I work at a different university now. This time in Lisbon, rather than a train journey over the river. A little closer to home. A lot closer to the planes that fly overhead. The last time I wrote something, my daughter was a concept. Now she points and walks with her own arms and legs. The last time I wrote something, I was able to sit down and think for a while about what I wanted to say. Now, life is much more stretched: dense with occupation, sparse of any new concepts.
The smoke seeps out of the chimneys of the factory. Never stopping; not even on weekends, public holidays, or even at night. I could see it from the train station, on an evening walk. I left my phone at home, and so I had to head back after only 20 or so minutes heading in the opposite direction, or at least that's what I told myself. It appears that, here, you can see the stars as well as the moon. You can also see the mist that rolls along the top of the river in the morning, and the charcoal tops of the forest trees against the sky's golden sunset border.
This place reminds me of somewhere I've never been. It's quieter than I expected, but the chattering tongues of the herons also seem loud enough to wake our little companion from her morning nap. This year I've been to places I've never been. There is both sadness and relief, that I'll probably never go to them again too. There are little memories that I thought I'd keep forever, that I know have already been lost for eternity. I see photos that look like they were taken from a different parallel existence, that apparently were only produced 2 or 3 months ago. At the start of this year, I had a full set of facial hair. And, for reasons that still remain unknown, that is no longer the case.
This year has only one full day left in it, and I already look back on its moments and occasions with only the vaguest hint of recollections. This was the year I read "Madonna in a Fur Coat" by Sabahattin Ali, picking up the book while waiting for a flight back from the UK. I also picked up the "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway. The latter was whatever, the former was enjoyable in the sense that it left me in a deep sense of melancholia for a few hours after I finished it.
Is this the year (i.e. at age 33) that everyone started working in the time that they weren't stacking wooden blocks on top of each other? Or reading aloud "Goodnight Moon" every night to send someone little to sleep? It certainly felt like it for me. And yet I did not get a huge amount done. Does anyone believe that they finish things these days? And for those that don't, do you pour all your belief into the love you feel instead?