Thief of Time

THIEF OF TIME

I am writing my thesis and it has taken up a great deal of my time.

Dare I say, this education is getting in the way of my life.

A thesis is like a little business, you work at it 9-5 but then you have to stay back and tend to it, tidy it and buff it for the next morning.

I am so tired of my little enterprise.

I want to pass it on.

Bind it, and drop it.

So tired am I that I have begun to neglect it.

We all need a little break once in a while I cannot deny that but recently despite my best efforts I have failed to make progress in the last few days.

I am under pressure; I have a deadline to meet and I start work a fortnight before that.

I am worried.

But rather than face this problem head on, I find it much easier to pretend, if only for a little while, that it does not exist.

Procrastination is a wonderful art but it is the thief of time.

A half hour on the Playstation soon mutates into half a day.

My precious time absorbed by my futile little indecisions.

The thief of time strikes again, robbing me of potential work and diminishing the dividends of my day

Waiting on Post

WAITING ON POST

I used to collect tokens from cereal boxes and send away for stuff.

Stuff.  It rarely mattered what it was but I liked the idea of watching the post and receiving parcels.

I remember getting a yoyo.  A heavy brick it was and I never mastered it.  But it had lights and an image of Two-tales from the Sonic cartoons/games so it never bothered me that the yoyo became an ornament and was never used for its intended purpose.

Shelved and forever unfulfilled.

Until someone dropped it and smashed it into two pieces.

True to life.

It used to cost 20p for postage and packaging.

But if you collected enough tokens it was otherwise free and 20p although difficult to come by (I did not get pocket money) was not impossible to scrounge it from somewhere.  Usually, the offer requested a 20p postal order but who in the right mind would be bothered to ask for a 20p postal order?

So, often we stuck the coin to a piece of cardboard using sticky-tape and sent it on its merry way.

I remember Sugar puffs once had an offer for X-men action figures.  We fought over who would be the first to order one but we never collected enough tokens.

My brother did collect enough for a Space Precinct toy once.  But his choice of toy was ‘Snake.’  We did not collect enough tokens for another figure.

Nowadays, if there are any postal offers you have to pay.

We used to watch the postman and when he would stop to drop the letters we would often race, wrestle and struggle to get those letters.  More often than not it was rubbish.  Spam.

I won a C.D. once.  Well, it was last year.

It rekindled memories and feelings of anticipation watching the post everyday.

Alas, I still wait.

That C.D. has never found its destination…

Collectors' Guild

I like to collect things.  It’s a habit, I know.  My wallet stuffed with bus tickets, train tickets, cinema slips, receipts and foreign currencies and little of any legal tender.

Each with their own apparently insignificant story but what is not apparent is that each carries a significant sentiment.  I should make a scrapbook really or a collage but to everyone else my habits are strange, a fetish or a farce.

People might collect stamps, they might enjoy it too.  People might collect war memorabilia, comics but me, why I collect crap?

No, I collect memories.  Each of these scrapes of paper hold a memory of me regardless of how the world might view them.  These bits of slips are a testament to my continuing existence, the memory is never enough, relegated to some obscure part of the mind, I like to bolster it with a memento or two.

It gives me great pleasure, from time to time, to empty the contents of my wallet, all the scraps of paper, faded, smudged or torn, dog-eared and I pick through my items, and settle on a memory I would like to revive, to reminisce and to quench my nostalgia.

Times and dates, my location in print.  There’s something reassuring in knowing where you were, that you were.

MUNICH (Part I)

MUNICH (PART I)

2/10/2008

Munich-an interesting city as always thought.  After locating the administrative offices I finally got to my room accompanied by my mentor Barbara and my friend Miriam.

After some problems with the key we left for Miriam’s apartment.  Barbara had agreed to help find it.

Olympiazentrum accessed by the U3.

Probably my impressions are exaggerated by fatigue but I know this year will be tough.

2 October 2008.

Flight from Dublin to Munich 0720 hours.

Bus to Dublin 0335 hours.

Sleep achieved ca. 2 hours.

This was a recipe for disaster and in retrospect I managed quite well.

Rattled by a short bittersweet nap I make a hasty breakfast at 0310.  I light the gas and boil the kettle.  My mother is up now too, she also has a mug of tea.  I have never been one for the early breakfast so I eat little if anything.  I am nervous.  I have only travelled by plane a few times, to Austria and to Australia beforehand.

But this makes me nervous.  I am moving to Germany, albeit temporarily.  This is a big change.  I am setting out on a once in a life time adventure and yet I am worried about the little things: boarding, flying, disembarking, de-boarding, breathing German air, getting to the Student Accommodation office before it closes and I am homeless for the night.

I doubt if I would have had to sleep on the street but in my mind then, it was almost a dead certainty and far more likely than the possibility that things might run smoothly and I move into my new studio flat without a hitch.

No, ever the optimist I am.

It is October, so Munich is buzzing with the final days of Wiesn or Oktoberfest so things are bound to be busy.  And hostels are likely to have been booked up for 12 months prior.

