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Sometimes…

I look at my blog site stats.  A bunch of fluctuating numbers posted throughout the day behind the scenes of this blog.   I used to be mesmerised by these stats.  Especially when thousands of people read the blog every day.  Now, those numbers have dwindled.

I could do more to boost my numbers but choose not to.

Each morning I get up and write everything that is on my mind.  It isn’t particularly interesting to most people what happens to a man living on both coasts of the USA.  Living on a small stipend delivered monthly from various investments made many years ago.  Living with a small dog and a pair of beautiful twins.  Living with bi-polarity.  Living in his dreams.

Yet, every morning I feel compelled to write my life for you to read.  I try not to boast, I try not to be too self piteous.  I try to tell it as it is.  Sometimes I am just talking to myself, sometimes I am talking to my Mother.  Mostly I am just talking.  Last year I seemed to be engaged in a one way conversation with him.

As the days pass between who I was and who I am, the years pass between what I thought I wanted and what I actually achieved, the decades between an impetuous youth and a contemplative old age.  I become less frightened, more at peace.

I know that my writing about him has chased many of my regular readers away.  I worked out that terrible obsession here on this blog.  Do I regret writing it?  What sort of diary would this be if I hadn’t written it?  What sort of man would I have been if I sat here suffering and just candy coated what was the most bitter of all pills?

Of course I am capable of telling you lies but for the most part I get up and tell you whatever truth is presently haunting me.  I have not written things and regretted it.  When I was with him I often excluded him from the narrative and as a consequence the most beautiful moments we shared have been lost.  Making love in the wood.  I didn’t write about that when it happened and now it is as if it never happened.  Writing retrospectively about those moments somehow devalues them.

I know that you hate me writing about him but he has been on my mind.   When I stop feeling angry, foolish, sad…I still find myself wanting the best for him.  Wishing him well.  Hoping that he resolved his stuff with her.  Praying that he now has the gay life he wanted so badly.

After all is said and done…I loved him.  For good or for bad.

I wish that I did not now have to see him in September.

At this moment I have climbed fully out of the straight jacket I designed for myself.  Life has become simple and manageable once again.  My head no longer in two time zones.  No more longing, fantasy, false hope.

I listened to the singer Adele talking about how her first album was crafted after a nasty break up.  How she punched her ex bf in the face then wrote her album.  This is what artists do.  Copper’s Bottom, the play I showed at Sadler’s Wells in my mid twenties was all about a love affair I had with a policeman.  The deep scars it left in me.  This is what artists do.  We craft something from our own experiences, we do not disguise our vulnerabilities, our history.  I cannot deliberately disfigure the past.

When I was nominated for the BAFTA I finally had proof of sorts that being true to oneself and the stories we tell can reach much further than those of us who hide away.   I have hidden away for most of this year.  Licking my wounds behind my site stats, my failed love affair.

If I am to remain credible I must do what I do best: create.   Wasting the rest of my life hankering after what could have been is just plain stupid.  Whilst many of the folk I grew up with are considering retirement I must do what thousands of artists before me have done and just get on with it.  Do the work.

Regardless of how many people are watching.

This morning I have watered the garden.  Listened to the birds.  Made strong coffee.

Miles is vomiting in the bathroom.  He drank too much last night at the Whale Wars premiere.  He is missing his girlfriend who has moved to the mid-west.   Watching him struggle somehow helps me.  I have no idea why.

“I’ve never been this hung over.” He moans.

I don’t have ANY sympathy for people who drink too much.

Now, what next?  Apparently the niche publisher is not so niche and the nice woman there has already read my book and wants to talk further.  I wonder what that means?

I put my film on ice but am ready to warm it up.  I am meeting producers this Sunday.   Whilst I was in New York I met another producer.

I seem to be getting back into that grove.

PS  I got a 4k reduction on my property tax..which is now only 13k a year.  Hurrah!

12 replies on “Sometimes…”

Its your writing about human struggles that keep us coming back D, you put into words what many of us feel. Except you have wayyyy nicer furniture 😉

I agree with Holly. Every morning with my weak tea, I look forward to your writings, Jan

I enjoy reading your blog everyday, Duncan. I think alot of people have transferred over to FB and Tw’r.

This is a quote from a blogspot that is updated daily:-“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.” Author: Henry Miller

Stats are not really accurate since I am able to RSS feed you to my inbox directly. I only come to the site proper when I want to babble at you or see if you’ve babbled back at me.

I discovered this blog a few months ago. I think it’s fascinating–sort of appeals to voyeuristic tendancies of the mental kind..

Duncan – I am still following as well, checking my tweets daily for the link to yr blog. Yes, sometimes difficult to read because the anguish reminds me of betrayal in my own life. That’s what you risk when you really love.

I love reading your blog. I love your honesty with yourself – you don’t let yourself get away with anything, and that is something worth emulating and admiring. It’s so easy to play the victim.

Don’t stop, evah!

I love the honesty. Never left a message for you before. Great work. Loved the beginning of your novel. If you can’t kill them in real life you can murder them in your art. Congrats on property tax reduction!

Maybe the dwindling numbers are lack of acknoledgement. Before you used to be more interactive with your readers.

Love reading you

Alexandra, that’s quite right. The penguin persuaded me that I shouldn’t interact with my readers. See how addiction of any kind shrinks your world?

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