It’s evenings like these, and mornings like tomorrows.

I’m sat in a field, May sun turning winter skin pink, and I’m dreaming, dozing, playing with the consciousness of mind. Until a phone rings from an open nearby office window, and I realise, it’s time to go back inside and back upstairs, to work.

happiness, running through.

It only really happens when I’m on my own; when there’s silence, for the thoughts, for the time, for the light to sink in, right into the mind, both in and out of control. When there’s so much, there’s almost too much, to get done. And this buzz, this crazy, makes your eyes dart about quicker than usual and your pen to write faster than ever and speech becomes, excitable, with a touch of subdued stress. And there’s nothing to do with it other than to do everything with it; Hold it, closely, enjoy it, mostly, and become it, entirely.

Today I woke up at one minute to eight, despite my alarm being set for nine, having not gone to bed until three. I showered, and it being grey outside, I kept the window closed, allowing patchouli steam to fill up the little room, mixing with the lyrics of Cocorosie’s French radio cast, which continued to play as I dressed and collapsed on my bed with the songs taking over my head. Having dried my hair I rang my grandmother, just to say hello, and we discussed the usual; my father, my photography, and my vegetarian diet. My mother, my brother, my aunty, everyone in the family gets a summary of health & well-being from one or the other, and my Grandad, who’s in another room in their house and also on the line on another telephone, occasionally chirps in, usually agreeing with his wife. In their eighties, I’m still blown away by their minds, their spirit, and especially their love for each other. At 11.40, I note a sense of panic in Grandma’s tone; Norman’s just pointed at the clock and she’s meant to be meeting the ladies for lunch in twenty minutes time. I smiled at her sweetness, followed by affectionate laughter as she recites how she must change her blouse, and put on her lipstick, and pick up her friend who cannot drive. I’m so sorry! She tells me, sincerely, and I reassure her it’s quite alright.

I woke up at one minute to eight and one minute before my alarm was set to go off. Dressed, quickly, as though I was running late and powdered my face in the same fashion whilst the kettle was boiling in the kitchen. Green tea and blueberries, I grabbed my book from upstairs and read, curled up on a sofa with the rain hitting the glass outside, until I absolutely had to leave for a morning meeting. Hood up, it was a twenty minute walk into the town’s centre. I was one minute late and I accidentally tried to get into the building through the fire escape - oops, sorry! My mistake. Nobody returned my pink-cheeked smile. Through the main entrance, nor was I greeted with any human warmth but the heating on full made up for it and I took my seat, noting a few pair of eyes staring in my direction. I smiled once more and awkwardly looked for my phone.

I came out of that meeting with tears in my eyes. I won’t go in to detail, but I was in shock at how one human being can be so cold to another. Life, to her, this stranger in my day, saw existence only in one shade of grey and I couldn’t quite believe how little she believed in, aiming for your dreams. I’m opinionated about work; I don’t want to spend the next forty years working just to, get by. I’m not after vasts amounts of money - OK, it’d be nice, but I’d much rather work with photographs and folk who really want to communicate, people who who care about life. I felt deflated, but picked myself up by walking about the town to get this middle-aging woman out of my mind. Breathe. Tell yourself, it’s OK! I continued to walk, until I got home, and there on the street where I currently keep abode, a young female cat walked by my side right to the door. Little spirit, you made my week, and stranger, who’s name I won’t repeat, you reminded me never, ever, to accept defeat.

There’s a spider in the bathroom playing hide and seek with me. He’s winning, and I’d quite like to keep it that way. Two nights now, I’ve gone in to brush my teeth; he’s there, waiting for me, anticipating a glass enclosure, to which he’s always escaped. Back under the skirting board, I wash my face, my eyes half closed from suds, half keeping an eye on my bare toes.

photographs. photographs. photographs. photographs. photographs. photographs. photographs.

Writing e-mail addresses on a Glaswegian’s cigarette papers between trains, offering the plaster I’ve kept in my purse for six months, just in case, to the little girl who cut her finger in the station, and sitting next to a suit on the last train home, grinning with red-wine-tainted teeth.

Writing letters to my father without words.

A little girl at the bus stop ran around my legs, looking up at me occasionally; half watching her, more so lost in my phone, I smiled every time she said to me in her sweet, mostly coherent, still-learning-how-to-speak voice, ‘I’ve never been to your house.’ Her mother, well, the woman I presumed to be so, ignored her, until the bus came and she grabbed her arm and hoisted her on to their transport to Nelson.

I’m on the last half hour of my ten hour journey across the country, motorway lights flying past my overly tired eyes. My best friend is by my side; silent for one of the few times in one another’s company. Her reflection shows a sadness to be back in (driving out of) a northern City but I catch her eye and she returns a reflected smile in the glass at the front of the bus.

A walk around the reservoir to mark the first day of Spring.