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the living receding

by sonja berlin-jones

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about

A while ago I felt I was "back", but it didn't last long so I obviously wasn't. This current push feels a bit more "back"-y and I feel it might last quite a while. I have nothing new to add to the music world, and I have nothing new to say in the wordy world. Thank you for your interest - or your polite lack of interest - and no I am not being chippy/sarky, I am one of those odd rare people who would hate life on social media - though putting my life here, and being more than averagely social in everyday life makes it all a bit confusing.

Since I was last properly "back" my life has become a bit more social, I go to more gigs, see more films, meet more people. I read (pronounced "red") lots of books in the interim, but that will now stop. I've done a lot of long walks. This winter has been amazingly dry, so the countryside is astonishingly unmuddy for this time in winter and about once a week I will walk home from e.g. Basingstoke or Petersfield or else walk from home to Andover or Salisbury - for some reason I never do any of those walks the other way round. I hate changing habits. I hate change in general.

The walking-days are my happiest times. Mainly in our lives I think that happiness is retrospective - "oh that holiday we had last year in Wales, it was a really happy time" - but with long walks I stumble into periods of euphoria that I know are happening even while they are happening. That's only ever happened to me before during my drinking years.

Alcoholism gave me a purpose. And now that I almost never drink and I have no other addictions, I must accept that life will never again have that sense of purpose. It's unlikely that I will ever find religion or fall in love again or become madly passionate about politics or any weird hobby.

So I must accept that life will just plod along like this - reasonably happily - knowing that it's graspable on my days of long walks - and also getting a weird reassurance from seeing that almost everyone around me, friends and strangers, seems very unhappy and often quite angry. So life might seem aimless and modest and merely content, but at least it's not most other people's.

I go to more gigs than ever before, and they bore me just as much as they always have. I have more friends than I've ever had at any time since I was at school, and they usually quickly bore me. I love films and books, but almost none of them have the wonderful effect on me that many used to have years ago. This is life receding from me, becoming like something that's retreating down a tunnel and leaving me behind.

It's still only happening slowly, and when I really try I can sometimes seem to still be a part of it. But it is so much effort, and it's so much more natural for me to just be alone most of the time, walking alone, living alone, even in company I feel very much alone. This isn't meant to sound depressing or despairing or anything remotely like that - it's just coming to terms with actually being the person I always was, but now at last I don't care that being this way probably seems weird to most people. But usually I'm the least unhappy-seeming person in the room, and if that's what weird gives you then it's an okay way to be.

recorded this morning, photo London a while ago

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released March 4, 2023

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sonja berlin-jones Southampton, UK

katharinebeastman.bandcamp.com

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