Flying through cloud,,,

A couple of days ago, I finished reading "Luck and a Lancaster", a fascinating and moving account of a pilot's experiences during a 30 mission tour with Bomber Command.  It really brought an increasingly distant, but important part of our history vividly to life.  His descriptions of flying by night and day, in all sorts of weather allowed me to almost feel like I was looking over his shoulder in the cockpit.  

I have always wanted to learn to fly, but I will probably get no closer to it than flight sims and trips on airliners.  Lately, however, I have been feeling like I am flying in cloud - that stage in a flight before breaking into the glorious, sunlit paradise above the clouds, when you can see no further than the wingtips of the plane.

It seems an ideal metaphor for the dead, numb nothingness that is depression.  Occasionally, there is a break in the cloud that allows one a tantalising glimpse of the sunshine or the Earth below - our familiar, comforting home,  Our condition forbids us the power to climb above to that golden place above the weather.  

We have our "crew" along with us, those whom we love and who love us, our "navigators" helping us find our way home, our "radio operators" keeping us in contact with some sort of reality, our "air-gunners" keeping an eye out and protecting us from the "flak" coming up from below and the night-fighter (both real and imagined) that are out to get us... 

We fly on, through the blank, featureless void, hoping for a chance to find our base to land, rest and refuel.  Some flights like this are short hops, others feel like endless missions into the unknown.  The cloud may often seem impenetrable, but I am glad to know that I have a top-notch crew and my "kite", while a bit clapped out and past its best, is mostly dependable, and has always got me home thus far.  

No covers, no compromise...

I am (hopefully) about to embark on a new artistic journey - in the shape of a band with another guitarist.  Obviously, I have no idea how it will turn out - but I am hoping that it will be rewarding and feed my need for music making.  

It is a tricky business, because, like any other kind of relationship it inevitably relies on compromise and that seems to be something that gets harder as I get older.  I have been in a few bands over the years, some better than others, and some involving more compromise than others.  I have tried (other than one band) to resist the temptation to go the easy route and do covers - not that there aren't songs that I don't want to learn to play, or that I necessarily think that my songs are any better than anyone else's - it's more that I need that kinda personal investment in the music.  

Also, if you start off playing covers, people will often like your band because you play songs that they already like, and it makes it harder to move on to doing originals.  And to be honest, I don't play music to make other people happy (though I don't mind if they do) - I do it because I need to - and I feel that this is the most honest way to approach music making.  It is far too personal to do for other people. 

It perplexes me greatly when people complain because a band progresses and changes over time - particularly when they are talking about "progressive rock" bands.  It seems that they secretly (or not so secretly!) want them to keep making the same album over and over again (some bands appear to have made entire and alarmingly successful careers of doing just that).  That is most assuredly not what I want - I want bands to go away, search their collective "souls" and express what they find however they can.  I will listen.  I may well not like it, but if it is honest, I will respect it.  And it may grow on me.  If the artists are prepared to work hard on their music, I am prepared to put effort into understanding and appreciating it.  No X Factor(y) bad covers or written by committee nothingness.  (Yes I am probably a music snob, but I don't care - it is too important to me to take it lightly.)

So I go into my new band line up eyes open, sleeves rolled up and heart laid bare to feed the music.  I may get frustrated at my limited ability, but hopefully we will find something that will feed our souls, drive us on and maybe even someone somewhere, similarly twisted, may like it.  But in my heart, I don't care.  This is for me and my fellow travellers.

Who ate all the pie..?

Chart.

I have been having a bit of a mixed time lately - good times with family and friends, things are good at work, and Freya and I have had a chance to go and see a bit of the Fringe with Wee C away for a holiday at Granny and Papa's in Killie.  But the "Enemy Within" has also been in evidence, which is, I suppose, nobody's fault but mine.  The ol' Black Dog has been chewing my brain like it was a manky old slipper.  Which, in a way, it is.

I was thinking a bit about it this morning, and (being the sad old Excel-jockey that I am) I started visualising it as a pie-chart.  In my life, the vast majority is good, with my lovely family making up a substantial slice, and with friends, music, books and work etc. making up most of the rest.  Just now, however, I don't seem to have the whole pie - I am in possession of less than 100%.  One section appears to have been substituted for dark matter - or just nothing.

