Chill Time

Now in the week before Xmas. Really don't feel like it is just around the corner, apart from the fact countless millions of people are out pounding the streets looking to spend money, and in a significant minority of cases to steal it. As the years go by the good old Xmas feeling for me just gets less and less. Must have something to do with the fact that with the climate getting warmer and warmer it seems even more surreal than usual to send and receive cards of landscapes filled with snow, trees with snow falling off their branches and all the rest of it. Those days are long gone and now represent a long lost fantasy. The weather has been so warm this month for example that it is only in the last couple of days that we have had a touch of frost. Other than that temps have been high for this time of year and I think that even the empty ritual of betting on whether or not there is going to be a white Xmas is going to be dropped this year for the blindingly obvious reason that there not going to be a chance in hell of one.

I guess that things might be different in my attitude to this time of year if I was a parent but I'm not and therefore have no little person beside me full of the magic of expectation of a big mad daddy figure dressed in red and white descending through the roof of the house. No, there ain't nuthin' like that going on in my neck of the woods. No siree. Just my plain old adult weariness for company and resignation that it is this time of the year again. Xmas? I would seriously advocate that it be celebrated no more than once every three years, but no one listens to me.

Been going through another phase of interrupted sleep. Maybe it is too much darkness. Inside and outside, if you know what I mean. Short days bookended by a lot of night. Anyway the pattern at the moment seems to be going to sleep around 11.15 pm and then waking up anytime between 2.30 - 3.30 am and staying awake for quite a while. Brain active, thoughts racing. The dead zone as far as any other kind of entertainment goes. Don't know why it is that I keep waking, well if I did then maybe I would be able to do something about it. Correspondingly the meditation sessions I have been having recently are have been stiff and painful. Maybe it is the drop in temperatures. Whatever it is my mindfulness in regard to the meditation object has not quite been fully with it, as if it is spinning just a little off balance...a bit like the earth and it's 23.4 degrees. What is the meditation object ? The breath, my breathing, counting the in and out breaths, the rise and fall of my chest and abdomen.

Weather still chilly, cold in fact. Last couple of days there has also been a dense fog hanging over the city, just to spice things up a bit. Sitting here in the evenings watching the news and all the misery people are having to endure at airports as they try to get away for Xmas but are just confronted instead with cancelled flights. In a way though it is hard to feel sorry for them, after all isn't air traffic supposed to be one of the biggest contributors to global warming ? These days things like that just go with the territory, you just have to take your chances. Same with travelling by car, you could be heading out the door full of excitement over your Xmas break only to head straight into an almighty jam an hour up the road which leaves you boiling over with anger and frustration; cursing the whole lousy stinking deal of jungle bells and all that bullshit.

Better just to lie low if you can. Put your expectations to bed and settle for less. It is all a big con anyway, Xmas - who needs it really ? Just commerce. The shops, the businesses. They are the ones that need it, just to keep the whole capitalist roadshow going. Buy, buy, buy. Continue feeding the illusion that all these material goods are going to make people happy. Whatever happened to the days of simplicity and self-sufficiency? Instead we get the demands of capitalism rammed down our throats at any given opportunity. OK a little is fine, but to have this constant pre-occupation with buying this or that in the vain hope that these things are going to provide answers to the fundamental problems of what it is we are really doing living on planet Earth is just a pathetic waste of precious time.

The fog changes things though I have to say. Makes driving a lot more interesting with strange shapes appearing on the roads from the reflected beams of the headlights of the traffic. Makes you feel slightly disorientated as well. In a pleasant kind of way. But I guess the trick is not to end up driving too fast and crashing your motor. Just like some poor soul had done on the opporsite side of the North Circular on my way back home this evening. A bunch of fireman were grouped around the car, after just having cut someone out of the wreckage and a stretcher had a figure on it, under a load of blankets. A sobering sight. Everyone on my side of the road slowed down to a crawl as we passed the accident scene, me included. Just so that we could all get a good eye full. That is the thing. The warning. Will we heed signs like that or just carry on as usual ? As for me I don't think I can answer as I know that often I drive too fast and could very well one day end up in a decidely sticky situation. That's what happens when you bomb around in a Toyota Avensis with either U2 or Led Zep on the car sound system. At volume. Better go.