Richard Pierce

Richard Pierce – author, poet, painter

Life, Politics, Reading, Writing

Day 33

When I thought the storm had ended yesterday, when I hoped it had ended, it started up again, and the wind threw itself itself at the house, the office, and all of us with renewed hatred. I used to love storms, used to love being on a ship in the North Sea tossed about by the elements because I didn’t get sea sick, because I loved this feeling of being at the mercy of something primeval and somehow withstanding it. One particular storm I was in, we were late into England because the ship had gone to the rescue of a small boat that was floundering somewhere off the coast. I used to like standing on mountain sides in the winds (except for the one that almost threw me and my friends off Mount Snowdon).

But all that’s in the past, and strong winds have become an annoyance, a pathway into back pain and numb fingers, even if they’re inside gloves. Perhaps it’s this English climate where the winds are damp and withering. When the weather is like it has been (and it’s particularly damp this morning), I always think with empathy of the Roman legionnaires who had come over here from a country bathed in glorious weather to have to wake every morning in this ridiculous country dripping with dew and damp, waking from sleeping under trees where they thought they had found shelter, only to find themselves wet through and shivering. They must have hated it, must have walked along those long straight roads wishing themselves back in Italy, wishing themselves away from a country so passively aggressive.

Not much changes, really, does it? We have seen, this week, passive aggressive politicians in Parliament, politicians on TV obviously drunk, politicians lying when claiming they don’t lie, some politicians thrown out of Parliament for telling the truth whilst those who lie are allowed to remain. No wonder we’re all angry, no wonder we all somehow feel we lack purpose. There can’t be a purpose for any of us when we see how untruths breed success and truths build nothing but demise. The feeling there would be a sea change in our politics is fading in the obvious corruption in this country, in the obvious collusion between a corrupt government and a corrupt police force. Who, now, is upholding the law? And is there any law to uphold? Essentially, we are now living in a country where, if you are very rich, it’s fine to be lawless.

For some reason, when I was drifting between kitchen and dining room this morning, the word Gilgamesh jumped into my mind. I had to check what/who it was. I don’t know if its appearance in my head has any relevance to this day.

During the night, I woke several times from very strange dreams, and dreams of the past, and every time, my conscious mind told me, tells me now, to stop thinking about the past, not even as context, not to measure the now against what has been, not to use the past as something with which to beat me with what I consider to be failures, but to focus on the present, this very second, nothing else. It’s very difficult, and I have never been a particularly disciplined man.

Yesterday, I was pondering what makes us write. I came up with this notion that our minds produce these words to fill empty space, or empty spaces; within us, around us. Ultimately, we are all alone (and that’s not meant to be a depressing or sad statement; it’s just the truth), and the words we read and the words we write are our only companions. They turn loneliness into solitude. That’s all there is. In some ways, that’s glorious.

 

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2 Comments

  1. ren powell

    3rd February 2022 at 03:33

    It really is glorious. So odd actually how ambivalent you can be about writing them 😉 <3

  2. Richard Pierce

    3rd February 2022 at 06:32

    It is, isn’t it? R

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