Why is it that faced with a blank page, I am inevitably lured towards an opening about the weather? Please tell me I haven’t conformed, boring people to death with the intricacies of our daily meteorology? What more proof does one need that it’s time to move or take up some near-death defying hobby in a bid to get the blood circulating and the brain engaged? Is life really that dull? Rhetorical. I took the train to Edinburgh yesterday and was struck by humans, impersonating zombies, engaged in their daily routine. Daily routine. The word ‘routine’ is more than sufficiently mundane without further burdening it with ‘daily’! Same old, same old. Filthy pavements, everyone was in a hurry, glued to their hand-held screens or plugged-in, talking to an invisible friend or colleague as though subscribed to a controlling urgency. When did it become normal to talk to someone, remotely, whilst on the move? Why is it that one must be connected at all times? The irony, of course, lies in the reality: we could never be more dis-connected.
As dusk fell, I looked up to see the battery hens in the towering office blocks, partitioned at their desks, computer screens in front of them. Programmed to receive. When did we lose the will to live; the zest for life? When did we learn to forget that there’s a big wide world out there just waiting to be explored and none of us knows when our passport is due to expire? Why am I so acutely aware?! More and more, I feel like a visitor to this planet; as though I have been sent here to observe. There’s no on/off switch, either. I can’t just stop observing! I can’t just numb my brain. Sometimes, I wish I could, believe me. Not only is it tiring but it’s also extremely depressing. Chained to the rhythm. What starts out as a quest for money – the quest for more – becomes increasingly elusive, forever unattainable but, still, there is no escaping the treadmill. Few have the means or the courage to do so. Thus, come 5.30pm, Haymarket Station was awash with ‘ants’, dressed in black. moving, en masse, towards the turnstiles in a bid to catch the same train home from the same platform at exactly the same time. What day is it? No matter. They’re all the same.
We spent a year in London, once – a long, long time ago – and I have never forgotten going out, on one of our first evenings, mid-week. We must have been waiting for the tube – Putney? – and I think it was about 9pm, when the doors opened and the platform was suddenly a sea of suits and briefcases! I couldn’t believe that people were coming home from work at this hour – to do what? Grab a quick bite to eat before going to bed for a few hours’ sleep, if that, prior to getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the same tube, going the other way, to do the same thing all over again! That had such an impact on me. I couldn’t do that. Never! In fact, I chose my job/s by location. Bus only! There was a nice library job in Regent Street for which I seriously considered applying – perfect for a young lady, surely? I have no doubt – nip into Liberty in my lunch hour in my pleated skirt, high neck blouse and pearls – but I decided against it. Too risky. Lost in Regent Street! The chances of me making it home were slim. Actually, I can get lost in Liberty, itself, be that I have zero sense of direction – courtesy of Pop, I might add. Not to be mocked. It is an affliction I hold my hand up to – preposition at the end of a sentence? I hold my hand up to that, too!
I can’t even remember how/why I got onto this subject? I am, though, acutely aware of trying to avoid the news. Too depressing. Far preferable that I cover the de-humanisation of mankind and my rush for the hills! This idea of mindless, controlled living as one chases the elusive dream – whilst, in reality, living hand to mouth – is not for me. In fact, I met a lovely lady, late last year, through a friend, whom I took on a tour of St Andrews. Freezing, we were out there for hours, oblivious to time as we laughed and chatted. Originally, from Delaware in the US – and, once, a Maths teacher – multi-talented, Ellen, became a photographer and travel writer, combing the world on assignments. Forever a free spirit, a catalyst in 2011 led she and her husband, Hank, to cast off the shackles of conformity. Courageous, they kept only the most precious of belongings – bubble-wrapped in a storage container – foregoing home and roots … for a life. (I was inclined to qualify ‘life’ before realising that those four letters, alone, encompass the vibrancy I wished to convey.) Ellen and Hank chose a life of choice, unconstrained by the mundane. First, they headed to Mexico where, renting a house, they immersed themselves in a different culture and a different way of life, the bonus being they made cherished friends, too. Both, writing along the way – and Ellen accepting select assignments – ultimately, they financed freedom. The freedom to stay; the freedom to go; freedom to see the world. Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Portugal …
Ellen writes about the highs and lows of their nomadic life in her memoir, I Could Live Here. Candid, she tells of her doubts and misgivings; her vulnerability as, together, she and Hank abandon the traditional concept of home, only to learn that ‘home’ is just that, a concept. For, in the end, ‘home’ is in the heart: family, friends, memories, one carries them with you wherever one goes. Liberating, most definitely, but the courage it takes to embark on a life devoid of physical roots cannot be underestimated. The rewards, however? As I write, repeatedly, life is short. Too short to spend it living hand to mouth, numbed, in a futile job; to live in a world of black and white and miss all the colour. Too short to succumb to the clock, to rarely see the sun, to give up one’s dreams …
Battery hen or eagle? Sadly, most are voluntary prisoners, preferring a life uncomplicated by choice or decisions. Each to his own but, more and more – and, particularly now, increasingly restrained by the hooded socialism of Keir ‘Jong Un’ – I am drawn to the conclusion that this country and its apology for a climate are not for me. The ‘Great’ in Great Britain is no more and I’m not convinced that it is recoverable. Slaves to greed and envy, I do believe that stripping right back is our only salvation. The simple life. Back to nature, growing our own food, the rising and the setting of the sun, our only clock. A slower pace of life, free from the stresses imposed by money. I crave the mountains of Montana but, perhaps, closer to home, northern Italy? A goat to milk, my own vegetable garden and a few grapes! Now, all I need is my coveted book deal – and the nerve. There is a plan for every man …
‘We are all travellers in the wilderness of this world and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.’
Robert Louis Stevenson
This is Trish, signing off.
