Creative writing (a.k.a. a Christmas mash up)

Lara in reflective mood.

Inspired by Kelly Cordes - who regular readers will know if one of my climbing heroes - I thought I'd get creative for my last blog post before Christmas. So following is my very own 

Raddaddiary Christmas Mash-UpTM.  Every sentence has been lifted from my blog musings over the last year and a half, scrambled, reordered and stuck together.  Thank the Lord for Ctrl/C - Ctrl/V. This may make no sense, some sense, or more sense than my usual ramblings.  It even includes a sex scene (sort of).  Enjoy, and Merry Christmas 2012...

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I have always thought that blogging is only for the sort of people who have something interesting to say. I was never quite sure what this meant, although it didn't stop me form nodding sagely.  This morning I was nearly run over by a small one-legged boy. I suffered a spiral fracture of the lower left Tibia and Fibula. I wasn’t, for once, daydreaming.

I've generally gone through life without worrying too much about things. Fortunately sitting around feeling sorry for myself isn't really an option. It has been said that at each end of the socio-economic spectrum there is a leisure class: one cash-rich but time-poor, and the other time-rich but cash-poor.  I was an 18 year old student at the University of Bristol; my daily routine involved a lot of sitting on the sofa, leg propped up on a pile of cushions. I spent a fair amount of money, I ate a lot and drank a lot more. Leaving the flat seemed like a hassle, so I didn’t bother. I played second trumpet - something sufficient to merit a decent story and befitting my (imagined) status as a (wannabe) badass. I wanted to be a Ski instructor. My mum was convinced I would be a civil engineer. I definitely didn’t want to be a shepherd. 

I know people look on sympathetically at the time it takes me to do anything.  I did not meet the love of my life until I was almost thirty. We were generally smelly, tired, and looking forward to a weekend of relative luxury. When Anita and I got married she really didn't like the smell, whilst I had got used to it (a sort of comforting dribbly-pillow odour) . I bounced her on my knee, I rubbed my face against her fuzzy bald head and I inhaled the smell of her soft baby skin. In general I would like to think that I added to, rather than detracted from the entertainment; my friend Tom's trousers ended up hanging from a chandelier. That made me feel pretty good about myself, I have to admit. I got home, sat on the sofa and pondered the 42 days of daytime television, tea and chocolate digestives. I thought about that a lot over the course of the following year. I don’t think I have ever recovered from those initial weeks and months. 

For a long time I was as guilty as anyone of not making the time for the things that really mattered to me.   I've taken a pay cut, changed my job and joined the growing ranks of the part-time employed.  I have less money but far more time. Before I get too excited I should remind myself: it could have been so different. Crawling around on a blue and orange patterned seventies carpet in an open plan living room; looking longingly at brightly coloured GoreTex jackets; I'm having more fun than I thought possible. I don’t remember much of the next three hours, other than feeling like my eyeballs had gone outside of my head. I briefly wondered how long I could lie there for - I was in such a state it emerged as more of a strangled squeal of relief - what my friend Ted would call an "involuntary oral emission". I put it in my mouth, and licked and sucked my finger until it was clean. I felt, in my own insignificant way, like a bit of a hero. Fast forward a few hours and between the four of us we had consumed an enormous omelette. The rest, as they say, is gravy.

In July I stopped drinking alcohol. I could derive sufficient energy needs to survive from a diet consisting entirely of pickled onion Monster Munch. Plenty of water, no alcohol, no caffeine. Nowadays my tipple of choice is a small cappuccino, nice and foamy, half a sugar.  I am essentially out of my mash on codeine most of the time. I can only hope I never get addicted to heroin. I am a bad son and I'm really sorry. 

As I write this Lara is sleeping soundly next door. For three and a half weeks I have worn nothing more than shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. Today, a flowery trousers and top, and a cardigan knitted by Granny Eddy.  I feel it is time to move on with my life. I get the impression that things may soon turn brutal.  But I can take it. I don’t know precisely what this will involve, beyond a certain amount of discomfort, tiredness, and probably some bad weather.  A bit of mystery in life is a good thing as far as I am concerned. What I suppose I am really struggling with is the feeling that I won’t be valued.  As Helen Keller said, life is a daring adventure, or nothing.  

I am overwhelmed by feelings of pride for my wife. 

I think I might cry. Seriously.

In short, life is good. 

In short, I blame it all on Lara.

Life is precious

Life is precious. I know this.  Every night before I go to bed I creep into Lara's room, just to watch her sleeping (usually face down with her bum in the air - it looks neither comfortable nor ladylike but it seems to work for her).  I often hold my breath just so I can hear her breathing.  Sometimes I think I could sit all night just watching. 

I've generally gone through life without worrying too much about things.  I tell myself: if you focus on the potholes in the road you'll miss the scenery.  But really, I don't know if not worrying is a good thing or a bad thing.  I don't even worry that much about Lara - I have somehow convinced myself that she'll always be ok. Maybe I should worry more. Maybe I will, as she starts to find her own way through life and inevitably loses her blissful toddler innocence.  

I hope that Lara outlives me.  Yesterday I received an email from my mum telling me that her cousin Pamela's daughter, Emma, had been killed in a road accident. I'm told that I met Pamela and Emma at a distant relative's wedding anniversary party at some point in the 1990s. I must have been in my early teens.  I vaguely recall the occasion but I don't remember meeting Emma herself - in my mum's words "pretty, with blonde curly hair".  She was just 36 when she died.

By chance this morning I read a post on Kevin Landolt's blog. I don't know who Kevin Landolt is, except that he lives in the USA, he is a rock and ice climber, and he is slowly dying of leukaemia.  This is what Kevin wrote:

Things can always get worse. There really is no bottom to the depths of suffering, but I have learned that through it all we somehow find within ourselves the courage, strength, and humor needed to carry on. We can dig so deep, and then deeper still when facing our personal tragedies, and we have the ability to view those tragedies as opportunities to grow as individuals. 

A slow death is calling me and I know she’ll be a welcome relief when she arrives - whether that be in this hospital bed or years from now in the mountains where I have searched for and found dazzling smears of ice that appear for a number of hours on the flanks of granite walls and then disappear in a matter of minutes beneath a fierce western sun. I hope it’s the latter.

Life is precious.