We’re waiting for the bus.  A few lorries pass but no sign of a bus.  I panic I begin to wonder if I had read the time table wrong.  The thought that any busy could possibly be active in these small hours is preposterous, there’s no bus, I’m missing my flight and the opportunity, I can’t go tomorrow, it is over.  It is over and I am not sorry and I can stay at home and do something take a year out and then the bus turns onto the street I see its headlights and the golden number.  It has come.  And its only about ten minutes late.

The bus journey is largely uneventful  I am assuming the people here are all on their way to the airport why else, and for what other reason might they be up at this ungodly hour.  I can think of none.  Airport it is.

It is about 5 o’clock when we get there.

I go in and I search for Miriam.  I don’t like airports.  I find them confusing.  Miriam, kindly offered to book flights, she’s an organiser, she likes to organise.  I fret and I worry over miniscule things so I gratefully oblige.  There is no sense in me worrying and exasperating us both.  I am confident in her ability.

We get to our Gate.  We sit about and we chat.  I am nervous and I am sleepy.  Sleep wins and I get drowsy.

There is a stag party en route to Munich too.  They wrestle and joke, jibe and jest while other potential passengers evade and elude the behemoth mass that is the Bachelor party.  When we arrive in Munich, they will launch their own exclusive WWF tournament, wrestling and rolling on the conveyor belt while some old lady eyes them hungrily insisting they’re merely part of her luggage.

The grass is golden brown in Munich.  A true Autumn colour.  But the heat is intense.  It is October 2^nd and the sun is beating down feverishly.

We collect our luggage and exit.  I see Barbara, my mentor, waiting with the distinguishing scarf wrapped around her neck.  She smiles and I think, that looks like Barbara (we had communicated via facebook before and she agreed to meet me at the airport), I was right.

Barbara’s father kindly agreed to take us into the city and deposit us at the Studentenwerk Olympische Dorf.

I am tired.

No, I am exhausted.  No sleep makes me cranky and mopey and depressed.

With much adieu I get my keys.  At the best of times German comes difficult to me and I had hoped to clutch Babara close and ask her to work as my brain but I managed.  Simply because the Studentenwerk had prepared for every eventuality, even the eventuality that some lunatic would attempt to come study for a year in Munich with incoherent German.  It is almost implausible but German efficiency won in the end.  They met my challenge!

I got my key.

And demands that rent be paid within a few days once my bank account was opened.

So, we three, Miriam, Barbara and myself venture to Helene­-Meyer Ring and into the halls of what looks like some Soviet gulag and down to my room, 107.

This is my room.

I press the key into the lock, the door opens.

We breach the room.

Bare.

A bed, a desk, a chair.  And a sink.  And a WC that was ripped out of Space Odyssey. 

I cringe (I later grew to love it).

A window, a wall made of glass exposes me and my room to those pedestrians walking along the bridge.  I only wish I had realised that they could see as much as they could with the venetian blinds open.

Quite the eyeful.

Then, having scoped the room out I decide it might be a good idea to close the door.  The key is still in the lock.  It won’t come out.  The key is stuck.  So, we each in our turn struggle, exhausting our physical and mental endurance but despite our best efforts, the efforts of three, the key remained steadfast in the lock.

Barbara rings the Hausmeister.

,Enschuldigung, ich heisse Ottmann, Barbara Ottmann…’

I can’t even make my own phone calls.

The man explains that it is an old lock, these buildings were constructed in the ‘70s after all, the infamous Olympic village.

We try.  You must turn the key, twiddle it and push in before removing it.  So we caressed the lock for a bit, wooing the key.

And finally, we beat the experimental Soviet gulag cell lock.

I win back my key.

And I can safely close my door with the key in my hand.

I win.

 We travel to Miriam’s flat then, an U-bahn journey, one change and a further brief journey to Kieferngarten.

Her flat is amazing.

She actually has the luxury of a door between her microscopic kitchen and the rest of her living space.

I am jealous.

And I voice that envy.

We leave and we go for lunch.

Barbara takes us to a restaurant, and one I am not sure really existed as we could never ever find it again and we order dinner.

I get some pasta concoction.  And because I am unfamiliar with pasta and its subsidiaries, eating as hungry as I may be, becomes an ordeal.  The spaghetti slipping off my fork and back onto the slop in my bowl.  I can’t fork it out; I can’t scoop it and in the end as frustration gets the better of me I try to slurp it out.

A petty meal.

I am hungry an hour after and with no culinary or the like in my flat I will be hungry.

October 3^rd is a bank holiday.

Bank holidays, and church holidays are strictly adhered to in Munich.  It is forbidden to do anything.  No shops are open, society rolls to a halt and a whisper.

But I do have a mug.  And some highly coveted tea from home.

I buy milk, and cereal as well as some fruit.

Breakfast the night day will consist of a handful of honey loops scooped into my mouth, hastily washed down with a few mouthfuls of milk.  This is the student life.

