five grand in the bank and
The other thing I realise is
Man, I just don't need any more money!
Truly, the work'll never stop coming
The money'll never stop piling up
But isn't enough enough?
And I've waaaaaay more than enough
What point going on
When my soul is bent towards other things?
Refereeing and my last job has taught me something
That being a "Yes Man" doesn't work
I tried it and -
Do you know what you end up doing?
Working every day
Refereeing all the time
Earning money you don't need
And
One day this life will end and I'll say
Wow
I said "yes" to everything
And all I was was a cog in the machine
A football referee!
I mean
I love it
I really really love it
But there's more to my life than that
And if I just said "yes" to everything
Well...
There wouldn't be
So, Danny Wallace,
It just don't quite work
(And I know you know that
But I only just found out)
Anyway -
Leeds
Work
Job done
Reffing complete
Possessions sorted
Plenty of money
No home
No lease
No commitments
No openings
No beckonings
Time for a whole new beginning
And a look at all the options
Which include
But aren't limited to
Going back to Exeter
Flying to
Peru
Canada
Mexico
India
Seeing Amma again
Seeing Mother Meera
Visiting various people
Or something totally unknown and out of the blue