Upcoming decisions

So for the first time in eight days I’ve got half an hour to write some stuff. Words, of course, have been filling my head. So much to tell! So many thoughts and experiences! But not the time now to get truly stuck in, just a little update – which may perhaps suffice anyway. Although…

One o’ them thoughts being about the writing of this blog again. Memories of last December when I took it down and I Ching seemed to say, “good idea.” And memories of more recent times, when following my last proper post first Perlilly and then Nicky read things they didn’t like, that upset them, and I got to thinking of the harm this writing does. And does it do any good? Those kind of thoughts. I mean, not that I need to write so frequently about sex and women…but then, those are two of the things that are most frequently in my mind, that I seek answers to. So what is the answer with all of that?

Anonymity? Just writing but not sharing? Not writing at all?

That’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about. What else?

Decisions. Decision-making time approaches. The psychotherapy course I’ve applied for begins in September. My dad wants to give me his shop. Laura and the prospect of a solid, settled life in Yorkshire. My job, and the murmurings of partnership in that. A home and a stable life and the committing of myself to one place for more years than I ever have before. All that stuff other people do…

And at the other end of the spectrum, those urges to get away. Six wonderful Californian ladies land into my life via random, synchronistic circumstances and those dreams of breaking into America rear their heads once more. Such great and open and positive people; such an antidote to heavy, cynical England, which seems built of bricks and stress. And such a reminder of my days there – glorious days of Utah and Big Sur – and the mind is spinning and plotting and maybe I don’t need to ‘get real’ and sort out mortgages and pensions just yet. Maybe I can be the vagabond I once was, long to be, perhaps am. It’s madness, of course – but then, I’ve lived madness before and I know the wonder of it…

Two diametrically opposed paths lie in front of me.

When you come to the fork in the road, take it.

And: okay, I will – but…

This is just the processing and the working out; beyond that, it really is one day, one step at a time. And the first step is…

Everyone, it seems, is going to Greece in August. Ever since I made that decision I’ve met nine people who have told me the same thing. So I resolve to definitely go, and maybe even will. One-way? We’ll see. Unlike June, my boss is well and truly covered for staff now. Something there awaits me.

Everyone, too, seems to be moving to the Yorkshirecoast. My mum, my dad, friends and acquaintances. That’s where the psychotherapy training is too. And I watch a Yorkshire promo film aboutthe magnificence of that coastline and it makes me cry. Patriotism. Beauty. And perhaps something more…

But again, diametrically opposed. Not just to travel and North America and Mexicocanyon dreams but to my current job, my current life in Leeds, and all the things transpiring around my dad’s shop. He’s so sick of being there. He goes from saying he’s writing his will and talking about my share to wanting to give me the keys tomorrow and forget the whole thing. He changes his mind more than anyone I know – more even than me. And what would I do with it anyway?

I like the idea of his shop. I like the challenge of restoring a failing business, sorting things out. I’d be good at it and it would probably make me proud, like what I did with Oxfam. But…

Chains. Commitment. Just money, really. And the whole crux of the whole thing: what am I here for anyway?

These two polarities: normal life amongst the concrete in Leeds, thinking about the future and making oneself secure, or crazy life out there again on the road, living for the experience, perhaps writing, juggling, earning a little crust here and there with the sweat from my brow, and moving ever onwards like that “Littlest Hobo” whose theme tune sings ever in my heart.

Decisions to be made. And, of course, Laura is a part of all that. And Nicky, at least in the sense to be written about. And…

There’s always more as far as beautiful females are concerned...

Yes, one will need to sit down and blog it all out. My cup over-floweth. This is all just the tip of the lettuce: we haven’t even mentioned crazy Christian developments and ideas related to that, nor my latest run in with the law, nor those lovely Californians, nor reluctant entering back into refereeing…

Well maybe there’s not that much; such is the way it goes when one manages to sit down and put all those thinkings in order. But there was a moment where I thought I could honestly bang out a book on the whole thing and call it “Every Single Thing I’m Thinking in the Week Leading up to my Thirty-Seventh and a Half Birthday” and publish it.

Easily eighty thousand words.

Ah, to be a writer. California#1 swoons and says the most wonderful things after taking away my short story book. Those people who live for their dreams and think not of pensions nor houses. The ones I truly envy. The kind I so often very nearly am.

But what voice keeps me from it? The voice of Mother Meera? The voice of wisdom? The voice that seeks to guide me into true happiness, and not the madness of Kerouac and Cassady? Whims are all very well but…

Like I say, beyond all that, it’s one day at a time and all I know is this day brings a shift at work, a game of tennis, some refereeing, and then home to bed. But I must find the time to write myself out. To report to you all these comings and goings. To do the magic thing that this writing always seems to do, which is progress me on and free up the past and provide me with answers. God, how did my life become so full! How can a man who lives so simply have so much going on?

But what, you ask? What is going on?

I’ll tell. I will. For better or for worse.

And then I’ll stop.