Cleaning out my old document folders I came across some bits and pieces that I wrote years ago, before I had the sense to just start writing stuff in a blog instead. I still maintain this as one of the best reasons to make a journal public; it prevents the author from disappearing up their own arsehole, safe in the knowledge that it will never be read. Anyhow, quality varies wildly and most of it will never see the light of day, but the following brought back a funny memory.

Out walking in Newtown, waiting at traffic lights to cross the road (opposite the post office). On the other side is a cute girl, not unusual given the location. Waiting waiting waiting. She’s pretty cute.

Birdsong. Where the hell is that birdsong coming from? It sounds like one of those plastic whistles you put water in, but I can’t see who’s doing it. It’s coming from across the road.

The walk signal goes, everyone starts crossing, and she is looking straight at me– and smiling! And did I mention she is cute? Birdsong continues, still no idea where it’s coming from, and I’m meeting her gaze and now I’m smiling too. We’re walking toward each other grinning like idiots like we have some amazing shared secret. Time slows as we walk past each other but we can’t stop, so we keep walking, with a final sidelong glance. I get to the other side feeling kind of light, and still kind of in slow motion, and I turn slowly to see that she is doing exactly the same thing on the other side of the road, and for a frozen moment we are staring across at each other like a couple of weirdos. But I haven’t actually stopped walking, and so… I just keep walking. Like an idiot. And the birdsong is gone, still no idea where it came from.

A very nice moment though.

Then I think hey, she wasn’t really looking at me, maybe there was a giant sparrow circling just above my head, singing loudly. And then I realize, oh no I must have some kind of shit on my face, and she was laughing at me, not with me, and so then I walk along trying to discreetly examine my reflection in shop windows.

Ah yes, charmingly insecure me, eh? A nice epilogue to this story is that over coming weeks I found myself catching fragments of the same birdsong, and finally realized that it was this one homeless guy who just wandered up and down the length of King Street doing this amazing whistling in such a way as to be nearly undetectable. I hope he’s still around (beardy, thin, always wears shorts and blundstone boots).

Anyway, I really mean it about writing in public being better than writing in private. To illustrate with an only slightly exaggerated example, before I started blogging if I felt really down and negative about myself (lonely etc) I might sit down and write:

Why must I be so sensitive and intelligent?

Why can’t I just enjoy life like everyone else does?

What is it that makes a life good anyway?

Why doesn’t that girl break up with her stupid boyfriend and go out with me instead [because I'm nicer]?

… etc…

But obviously I would never write something so painfully adolescent and self-indulgent here (except to illustrate a point of course). I would be forced to actually come up with something worth reading which still communicated what I felt, and if it turned out that what I felt was really just a general malaise or ennui then all the better; I could identify it as such and move on. A blog can make you less precious about your troubles, and that’s one of the reasons I’m still doing it I think.

PS: For those who might be curious about my current mood, I have recently found myself single again after a very nice relationship which lasted four months. The split is totally amicable of course, but no matter how amicable it’s impossible not to become a little reflective about everything at times like this. Like being over 35. Hoo boy.

More Birds

I just realized this kind of segues into what I did today…

Although my physical health has been steadily improving since my time in hospital, my fitness level is at rock bottom, largely for lack of exercise. So even though it’s cold and damp here all the time, today I decided it was time I hauled my dimpled ass out of here and went for a decent walk if nothing else.

I tramped down to Mission Bay like I used to do regularly, and decided to get some chips for lunch and sit on the beach. Just me, my chips, a cold wind, and about a thousand seagulls giving me the eye. After tossing them a few morsels I remembered that there are more fun ways to feed seagulls than having them scrabbling in the sand; you can feed them in the air!

Basically you just throw things up rather than down, and before you know it (if you have a good wind) you will be surrounded by a cloud of gulls, hovering in mid air just a few feet apart. You can then just toss food into the cloud and it never even hits the ground. The formation will ripple but then rapidly stabilize again. Simply handing them food works too– I didn’t cop any nasty bites or scratches while doing this. As long as you keep feeding them you can just marvel at these birds bobbing effortlessly right in front of you, and really really envy them.

Kudos to Coco for demonstrating this technique to me many years ago ;)