Remarks and rambles on another day..

The similarly named article I wrote around this time last year was intended as a standalone piece, a snapshot of my experiences and thoughts about my world at the time. It is something of a coincidence therefore, that the pattern of events today has inspired me to return to the theme just over 12 months later.

Without reading last year's article, the themes which I remember touching on include purpose and routine (or lack thereof - a surprisingly common theme among my introspective writings), and my self-aggravated stresses about work patterns. Some of these ideas are back for this hit sequel, though they have by no means dominated my time back in Edinburgh thus far. But since I'm currently in a reading week, and morale today has swung back and forth, they seem to be the emotions which most provoke my imagination.

Today began, as it often does, with badminton, my game continuing to improve albeit at a steadily diminishing rate. Pectoral stiffness never helps anyone however. But it's not often you get to be coached and represent the university at anything, and that incentive is enough to raise me from my stupor at ridiculously early hours. Last year, badminton was the closest I came to an in-person experience at university, and was something of a bedrock of my daily life. It's pleasing therefore, that as life has gradually inched towards whatever 'normality' may eventually constitute, there's always the reassuring shuttling round a sports hall at 7 in the morning. 

But for both logistical and pectoral reasons, it couldn't go on forever, so I eventually found myself showered and sat back at my desk, contemplating the prospect of work. In the absence of tutorials to prep for or lectures to watch, work has this week involved a writing assessment, reviewing a Swedish film in Swedish. I chose Ingmar/Ingrid Bergman's Autumn Sonata, and had made steady progress with it, up until yesterday when I finally reached my conclusion (Interesting, thought provoking, but not necessarily good). The only reason I didn't proofread and submit it yesterday was because I was concerned it would leave me with nothing to do today. Or at least nothing I wanted to do today. So that's what I did, and all was going swimmingly until submission, when I was informed by the delightfully impersonal assignment folder that my submission was late, and that I had wrongly noted down the deadline as today, when it was, as a matter-of-fact, yesterday. The subsequent expletives were noted by my flatmates. Lunch would be a damp affair.

It was here that déjà vu began to kick in. How could I have been stupid enough to note down the wrong date in my head? How could I have been stupid enough not to have noted down the correct date at all? These rhetorical questions circulated around my head for several hours, breeding an inner resentment and reluctance to achieve anything meaningful today, aware that I would probably screw that up too. The non-stop rain and drizzle of the last three days offered a pathetic fallacy that in my head justified an afternoon of dozing on the sofa, breaking only to play chess on my phone, with mediocre results. 

I had decided yesterday that I would go for a walk today. A proper walk, not just to somewhere for something. I would walk for the sake of it, and see where it took me. Yet the grey drizzle and my grumpy mood were doing a tremendous job of putting the walk off. Only a flatmate telling me to put my walking boots on made me realise I would have to go out or otherwise outwardly acknowledge the lazy self-indulgent prat I had been up until that point. So I went, I walked, and I observed, and to paraphrase John Peel, it was all different, but all the same.

Lockdowns, as well as being brutally effective instruments of public health, are also fascinating aesthetic tools. They can silence and pedestrianise cities like never before imagined. They banish away a humdrum monotony of traffic and pollution in favour of making you look around at where you're going, instead of merely heading there. But this evening, walking up Nicholson Street at Rush Hour, the vehicle and cigarette aromas densely filling the cool damp air, along with the hubbub of traffic soaking the pavements of residents and tourists alike with their splashes, was overwhelming. For me, that meant it required a playlist, and a place of refuge. 

I went to the Pret a Manger just off the Royal Mile. The woman who seems to always be working in there, was once again there, much to my relief. Last year, I signed up for the 30 day free trial of their subscription model, giving me free hot drinks for a calendar month before I cancelled on day 29. In heading to Pret, it felt mildly like Groundhog Day. But it was primarily a comfort, a reclaiming of what I thought uni felt like for a good month last year, even if it meant spending £3. My playlist (a collection of songs I'd shazamed over the last few years) turned to Eva Cassidy at that moment, and I felt mildly soothed by my surroundings.

I headed out, into the damp, clinging air and headed down the Royal Mile. I'd decided at this point that I would walk up Arthur's Seat, something I have done already this year, but had not done at dusk. I'd resigned myself at this point to not seeing a thing from the top, so heavy was the air with fog and smog, but that didn't matter since I wasn't going out for any secondary purpose, other than for the sake of it. Besides, it gave me the opportunity to enjoy the looks of disappointed tourists traipsing up this so-called tourist attraction in the damp drizzle, barely able to see the summit, let alone any views from it.

