RELATIONSHIPS | LIFE | LOVE
Life, Love, and Lingering
Notes from my notebook
I like to look back and see notes that inspired many of my stories and poetry.
2001 January
What the books never told me,
What I never knew
and what I never knew
Was that,
When the great day came,
Love,
Would simply be,
You
2002 February
The thing I enjoy most about being a dreamer, I never have to depend on them — so set out on every journey with only a map of my own choosing; no compass but the one I carry in my head.
2003 March
When I came into this world,
I was put in a three-foot cradle —
When I leave, a six-foot box —
It’s a hell of a struggle for a yard!
2004 April
The moonlight is never private, but that night you made me a poet, stirring in me a whirlwind of furious fire. In the morning we ate boiled eggs.
2005 May
The life I lead in this place, I’ve said it often, not enough, is difficult —
I should have left today, I could have. I had new clothes. I might have sold my watch for a ticket. Anyway, I stayed. I’ve still got a lot of things to say.
2006 June
I love you too much, the beautiful early morning comes in the window to help. I’m so deeply in love with you, so gifted with love, yet still I must create, must interpret love, must find a new way to say the oldest feeling on earth. This is what I am. When I’m not writing, I’m less. We are everything. I am yours. You are mine. We are one.
2007 July
I cannot turn the pages back; I cannot change who I really am. The truth will always clobber a man into the open at some time in his life.
2008 August
More and more I believe I was meant to live alone. At every corner, every landmark, every step, something made a partnership impossible. Either youth and the longing for adventure, or the desire to change someone’s life and make it happy for them, or the certain knowledge the timing was wrong, I was wrong.
2009 September
I feel like a moth who is different to all the other moths simply because I’m not attracted to bright light.
2010 October
I have lived a life of alternatives but only now has it become a worry to me. Why? Because one morning I woke and wondered what my alternatives were. The only alternative is to be without you; it’s like saying the only alternative to life is death.
2011 November
Fuck it. There is half a glass of sherry left in the bottle. I unblushingly drink it as the funeral cortege arrives. On the footpath, outside the house, are neighbors, onlookers, and three scruffy kids. One is holding a bike, the front wheel buckled, another with a grazed knee, sobbing. The third, very small, has his head falling forward, respectfully.
2012 December
The world is not right for you. The stars are not aligned. The mood is never calm. I don’t kiss right. I don’t do anything that even remotely turns your mind toward the idea of sex. You’re under too much stress.
I get it.
2013 January
I sat on the bench among the hustle and bustle of people entering and leaving Euston Station and pulled up my collar against the chill wind blowing across the station entrance. Children were running to and fro chasing pigeons that flew and fluttered across the grass only feet away. As I sat there, I realize just how fraught life is.
2014 February
Being a Brit in Detroit, I had to remember what the protocol was when being pulled over by police:
1: Stay in the car.
2: Wind down the window.
3: Keep your hands visible at all times.
4: Everything will be fine. I’m a white guy.
2015 March
My stories are letters to the world; they speak to how I feel, tell of my dreams, and express my love. But first, these words must first flow through my veins, fill my heart, stir my mind to create something that makes the reader want to dance, to think, to dream, to re-live a past love, to have the courage to look again, to bring children back, to let children go, to dream of what can be.
2016 April
On my last visit, I arrived at ten in the evening. Mum was in bed and wanted to get up, but I wouldn’t let her. I held her hand and told her made up stories made of pebbles, sand, and seaweed till she slept. Dad and I talked before he went to bed, too. The next day we went to a pub at lunchtime for a cheese platter and a beer. There are no words to explain how much I love them both. I think hard about the kind of kid I was, but even the worst kind can make good.
2017 May
Whales, animals to wonder at. Intelligent, articulate, living in an environment mankind can only visit. We, on the other hand, delight in gasoline engines, wars, and Big Macs.
2018 June
A friend is opening a launderette and asked for suggestion on what to call it. I said, call it: In a Spin, and advertise it as the best place in town to drop your pants. He didn’t take me up.
2019 July
In the beginning: There was a massive explosion.
2020 August
Have you got the courage to say you love me? Not knowing if it inspires in me glee or the urge to flee.
2021 September
We come into the world alone, exit the same way. Why is it so difficult to spend the in-between time in closeness?
2022 October
When was it now?
I cannot remember
Though I do recall anew
All the things I thought
But never said to you
Walking in San Francisco
Having crossed the bridge
Our arms linked together
We sank into the fog before
Noon and sunny weather
We skipped our breakfast
Happy to walk and talk
What’s happening for you
I’m thinking about a story
But then — that’s really all I do
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