It surprises me how a single sentence can provide the impetus to strive towards finishing laid plans. My friend Nick reminded me that last year I had vowed not to spend my time or money wasted in a cafés, “You said you’d stop going to cafés”. I’ve done cafés. Boy, have I done cafés. They have been a second home for the past 27 years. We found solace in each other, sometimes it was good; dark, shabby, smoking, newspapers, books, jazz, chess, beauty, London, Paris, Brighton, an instant brew. I worked in a cafe overlooking the sea. My job was scribbling down ideas in a book. I was looking for the young bohemians but only found prams and suits. And recently the quality of the brew has slipped so far under the bar I could get more joy out of a cup of saccharine pond water. Onto something new, unfamiliar and better.
Removing one routine out of my life makes room to remove other routines that drag me into the same inanimate place, more mentally than physically. I am selling my music equipment. Not everything, but enough to make my room lighter. I won’t list here what those things are but trust me, its a lot of dear things to me. These are the things that dreams are made of. Potentially they could take me to new places if I were to write a best selling album using them, but I don’t see that happening until I resolve creativity issues.
It is raining outside and for the first time in many months I have moved my laptop to my desk, away from the window and offbeat syncopated rain playing off something plastic.
Behind me is an array of boxes that have been vaguely sorted into things to take to charity shops or put into a cupboard (when I find one I’d like to buy). I find that they are tugging at my attention. Perhaps I have some condition that could be placed in the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Whenever I own something I feel that it not only exists in the tangible world but I also create space for it inside my ‘mind space’. The more items I own the less free space I have in my ‘mind space’. Everything becomes tainted with the feeling that I should be putting my physically owned objects to good use. I carry the weight of them around in my head. And when I own something that has a cable that doesn’t reach another object and I have to move everything around until the cables fit and then the power points don’t reach so I move everything and aesthetically it looks a mess so I carry the stellar super mass around in my head. Anyway, to cut to the short of it I’m de-cluttering to the nth degree.
A clear desk and some ideas for lunch. I found a Nepalese cookery book in the kitchen, so today I’m learning about rice cooking (I’ve cooked a lot of rice but I doubt I cook it properly), Joys of Nepalese cooking by Indra Majupuria. “Chiura prepared by soaking paddy in hot water overnight.” I looked up ‘paddy’ and it is harvested rice kernels, or rough rice. I should wash rice more than I currently do. I have some potatoes left from yesterday so I will mash them, mix with rice add some onion and mixed spices and lightly fry.