Day 79

The problem with weekends is that M and I burn the candle at both ends, and that I end up sleeping too late, vacillating between things I think I should do, and things I think I shouldn’t do, but want to do. Writing is often on neither list. Sometimes because I have moments when I think it’s a waste of time, sometimes because I’m preoccupied with the practical things I think I ought to do, and be able to do. And then I end of doing absolutely nothing, not even relaxing. And no matter how hard I try to disrupt this vicious circle, I never seem to succeed in doing so.

Yesterday, I spent over an hour working on a new translation of Hölderlin’s Hälfte des Lebens. I went into the house where M was occupied with much more practical things, and apologised for spending time doing something meaningless and silly, only for her to tell me it wasn’t meaning less nor silly. Same this morning when I said it seemed wrong for me to be spending so much of my times writing when it actually wasn’t getting anywhere. There must be millions of creatives who go through these same eternal growing and doing pains. The weather doesn’t help. Sitting inside while the sun shines.

This was going to be the weekend when I actually progressed with The Mortality Code as well as writing two more episodes of Aggie. I haven’t touched the first, and Aggie seems to have taken over my life. A and I walked down to Norwich Cathedral yesterday afternoon with the plan of then walking on into the city centre. I’d bought my history of the cathedral (I want to do some more reading than just online about the cathedral and figure out its real place in Aggie’s story), and we were all set to leave when A picked up a leaflet about a chamber orchestra concert of movie music that was happening at the cathedral yesterday evening. And we heard instruments being tuned. And it was the orchestra doing a brief rehearsal. We ended up sitting down and listening and watching their entire rendition of the theme for The Magnificent Seven. A brief WhatsApp conversation with M later, and I’d booked tickets for the three of us to go to the concert. So A and I walked back home, and an hour the three of us piled into the car to spend two hours in the candle-lit cathedral for 90 minutes of amazing music (despite me not really having dressed for the cold). Brief happinesses.

The spring equinox is today at 15:33 UK time apparently. Small happinesses. Mind you, the English weather won’t change.

AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 36