2003-05-26

On warm nights, with the waves washing up against the sand, and stars sprinkled dusty across the sky, the rules are relaxed, and the beginnings and endings and edges of things run together. Walking along the water, you can pass unknowingly from one beach to another, across time and distance. The ribbon of shoreline ringing islands and continents is twisted up upon itself and winds unbroken across years and miles. Silently, you pass along the shorelines of India, of China, of Ireland and Australia. Past Columbus, moored just offshore in the darkness, the ripples lapping up against the wooden sides, waiting to explore a newly discovered world. Past battles and lovers and tragedies and victories and dinosaurs and pirates. Past father Adam and mother Eve discovering ocean sunsets and constellations yet unnamed. Slipping quietly onto any of the thousand million beaches of a thousand million years.

In the almost-darkness, I passed myself five years ago, walking with my closest friend. I almost caught a snatch of their conversation, that couple on a moonlit Florida beach, but I passed on, and they are different people now, and strangers.

I passed the sleeping dunes of a coast in Africa, still ringing with the voices of our daytime play, and for a moment I was back on holiday as a child. I felt the evening coolness, and the mysterious excitement of carried sleeping bags and limpets for bait as we set out to catch crayfish and sleep beneath the sky.

Back, back across the years, the shoreline stretched like memory beneath the feet of these almost-strangers, with beach below and God above unchanging companions on the walk, immune to the effects of time, helping to pull together the thread of continued experience that somehow adds up to me.

2003-05-22

Florida here I come!

Sun (hopefully), surf (not likely if you mean waves - it's the gulf coast) and sand (I'm almost certain!), here we come. Pulling out tomorrow at 6am, and cruising on down before the worst of the traffic to Destin, Florida. Now all I have to do is finish doing washing, pack, shower, figure out what music I'm taking, and just about everything else. It is going to be good to get out of Atlanta. And Ash and Carrie will be super company for the drive. Hasta luego. Pics when I get back

2003-05-17

Alright. So, I gave in to my temptation and went to see it with some friends.

Let's just say that the third movie has an awful lot of explaining to do. And it better be good...

2003-05-15

A Matrix
[Hit F5 to Reload]


Okay, so I'm feeling a bit silly! (and no, I haven't seen it yet) Sorry for the long delay in posting. I've been doing a lot of figuring lately - the sort of stuff I don't feel happy writing on a web page for the world to see — just working through a few year's worth of thoughts and feelings, and trying to make sense of it all.

On the running front, I'm up to 5.4 miles! Almost there. I think I'm going to be able to run the Peachtree at 8.5 or maybe even 8 minutes a mile, if all the other people don't get in the way too much. Last time I timed myself, I ran 4 miles at 8.5 minutes a mile, which I thought was fabulous.

I've decided to try to tune my piano myself. Luckily, it's an old beater of a piano, so I'm pretty sure I can't do too much damage. It turns out that tuning a piano is quite difficult — not the sort of thing you can learn to do in an afternoon. I think it's probably about as hard as learning to type if you've never typed before - it's going to take practicing that asdf jkl; over and over again. Except with a piano, it's learning to hear the "beats" that occur when two strings vibrate and they're not quite perfectly in tune. The beats get harder to hear as you go from unisons to octaves to fifths. Also, your hands have to learn how to use the tuning lever, and feel what's going on with the strings and pins. Should be fun.

Well, that's all for now - I need to bust out the old camera again. It's just that I don't find Atlanta quite as novel as London - although I suppose that's the whole point of walking around with a camera!