Category: Awareness
-
All time, all space
Home from a pleasant Christmas lunch at Ian's – excellent food – and sitting in the living room, with the tree glittering. And a beautiful strophic folk song by Chris Wood playing; and pulling out the tarot deck, to do one of those bottom-of-the-year readings. And seeing on the computer news of the Marshall Islands,…
-
On the way to living
The past few days have seen some work, and a great deal of not working: in the midst of some lovely weather, much quiet, much space. Today I followed several patterns familiar from this summer: up at 6, surfing the web unimportantly; then slept another hour or two; then… but here the patterns broke a…
-
The larger sense of time
Late last night, after a day of getting some things done and some falling aside, looking for a book to take to bed: and I picked up the big collected poetry by Czeslaw Milosz. A beautiful book – well, a book full of beautiful stuff – but really too large for a poetry book, even…
-
Focused
Fragments of busyness, many of them – as I move through the overlapping needs of our exam period, various scattered administrative tasks, applying for a promotion, applying for a job elsewhere – and move towards research leave. Reading unusually alert books (though still not books about AIDS, which I probably need to be reading right…
-
In northern England, on a winter night
After a long day, during a semester with a number of long days; a semester with lots of small successes, and some unpleasant failures; a semester where I was conscious the whole time of aiming towards the freedom of the end of January, when I’ll go on research leave, and won’t let anyone ask me…
-
Time: imposed, imagined
Sleeping too much, drifting: probably my thyroid is off again. Since Duisburg: several busy days, mostly administration, and a conference day; a lot of floating anger about promotions, ambition, respect; all among the strange long days of Spring in the far north. Those are the more sharply defined moments in what has felt like a…
-
at [x] in the morning
My first paper on AIDS and music, back in the mid-1990s when I thought death was imminent, and honesty unavoidable, was titled, “at three in the morning, with both pedals down”. Now it’s four in the morning. Half an hour ago I finished the Sondheim paper – or declared it finished. Calm, exalted, distant. Yes,…
-
Ecstatic
As George says in Sunday in the Park with George – simply but with feeling, when he turns away from his painting, after a huge burst of climactic music dies away – “It’s going well.” I’m writing this article, having finished several insistent chunks of administration; it won’t be done tonight or tomorrow morning, but…
-
Train I: Discourse on Disappointment
A train, from Northumberland to Devon. I often feel as though my head is clearest in travel – on trains, on planes, are the times when I see everything whole, and in its largest and most realistic context. So far I’ve done some work on the paper that was due last month; listened to music;…
-
Upanishad
Reading a passing reference to the Upanishads, by the shimmering lights of my small, comfortable, living Xmas tree (I’ll post a picture on Xmas Eve), I think: I would like to spend time studying them, reading them… of course they’re coming up obliquely, at a sort of angle, in the paper I’m writing; but I’m…
Paul Attinello 