Culinary and cutlery are superfluous.

I take my food home.

We meet a friend later on Marienplatz.  They want to go out.  I want to go sleep.

I take them both back to Olympiazentrum to show off my new flat, only to be told that I live in ‘the ‘mun of Munich.’  I reluctantly concede.

As we ascend from the U-bahn, we come out the wrong end.

This is my first day in Munich.  I am dying for sure, the lack of sleep has given way to some serious illness, I feel it in my bones.  Tomorrow, I won’t be alive.

I try to navigate my way back to the flat Barbara had helped us find earlier.

But I am lost.

We are lost.

This is no laughing matter.

I am lost in a strange city, and no one knows where I live.

Eventually, we make our way into the Olympic village, and after much stressing and sweating, the blood curdling in my gut we got to where I was, where I lived.

They laughed.

My discomfort brought them immense pleasure, feeding off my suffering.  I am the hapless fool, the zombie craving sleep as I cradle my sleeping bag on my quilt-less, sheet-less bed.  Sleep does not look appetizing and yet it is all I want.

Yet, the girls are on the road and I am compelled to follow.

I can’t remember where I live, I can’t be left alone.

We walk the streets of Munich.

It is early evening, but to me it feels like the wee hours and my home and my bed, and the bus stop and that boiling kettle on the gas a life time ago.

That was a distant dream.

We talk about the others coming.

And agree to meet the next day and to explore Oktoberfest.

I am so very tired.

I make my way back to my flat and I take out a notebook.

I scribble the date and the events, briefly onto paper.

Then I sleep.

Dear Journal

DEAR JOURNAL

It starts with pen to paper.  A record, an account of the past.  Sounds denoted by digits, digits and sounds combined in the mind.  Intertwined like the cords of a tether, a ball of yarn in the labyrinth  of the mind to negotiate memory.  How much we leave to memory, how much we leave to chance.

The facts of the world and youth moulded at whim.  But the world is changing and history is changing with it.  I guide the ink on the fabric of the paper, eager to record the words of the world.  Before I have to think, before I have to remember them.  And taint them, with the snap of a synapse.  I don’t trust me, I am the most unreliable witness.  My hand moves in perfect rhythm, as it breathes words onto a page, I ought to learn shorthand.  If only I had the time. 

Words, words, words and no time for thought only the majesty of the written word.  Everything else is mere distraction, this shall be the first truthful account, every breath recorded, no time, no opportunity to fabricate, to lie, concrete truths only.   

These Boots

These Boots

It is hard to come by good footwear these days.  Once in a while, though you find a pair that is worth every penny.  A tough, rugged pair.  Maybe not pretty but stitched to last.  But eventually the stitching begins to rip and tear and nails become displaced and no amount of polish can mask the scratches and scrapes-the wear of many miles and many heights.  These boots were made for walking and many miles we have trekked. 

There are few places I have been without them.  Stepping on the soil, sand and rock of many countries, the grains of foreign lands engraved in my sole.

A journal of discovery, a microcosm of wonder on the surface of a boot-a testament to my travels.  Austria; Vienna the streets of the Habsburgs, croissants and strudel, schnitzel and beer.  I have walked the streets of Mozart and Schnitzler soaking up the sights and sounds of this historical city, wandering down its Pilgrimgasse and Karlplatz, descending underground to the U-bahn and ascending into the rain. 

The streets of Vienna. 

The dazzling white airport of Seoul.

The red soil of New South Wales and Munich through the snow.  The spongy snow beneath my feet, delighting in the audible crunch and relishing the cleansing cold.  And finally we trek through the stony grey soils of Monaghan in tattered work boots.

The life lived, the snippet of life travelled in a pair of boots, ever reliable.  We traversed many lands before making the journey home. 

I sit down and shake the boots the contents spill onto the floor.  The sand and the soil, the pebbles and dust, accumulate on the floor the matter of nations gathered in a little heap, a mole hill as a testament to my travels.

(2008)

TRAINS

There is an old railway line in my town.
It runs under fields, nettles, thistle and clay and burrows under houses; the phantom train.
I often wonder about it.
The train, a mighty moveable fortress of steel and iron devouring forests, internal combustion.
The power of the brute billowing through the landscape people and commodities.
A to B.
It's not there now.
But I miss it having never known it.

I find great solace on trains.
Commuting; the gentle ebb and flow of the train on a sea of wood and metal.
It calms and soothes.
Here, I think, here I write.

Some liken the carriage to a cradle.
I do not disagree.
A cradle of ideas and inspiration.
I look out the window and I see the blurry green.
And the sky.
An expressionist painting.
Vibrant, alive.  But.
We are speeding past.

The window can only afford a snapshot.

Trains may offer an analogy of life.
A microcosm of society, this complex, varied assortment of people, of different dispositions, held within a capsule, travelling; spirited toward their destination with only a window view of life.  Restricted and blurry and at a distance.

How little we know.