Over the last two months I've come to pay greater attention to the voice inside my head, the naysayer turned optimist, a Hegelian mind that 'determines' the words and actions of my body. I've since come to the conclusion that he's something of a pain in the arse. It is he who endlessly berates me for my shortcomings, who rarely acknowledges what I've achieved or even felt vaguely proud of. It is he who deprives me of savouring some enjoyable moments. He can be the Hyde to my Danvers Carew of a body. Yet he can also be something of a delight, a source of sardonic wit and inspiration, and the pick-me-up that motivates me when I'm feeling low and bereft of meaning. He's a ballast, and a concept that prevents me from spiralling or getting carried away. He also only appears when I'm alone, seemingly trusting me in the company of others but deeming me incapable of managing myself. The jury, I think, will be out indefinitely on whether he is right or not.

At the top of Arthur's Seat he was in a fairly perky mood, though in fairness so was I. The summit was reached thanks to the wonders of Shazam giving me music I could walk to at a tempo. That was until I approached the summit where I was greeted by Brian Eno's aptly named An Ending (Ascent), the first track I ever shazamed, and the last I heard en route to the summit. It made me think about uni, my overall socialising, and whether things were going well. Perhaps it was the fresh air and altitude sickness (sardonic wit alert), but I decided that it had gone remarkably well. I'm actually enjoying my modules, and enjoying in-person teaching, though having to social distance and wear a mask one day and go clubbing with hundreds of people the next is a contradiction not even Hegel could have explained. I've made my debut for the badminton club, taken up curling and I'm now an opinion editor at The Student newspaper. That seems like enough to shut up my inner cynic for a little while. Things inevitably aren't perfect but to expect perfection is only inviting disappointment. The swings and roundabouts of today's emotions reflect that.

The view from the summit was somewhat other-worldly, and reminded me of Nepal just 30 months ago. Whilst the (shimmering neon) lights could just be seen through the fog, the hill felt detached from the rest of the city, detached from everyday reality perhaps, drifting in another world. And it felt so welcome. By rising above the fog, I saw the sun for the first time this week, hanging low and preparing to descend for it's Trans-Pacific voyage before rejoining us tomorrow, its metaphorically warm glow justifying the trip up to see it instantly. I hadn't felt that level of inner peace for some time. 

Sadly, the ever dimming glow of the sun was the catalyst for me beginning my descent, with daylight itself becoming an increasingly abstract concept. I descended alone, accompanied only by David Bowie in my ears. The sun machine was coming down after all.

It was only as Major Tom faded away that it occurred me to scribe down these ramblings, ramblings which I've tried to articulate without treading old ground or getting lost in a stream of consciousness. As I dropped down onto the Queens Drive, 'Heroes' reached it's crescendo and it was aptly greeted by the returning hum of traffic followed swiftly by the heckling sirens of an ambulance. In that moment, I was lifted from my dreamy musing and unwantedly transported to the banal reality of city living. Suffice to say it's yet to sit right with me.

I decided swiftly that reality could either be denied or confronted, and so I ripped my earphones out and wondered how on earth I was gonna fill tomorrow, now without a Swedish film review to lackadaisically put off. Maybe I'll read my book of Swedish short stories, or read a book I have for a migration and diaspora module, though it's literary style is almost too poetic, its words flowing so delicately into my mind that they quickly scarper again, leaving me having to reread the same passage over and over to take in what is actually happening. The lack of chapters doesn't help. But I also need to tell myself that whatever and however much I do is ok. That this is an opportunity to take stock, recharge and mentally prepare for the next few weeks of courses and the exams which lurk at the end of them. I wouldn't be surprised if this means having to find the mute button for my head.

I've finally bit the bullet and read my article from last year, and it's fair to say that the voice in my head back then was once again being a pain. My metaphors feel strained, and I'm still yet to move away from referencing material from my English Literature GCSE! Some things clearly don't want to change. But I also feel self-aware, I know that my mood chops and changes throughout the day, and that I'm not always going to be the most rational, utilitarian person I can be. I don't know if it's a good or healthy thing to separate myself from the voice in my head, but being aware of what I'm (subconsciously) thinking and being able to process my thoughts on less of a whim can surely only be a good thing. Put it this way, even on a relatively tumultuous grey day of drizzle, the light in the tunnel seems more vivid and brighter than I remember it was last year.