I just titled this little collection of ponderings and rambling "Springtime Scribblings" only to look back and see I'd already titled an entry as that in June 2021, hence a quick edit to make this part 2. In fact I've only written 2 further posts during that (almost) 3 year period, more to the point I just re-read my last entry from January 2022 which I ended with the words "My plan is to write at least one blog post a month this year".
Hmmm, well that didn't really go to plan.
I did initially start a draft for this post back in April last year but evidently only got a couple of paragraphs in before my attention and focus wandered and like so many other things it tumbled back way down the ever growing 'to-do later' list.
Spring is here again and so with that I really do intend to get back to it. As I'd written in those deleted paragraphs from last year, Spring is by far my favourite season. New beginnings, renewals. a wonderful new freshness that really does charge my batteries with a revived optimism after being so depleted during the long, dark winter days. Winter this year was a strange one, it wasn't particularly cold, no snow, hardly any frost or ice, in fact there wasn't a single day I wasn't able to bike to work because of icy roads. However it has been grey, so grey and it has rained and rained and rained and with that it just felt like everything was washed out, overcast and colourless without end. In previous years there's often been a later winter cold snap, perhaps late snow or everything is iced over and then suddenly the blossoms appear, the trees pop, the clouds clear and Spring appears. This year it just seems to have stealthily crept up without me realising. It really wasn't until one day last week, biking home from work when I just suddenly noticed the buds on a tree were about to open into leaf....oh, Spring is here!!!!! Now the sun is out, skies are blue, the greens are popping, I've been cruising around on my longboard and it's time to get (proper) creative again.
I've been meaning and wanting to get back into writing here for ages. Apologies in advance though that this particular entry is no doubt going to definitely be of the random rambling variety. Probably little more than a stream of consciousness but I just need to get it out and then I'll feel like I can then start doing things with a bit more structure and focus.
One of the main inspirations to finally settle down and put some words down has been Patti Smith, back during the pandemic she started a little weekly email subscription. There's a free Thursday post plus also a paid Substack subscription. I just signed up to the free mailing list, I figured it would be nice to have some extra weekly Patti in my life. As is often the case with signing up to email mailing lists, very quickly I find I'm not reading them but just moving them to a folder to read later and then before I know it there's an overwhelming, ever growing amount that feel too much to tackle. And so it was....
So now I've got hundreds of unread weekly email postings going back to 2021. So, instead of mindlessly scrolling on my phone while I quickly eat breakfast every morning at 6am before setting off for work I figured I'd read one or two of these a day on my Kindle. They're fantastic and such a better way to start off the day. She has such a beautiful poetic way with words (says he stating the absolute obvious, very unpoetically) and such a wonderfully romantic view of the world where you are able to through her posts vicariously travel through time and space. So hopefully in a few months I'll have got up to date and then be able to keep up with her in real time.
Here's the thing about Patti Smith. I'm not got going to try and play it cool and say I've been following her artistic output since I first came across her in the late 70's as that would be a big fat lie. I'm very late to the party. There really was no particular reason, even though I'd been listening to many of her contemporaries Patti had just never been on my radar, It was a name I knew of course but had never really sought out her music or writing. In fact, even songs like Dancing Barefoot and Because the Night that I subconsciously knew inside out from hearing them on the radio I didn't even realise were her. Then about 10 years ago I just happened to be in a book shop and there was a table display of 'Just Kids', I picked up a copy and perused, reads a few pages and I was hooked instantly. I quickly devoured that and M Train in quick succession. I find there is something particularly wonderful about discovering someone late in their career and suddenly having a lifetimes back catalogue to catch up with. You can just totally immerse yourself in the work. And so I did, it became almost an obsession. I'm not a collector or a completist, I'm thankful I don't really posses that record collector nerd gene as it always feels like it would be somewhat stressful, however I did find myself picking up everything I could easily come across. And here's what I appear to have amassed over the past 10 years.