This missing part is, I think, the creative part of me.  And I damn well want it back.  I have tried asking myself nicely, but I am not playing, so to speak.  I know that it is all down to me.  I want to make myself feel better by grabbing my guitar and flooding my empty parts with music.  But I won't let myself.  It is too damned easy to not bother.  

If I do manage to get as far as picking one up, it is too damned easy for my mind to fill with the conviction that it is sounding awful and I should give up.  I need to play through this, I need to get involved in some sort of musical collaboration with others so that the creativity can flow between us and be amplified like in the cavity of a laser, reflecting back and forth and growing stronger with each pass.  

Of course, organising this takes the sort of energy that the depression steals away.  Depression, I feel, (and may well have mentioned before) seems to have a self-preservation instinct that tries to stop you acting to lessen its effects.

There have been small signs that I remember where my creativity is - I have been experimenting with odd tunings, and tiny fragments of passably ok new music have been emerging.  I have even been using my phone to keep these pieces for when my muse has returned sufficiently for them to be of use.  There are embers, but the flame is not yet returned.

I will though take strength from my family and friends and try to get my fire burning strongly again, because I know that when it does, it helps to make the rest of my pie/world shine that much more brightly.

A Long Way Away...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.'”

― Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 14)

44 years ago today, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon, the first ever human being to set foot on another world. The last human being to set foot on the Moon left in 1972. All of the men who went to the Moon were profoundly affected by the experience - there is an excellent book, called "Moondust" by Andrew Smith which relates those experiences via interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts. I wholeheartedly believe that we should be going back sooner, rather than later.

Not just for the challenge, we have proved that it is possible. Not just for the science, although I believe that we could learn a huge amount more about the origins of our planet, its Moon, and indeed the whole of our Solar System. A whole lot of other things too. Mostly, because I wonder if it is something like a return to the moon that could be our best hope for saving ourselves and our planet.

We need perspective, to remind ourselves just how tiny, this, our home planet is in a universal context. It is small, fragile, and so very vital to our survival as a species. Yet it seems that we don't value it, or each other anywhere near as much as we should. If we could see our planet from the moon, small enough that you could blot it out with your thumb, perhaps then we may come to realise that we need to start treating it and each other with an appropriate amount of respect and that we have to start sharing it more thoughtfully with all of our fellow inhabitants.

There are many ridiculous arguments about economical effects and the rest. I feel that if there is a plausible risk that we are poisoning the planet sufficiently to make it uninhabitable, then that risk is too much, and we shouldn't be quibbling about the minutiae of it. We should aim to make our world safer and better for all. A renewed space programme could create a lot of jobs, potentially. Both directly and indirectly through technology spin offs. I would argue that it is possibly more cost effective than baling out investment banks that should be allowed to fail. In addition, nowadays you could get a lot more buy-in from commercial interests without necessarily jeopardising the scientific worth of the missions. 

Without a viable planet, money is not a lot of good. Indeed, anything that made humanity focus more on the plight of the planet and its inhabitants and less on the artificial construct that is money would be welcome. I don't believe for a minute that we will achieve even a fraction of what I hope for, perhaps we can get just enough.

Fact is, if we let the planet die by our actions or inaction, there will be no "standard of living", no industry, no economy - there will be no human race to create or need them.

Mibbes aye, mibbes naw...

I had an interesting conversation last night with someone last night about a topic that is only going to become more important over the next year or so - the Scottish Independence debate.

I am genuinely undecided on which way I will vote when it comes around.  I am proud to be Scottish, but have no real problem with being British and am proud of the things that Scots and people from the other British nations have achieved over the years.  

Nationalism troubles me deeply however - far too many terrible things have been done "In the name of a piece of dirt, For a change of accent, Or the color of your shirt" to quote Rush's song "Territories" - which pretty much echoes my feelings on the topic.  I try to judge people (if I need to) based solely on the person that they are - where they happen to have been born is irrelevant.    

However, my real issue with the current Independence "debate" is not anything to do with Nationalism.  It is simply that I have seen nothing yet that can be reasonably described as debate.  Childish yah-boo yeah-but-no-but squabbling, yes, reasoned, adult debate, no.

