Bermondsey Street, 18.57

I've Flirted With You All My Life

I am walking down the side of London Bridge station and I am late, the bridge overhead is lit purple. In my headphones, Bright Eyes’ cover of Flirted With You All My Life, as I hurry, I am no longer there but sitting at my window, editing the final draft of The Last Days, the plants outside the window slick and shining with the rain deposited earlier, it balls into perfect fragile spheres, could be glass from where I sit, and my father has just died and oh death, Oberst sings, doing a better job of drawing out that first vowel than Chesnutt ever did and I swerve a group outside a pub; relaxed Friday night crowd. Not me. When was the last time I walked slowly? Better not to ask. Don’t think. Volume up. Hurry past cafes, wine bars, all soft lighting, everyone is beautiful; I have not wanted to die for 18 months. Progress. The song stops and reach out and touch faith blares, walk faster. Beat helps. Breathe in. I have not been breathing properly since August. Something happened then that knocked the air from me, until the thing that happened, I thought the phrase hyperbole, but I have come to learn this is not the case. Often since, I have found I have been holding my breath; as if under water. Breathe in; hard to force the air past my throat. Shallow breath is breath enough. Will do. Has to. It is written, the truth will set you free. Will myself to forget which book of the bible, which chapter, which verse. Will myself to forget August. Largely possible when busy. Work through it. Literally. Work and work and work. It works. But not when alone. Not when alone and walking. My knee hurts. The specifics hit again. The truth will set you free, they say but it will also lurk and bite and hit you smack in the chest when you’re walking, say down a lit street as winter begins to set in and the dusk eats up the contours of the buildings and the truth will set you free eventually but freedom is undoing, is unknotting, is not knowing. Is hard for someone who likes to do and to knot and to know. Phone buzzes. Message from a friend. Close to the bar. Quick scan. Friends are good. They help. Helps to laugh. Life is fucking absurd. The world is imploding. Here. There. Everywhere. People veer to the good. Here. There. Everywhere. This is what faith looks like. To believe in people. Even when the evidence points to the contrary. Sometimes. The truth; your own, personal Jesus; my own, unasked for messiah.

(Day 1 of ten a day. It’s a much harder exercise than I thought it would be. It helps me look. Watch. It is also terrifying - therefore a good thing.)