Life

Hell I'm feeling reflective today. Maybe it's the time of year, being out on the boat everyday, or having seen old friends recently, but I just feel like everything is, after all, okay.  I feel like the sadness and darkness that I've felt in the past has begun to fade and that things are going to come good. That they are already good.
Why is it that some things just suddenly click into place? It became clear today that everything happens and then it's done. Bad things happen and then, eventually, the scars they made begin to fade.

It may seem like a very typical thing for me to say, what with me now crewing on a fishing boat, but life to me seems a lot like the tide: It rises and falls. Sometimes there's loads of fish, sometimes it's a lonely day at sea. Sometimes people are there for you, sometimes they aren't. The tide will go out, but it's a fact that it will come back in, filling the harbour to the brim, the boats all becoming buoyant. And yes, sometimes the tide is so low you'll be trying to wade out to sea for half a mile and you'll still only be in three foot of water, but you'll get there eventually, and the peace of being out there when you arrive will make it worthwhile.

There is a little Buddhist teaching I read, that I have adopted as my life motto; " Samsara is Nirvana". Meaning, the paddling out is all part of catching the wave. The hard times get you to the good times. So there is something to be taken from every shitty day- you keep trudging through, because what else is there to do? You'll make it in the end.

I feel like I'm home. I'm with old friends who make me remember growing up when I see them. They give me my roots. It's as though, without realising it, I needed to be back here to remind me who I am. Some things will never change and there's some great clarity and joy in that.
The last few years have been a blur of moves and houses but not really any home. Being back here seems to give some relief.

I've been single for a year and three months now and I am content with myself in that sense. I don't feel alone. I get to see my friends and go to work and basically do as I please without having to consult anyone else.

Saying that, sometimes I miss the feeling of skin on skin, one of life's purest pleasures. To feel someone else's skin touching yours brings something out of the core of all of us, I think. It's a beautiful thing that there are all these gadgets and shops and clothes, expensive holidays and fabulous restaurants, but that ultimately, it is us, the human race, that bring the most happiness and pleasure to ourselves. The primitive hard wiring still lingers.


I wonder who that next person for me will be, although I'm not in a hurry to meet them- I have a feeling the universe will do as it will regardless of whether I look for them or not. But it's strange thinking about being with someone again. Being so comfortable with someone. Talking to them, lying with them, the excitement that comes with learning things about someone you are falling in love with.

I was reading a book the other day and I learned that the neurons that are fired up in your brain when you feel that sensation of 'love' are enormously similar to those found in people deemed mentally ill. All logic flees and you are, in fact, crazy about someone. I'm not sure if that's creepy or incredible. Maybe both.

You can take no control over who you fall in love with, or when. You can't stop the shitty things in life happening, but good things will come around eventually and it will all fall into place- like it was supposed to go exactly the way it did.

I guess, in my characteristic long-winded way, I'm saying; "How could it be any other way?"
Trevor Hall says it better:


That's all for now,
Jojo xxx