Today

Sleep becomes increasingly elusive as we reach the summer solstice. So much so that I hear the first chirps of the dawn chorus as my evening draws to a close and I know that full daylight means the dog starts to become restless; starts scratching and I know I am needed again for the second night in a row. One sleepless night leaves me a tad irritable, two and I am less able to perform menial tasks, three and the first dark murmurings of psychosis on the horizon. In midsummer I love the meadows, wild flowers, swallows, swifts and house martins painting elegant arcs across the sky above. But this joy is mitigated by the feeling there is nowhere to hide. I'm fine alone out in field and forest where I always feel safe, anytime of the day, anytime of the year. It's around people I get scared. In England, where I live we endure/enjoy a heavily populated piece of land and the privacy one might poetically associate with the Englishman is often hard to find. I grew up in a city but always felt the call of the wild. More than that I wanted to not have to meet the judgemental stare of another of my species. Sartre said hell is other people and it certainly is for me. Anxiety can be overwhelming. Once in the hallucinatory state lack of sleep delivers I long for the invisibility cloak that night provides. The depression that lack of daylight brings on in the winter has the equally maline twin that fixes me under a spotlight of anxiety in summer. There is, of course an antidote. Alcohol, heroin or benzodiazepines alleviate anxiety and but for their kind embrace doubt I would be here today. All have side effects and addiction has caught me many a time in my younger years. These days I try not to succumb having endured torturous withdrawals in my earlier years and the bounce back of any drug is its equal and opposite effect. Summertime, and the living is easy.

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