Relinquish hope, surrender desire, scatter plans, rout all expectations, rescind promises, wake from dreams, run from fantasies, call it out, declare the impossible. (Somethings don’t work, because they can’t, because they oughtn’t. Better to despair than be deceived.) Move on! Saturday, August 29 to Monday, August 31: Yesterday afternoon, we sent off our eldest son at the station. He’d spent a…

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to heal … break down … weep … refrain from embracing … lose … cast away … rend … keep silence’ (Ecclesiastes 3. 1–7). WFH: DAY 124. 7.30 am: Here we are again. I’m alive; and that’s quite something. This is a…

‘Can noise, too, be a teacher pointing to Silence that is the ground of all? Is noise also (like everything else that exists) a spoke leading to the hub that is the Centre of us all?’ (Martin Laird, The Sunlit Absence (2011).) Yet do I remember the time past (Psalm 143.5). WFH: DAY 123. 8.30 am: A communion. 9.00 am:…

WFH: DAY 122: 7.45 am: 8.30 pm: A communion. My paternal grandfather was a Communist, for a while. But, then again, so were many other coalminers in the South Wales’ valleys. My maternal grandfather was a hard-core socialist (as well as a chapel Deacon); a copy of the Daily Worker was delivered to his house weekly. While I’ve never been…

Enhancing my depth and breadth of awareness; this is what I’m aiming at. WFH: DAY 121. 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: A scan of the inbox and planned prevarication. (I’d deal with them tomorrow.) 9.30 am: A postmortem on the weekly shopping expedition: ‘I don’t mind low-sugar Heinz baked beans.’ ‘How about no-sugar baked beans?’ ‘Never tried, but I’m…

WFH: DAY 120. 7.30 am: 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: I prepared for a day of postgraduate tutorials, marking, and ‘potching’ around in the studio (recording, modifying, and editing). 9.30 am: The first of the day’s MA fine art tutorials. Currently, there’s a complex of deferrals, resits, and resubmissions taking place under the university’s Covid-19 regulations. In between tutorials,…

August 23–24: Saturday was set aside for eBay sales. There comes a time when sound equipment that hasn’t been used in years needs to be sold in order to finance new and necessary devices. All gains are ploughed back into the land. Each effects processor and preamp embodies a history of its usage. On Sunday, following a magna-clean around the…

‘God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere’ (St. Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God (1259)) WFH: DAY 118. 7.30 am: The clouds moved swiftly from south to north, as though fleeing from calamity. ‘There will be windfall!’: 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Studiology. This morning, I’d assemble the extracted sub-samples from the…

WFH: DAY 117. 8.00 am: I awoke. ‘What!’ I faced the fearful prospect of being one hour behind my schedule for the remainder of the day. 8.45 am: A communion. 9.15 am: There were letters related to postgraduate admissions and assessment to send, research admin to commence, and next week’s clutch of resits and resubmissions under the Covid-19 regulations to…

WFH: DAY 116. 8.15 am: Preparations for Clearing. I’m always a little anxious that the ‘webclient’ portal won’t recognise me. Not that it never has. (My neuroses are very specific.) Our marketing and admissions teams are excellent: informed, clear communicators, courteous, and professional. 10.00 am: Kick off! Participation in my capacity as a departmental advisor is rather like being a…