Patti in print.
Patti on disc.
Talking of inspiration, this is the one picture I'd included with last Springs now outdated and deleted post. At the time these were the first four books I'd read that year. Generally I like to really mix up what I'm reading and don't tend to read a bunch of similar books in a row but somehow by chance these all had some common themes running through them which kind of illustrated how I wanted to approach the coming seasons. They were all great books so I figured I'd leave this here.
I love to read but never feel I do it enough due to all the insidious distractions the 21st century has to throw at you to erode what depleted focus we already have. However I always set myself a reading challenge on Goodreads each year. Normally 30 books. That doesn't seem like much over a 12 month period and very achievable and yet I still mostly fall short. Last year I only managed 21, the year before a meagre 17, although one of those was Stephen King's The Stand, which at 1152 pages should really count as 2 or 3!!! Should anyone care to see what I'm ever currently reading you can keep up with me at www.goodreads.com/midinstinct
These four wonderful books are all set in different wonderful, remote natural locations and in each case the author is often talking about the bliss of aloneness. Just being with yourself and with nature. In Neil Ansell's The Last Wilderness, it is something he actively seeks out. To be off the beaten track and away from people as much as is possible. Set in the remotest parts of the Scottish highlands what he doesn't know about the creatures and plants he comes across isn't worth knowing, I can only dream of having such knowledge and such a close connection that can only come through a lifetimes obsession with the natural world. I was so taken by his writing that I ended up reading a couple more of his books last year too, The Circling Sky and Deep Country and have several more on my 'to-read' list. Tove Jansson's The Summer Book is set on a tiny remote island off the coast of Finland and like all her books that I've read transports you away from the chaos of modern life to this wonderous minute world of intentional isolation. Under Open Skies is the account of Markus Torgeby and his retreat into the forest of Northern Sweden and life in a tiny cabin. This also features beautifully calming photographs by his wife Frida and is just something I can see me going back to to just gaze and daydream and get lost in. Finally, James Aldred's 'Goshawk Summer', written as a kind of diary is his account of filming and photographing the return of the rare but glorious Goshawk to the New Forest (somewhere I need to visit), where he'll rise before dawn and then spend hours in silence, squahed into his tiny hide high up in the branches of an ajoining tree to the Goshawk's nest. Like all these books it's written from such a place of passion, patience and dedication. It's also particularly interesting as it was written during the early months of the pandemic, when there was so much anxiety and uncertainty and the world was shutting down and we were all under various lockdowns. The one peositive that came from that which is so wonderfully illustrated here is temporarily free from human encroachment and interaction wildlife suddenly appeared abundantly, undisturbed in places normally overcrowded with the noisey throng of people. It was a tantalising glimpse of how things could be, sadly too briefly and did we really learn anything from it? Apparently not.
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Well, it appears I got distracted. It's now over a month later, towards the end of June. I need to get this uploaded or Spring will have well and truly sprung and the title of this will be redundant. There probably isn't much of any interest to anyone in this little ramble, no creative updates regards what's going on with my art, bands, other projects or wotnot. I think I'll save all that for the next entry proper, it's good to have just got some words out. This really is just for my benefit, maybe I won't even announce I've posted this anywhere. Somehow I doubt anyone just drops by here so it'll be intersting to see if anyone at all actually reads it.
In the meantime, I'm just back from a short trip to New York, we struck gold with the weather, blue skies, glorious hot days. Being lost in the woods of the Hudson Valley is definitely one of my very favourite places to be. When you're deep on the trails amongst the trees and rocks with no sign of another person and just the sound of the wind in the trees, accaisional babbling brook, birdsong, frogs and (during summer) the cicadas, it's easy to daydream that you're only person on the planet. It soothes the soul. Here's a short snippet of water finding it's way through the woods on the Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill NY. I've spent so many happy hours walking these trails over the past 15 years of regular Stateside visits.
It's so restorative.
More words next month.
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