¦ dialling in from Jesus Mound ¦
09:48 GMT, Saturday 30th May 2009. I'm back in Newcastle. The sun is blazing, the heat is way up; it feels like summer. I love being here. It's the place I most enjoy being. It was great to meet Jo here Thursday night; she's settled in like part of the family. Mum is amazing. Glowing with energy, radiating a sense of confidence regarding her health, and she's eating like a horse; hopefully the scary weight loss will stop now... she's down to 5 Stone, 30 KG, 60 Lbs.
Waking up here, in dad's last room, on the ground floor extended back of the house... early morning sunbeams split up by the dense branches of the encroaching forest, lighting up the muslin drapes hanging over the wall of windows. Wooden floors reflecting. Light so much light. Rolling over in the bed, propping myself up, sitting there on the edge for a few moments, getting my bearings, my brain saying "I'm here now," with a delicious sense of contentment. Rubbing my hands through the bed-head exlosion of hair; finger to eye, poking out chunks of crusty sleep. I smile at my good fortune and offer an immediate reflex prayer to hope this lasts... deeply aware of how everything went so fucking wrong in 2004-2005-2006. Looking behind me at the sleeping form of Jo wearing something nice from the night before, my closed smile broadens, stretching my lips: she was there for me through all of that.
A thousand memories crash through my brain. This house the touch point for so many phases and episodes of this fleshy machine and collection of chemical memory markers called "Me".
I push myself up from the edge of the bed, stooping again to pick up my undercrackers from the volcano shaped pile of jeans and socks left there the night before. Barefoot, I pad across warm wooden flooring and enter the vast cavern space of the kitchen/breakfast/lounge area. Sunlight streaming in from windows and skylights. Half of Norway here in wall hangings and little nic-nacs my mum brought over with her.
A mug of tea sitting in tree-dappled sunlight on the decking outside.
Picking up an old book from my childhood, a "graphic novel" called THE TRIGAN EMPIRE. Inside cover is an inscription from my older cousin, "July 1980, To David with love from Trudi." It's been nearly 30 years since I read it. I can remember that summer of 1980... and I can remember loving the story that's now back in my hands. I flick past the cover and start to read, eyes soaking up the lovely artwork, and I'm hooked. A strange blend of high-tech and low tech civillisations, I'm suddenly struck by how much this book must have inspired deepset ideals in my imagination. I reckon I'll spend much of this weekend sitting out in the garden going through it again.
I head up to Acorn Road and grab a coffee in Starfucks. Looking at my notebook I realise I've nailed most of the little jobs I've been writing up the last few months. My thoughts turn to Dog Eat Dog. I don't have any of the Dog Eat Dog material with me, I mapped it all out back in the South of France in 2007, but I get a wonderful sense of the whole novel's story-line, beginning middle an end in my mind. I can visualise the main structure and key plot points. I start jotting down tweaks and refinements of the "hidden story" within the story. Might actually start writing it sooner than later.