Where?

Where would I rather,

Be, go?

I hear the cars passing my window,

See the collared doves

framed against the white sky.

There is a world out there

and

I am in here.

Door closed,

Slippers.

 

Berlin

Beirut

Belin?

 

It isn’t as simple as that…

Visa,

Flight,

Pollution,

Insurance,

Currency,

Organisation.

 

You don’t just step out the door, into car and go. The road trip is somehow divorced from where I am, somehow at odds with my current stability. I saw this week that Hanif Kureshi admires On the Road. Me too. Perhaps some intersection between now and the Buddha of Suburbia. Too many pot-bellied mystics fighting for supremacy.

 

It is almost,

The more choice you have

The greater the number of options,

The more you are frozen in the moment.

 

Left, right,

Hold it…

 

In 1980 Colin Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep,

An homage to Gurdjieff

The Greek/Armenia/Russian philosopher/mystic

Who

As part of his meshigas

Aspired to squeeze as much out of life as possible;

Considering that there must be more to things than is superficially apparent.

 

One of his quotes…

Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies

 

Good stuff if you’re an insomniac,

Or perhaps overdosing on amphetamines.

 

Yet, how does it relate to me, here, now?

 

Yesterday, I bought a book called ‘Morning’ – I don’t know if it has a section on GI, but one of its aspirations is to encourage people to get more of their day – out of bed and do; less night owl and more early bird. Stretch the hours. Test the elasticity of life. Boing.

 

All this a way away from travel,

Or,

Stay at home dad,

Or on holiday dad,

Appreciating the sounds of BBC World Service

Drifting from the kitchen.

 

Maybe a throwback to my childhood.

 

It was years later

When I met my old friend Addy, now Elor (from Jewel, to the light)

And he too

Caught-up in the mysticism.

 

It seems such a small world.