All of it seems to be "if you vote yes, we'll do..." followed by something great that they probably can't guarantee that they will be able to carry out.  Or "If you vote no, then maybe..." followed by some dire apocalyptic consequence.  Neither side seems to be able to back these statements with anything even resembling hard facts.  Surely someone, somewhere is able to provide us with actual, definite answers to these sort of questions?  What we really need, I think is an independent (irony, we do that, yes!) assessment of the key issues, so that we can make a realistic and informed decision as to which box we want to check.

Maybe we could even extend real, grown up, sensible debate into the rest of politics too?  Nah, it'll never happen...

Just a Spanish Minute...

Hola!  We're just back from a wee sojourn in Southern Spain, recently enough that our collective skin tone has not yet reverted to our natural Scottish light bluish tinge...

While we were there, we headed off on a day trip to the Alhambra in Granada for our token bit of culture.  And it is indeed a stunning icon of the medieval Moorish culture of Southern Spain.  Our guide pointed out a feature of it's decoration that got me thinking a wee bit (oh no not again, I hear you cry!)  The outside of the Alhambra is quite plain, but the inside is beautifully decorated with intricate designs - as our guide put it, they "kept it to themselves"...

It made me think about how much is to be gained from sharing our creations - be they arts, scientific discoveries or even just daft blogs by depressive weirdos!  The thing is, I suppose, that you don't know what other people will gain from or do with what is shared - in work, for instance you can share something that you have learned and save your colleagues from having to discover it themselves.  Another way that I have seen this bear fruit is by sharing our experiences with Christopher, we have hopefully given other TOF parents, who are earlier in their journey, some idea of what they can expect.  I know that we have gained from the experiences of others.

I suppose that there is a risk sometimes of "oversharing" or perhaps becoming self-obsessed (which seems to be quite common these days) but I think if you can foster a sensible "interrnal editor" and a reasonable degree of self-awareness, hopefully you can realise what to share and when to have as positive effect as you can.  (Or you can put it in a blog that people can read or ignore as they see fit!)

The "Spanish Minute" idea is another thing that I encountered on holiday - it is like a less extreme version of "manana"- as in "the show will start in 5 minutes... 5 Spanish minutes, that is".  I remain unsure of the exact correlation between "Spanish" and "normal" minutes but I am pretty sure that it is always a ratio greater than one!

Skin Deep

The past couple of weeks have been quite hard for us, I think.  Sleep has been a very scarce commodity in the Rennie household.  And it is nothing to do with my depression or Christopher's TOF issues, but something that is probably way more common than either of those.  

I am talking about the fiendish scourge that is eczema - the demon itch that can drive even the most disciplined soul to scratch themselves in a frenzy.  I, myself have suffered from skin complaints, as has Freya - we both know the impossibility of resisting the urge to tear at your own skin until you bleed in an ultimately futile attempt to make that damned itch do away.  So it is difficult for us to tell Christopher to stop scratching, though we must.  

It is also difficult to come into his room at some obscure hour of the night, half asleep and nerves shattered by the howling that has woken us, to find him writhing about on his bed, crying unconsolably and feverishly scratching at himself, often with blood all over his legs.  We seem to have every lotion, potion, cream and ointment that exists from the simple emollients to the fierce steroid creams and the positively vile icthopaste bandages.  Many nights he goes to bed bandaged neck to ankle, looking like an extra from a b-movie.  It is no joking matter, though we try to make light of it for him.  

The hardest thing though, is hearing him say "I want to give my body to someone else" or "I don;t like my skin, daddy".  These are not the sort of things that you want to hear from anyone, least of all a four year old.  Once, the blood is cleaned away, the creams and bandages applied, and the tears have been soothed away - something that Freya has a particular genius for - then Christopher starts to reassert himself over his skin, and he talks about how he doesn't like the creams, but he knows that they help his skin.  

I am weak compared to my boy, but his strength of character lends me strength - coffee will push the tiredness away long enough to get the working day over - but my beautiful family are my true love in this world.  "Beauty is only skin deep" they say, but Christopher, to me, is beautiful to the core.