"So much pleasure," said Vic and Bob, during their brief stint advertising yoghurt, "but where's the pain?"
For some reason, this question has lingered in my mind ever since those adverts were on the telly. I am not, strictly speaking, an astrologically minded fellow, but every so often I wonder whether my Libran roots are at the centre of my tendency to sit on the fence, see both sides of an argument, and not be too hasty to pass judgement. I have heard it said that we live in a dualistic universe and I rather believe it, and so during moments of supreme happiness & contentment, I am often waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So it was with the weather today. OHMYSWEETLORDTHERE'SSUNANDWARMTHANDEVERYTHING! is pretty much what my brain has been doing this week. Especially after the weekend, where I went to Manchester to see Gemma Hayes play at St. Ann's Church. For the time I wandered the streets of Manchester, carrying an umbrella just in case it chucked it down (much as it had been doing the entire previous week), a sharp wind and general chill dogged my every waking movement, and it felt more akin to March than May. It's as if someone has been blindly slapping their hand across the wall and finally found the light switch.
With all this loveliness abound in the atmosphere, there has to be a downside somewhere, right?
Right.
Admittedly, it was brief, but the effect on my retina will be some time in healing. I was walking home from the day-job today, laden with two carrier-bags of shopping & my rucksack, earphones in & playing some Gemma Hayes, and I was enjoying the warmth and the sunshine, the way you do when you've got music on and are unencumbered by coats, gloves & scarves. (Those moments can be more life-affirming than being kissed, sometimes, can't they? I think because you aren't huddling & praying not to be rendered too cold, nor are you battling fierce, numbing winds, or hiding from the rain, it's a very freeing experience, walking in a bright, warm sun. Even if your arms are dropping off with shopping bags.) "What," I thought, "could possibly spoil this perfect afternoon?"
Then I rounded a corner to walk the footpath under a bridge, and was treated to the spectacle of a giggling, tipsy woman, um, relieving herself against the bridge wall, while her equally tipsy boyfriend looked on, supping from a can of beer and also laughing. I walked past, looking fixedly at the opposite wall, when the bloke said to me (I made this out through my earphones) "Nothin' you've not seen before, eh?" I was determined to keep walking, so uncomfortably exhaled in the style of a "laugh", and then really motored on as soon as I was past them. (For those of you who like appropriate songs, the Gemma Hayes track that was playing in my ears during this was 'Easy On The Eye'.)
So there is our prime example of cosmic balance - I enjoy the sun and warmth, life presents me with a grim tableau of public urination and voyeurism. So much pleasure, and there's the pain.
It was a similar state of affairs just before this weekend when I went to see Miss Hayes, (albeit the other way around with pain followed by pleasure) when I had a slump in self-belief and lost my ability to find a way forwards. (If you haven't read, I had a big confidence lapse on Friday and wrote a blog about how I was feeling, whereupon lots of lovely readers, tweeters and friends got in touch and bucked my spirits up.) What your responses and support made me think was that all I needed to do was keep going. That sounds terribly simple, and in some ways maybe it is, but the main thing I wasn't doing was playing. I have a stock six songs that I know awfully well, and anything else I have to run through a few times before a gig, so as soon as I got back from Manchester, I went to my list of songs and drafted out four short(ish) setlists, and I have spent every night so far this week practising each one in turn. It is going nicely so far, only fumbling a couple of chords or dropping one or two lyrics here and there, but it's turning out that I know these songs better than I thought I did. And once I've gone through these sets a few times each, I will know them intimately, and feel confident & happy enough in the material to pick a setlist and run with it. I reckon that will improve my musical state of mind no end, don't you? Never underestimate self-discipline.
Also, if you see me slacking, just remind me of what happened on the way home this afternoon. That should scare me into any form of distracting activity.
Speak soon folks,
John xxx
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