who will write love songs for you

[hawkwing_lb]

Last autumn, I had a bad run of illnesses all together. Since then, I haven't got my act together to try to build my wind back.

For the last two days, I've gone down to the beach to run intervals and attempt some footwork practice, and the extent to which I have no wind endurance, no breath, is truly disheartening.

I need to go back to mindful practice with the body. To doing things that make me feel strong, simply for the joy of feeling the freedom of physical strength. I won't have even the possibility of strength forever: I should enjoy it while I can.

---

This week has been mostly lost for anything other than reading. A very distracting - although not bad - thing transpired early on, and thereafter not much of use got done. Between today and yesterday, though, I have written 1800 words on a promised review and a SWM column, and if I can succeed in finishing my thesis chapter over the weekend (another couple of thousand words, perhaps) I can get the majority of what is vital for this week done.

It seems that I can write 3000 words in a week, but I can't write 400 words a day, every day. Well, if it works, it works. I can use what works.

---

At the end of next week, I must away to Greece again. I will get work done there, hopefully a lot of it. I will know at least one person who is in Athens, so perhaps I will not be as lonely as I was the last time I went.

---

I spend a lot of time these days lonely, but disinclined to communicate with humans properly. Anxious, angry, and afraid. Part of it is the thesis. Part of it personal/household circumstances. Part of it is fear over a future I can't control.

Part of it, I think, is that I still haven't made peace with last year.

Keep breathing. Keep moving. Maybe one day I will attain some sort of equilibrium again.

Comments

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

*hug*, you. How is Liverpool treating you?

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

The second half has been easier than the first, I'd say. (Gym helps, as per usual.)

If we have time, we're thinking about coming to Dublin for a day or two during the spring break? But that is remarkably thesis-dependent, hah.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'll be away until April 14, myself. But if you do visit before you return to the States for good, and I'm here, I would be happy to play native guide.

(I'd offer my couch, but that's really only good for one visitor at a time.)

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

It might be the week of the 14th! I will let you know if we're coming over. (I'm leaning to yes, but who knows how productive I'll be between now and then. Hah.)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Productivity is indeed a troublesome beast.

[britmandelo.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just.

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

Have a good time in Greece! Or at least a productive time.

It is so hard to make peace with lost, painful time.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just.

(Thanks.)

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

If you see a London taxi driving around Athens advertising a gold-buying business, that's my cousin. ;-)

So what kind of stuff do you have to be physically in Greece to do? Do they have better archeological collections, archives you need, or what? Just wondering how it works.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'm going in part because I want to be somewhere warm, and in part because of the specialised research collections. The libraries of the French, British, and American schools are more comprehensive and up to date than anywhere outside maybe the British Library - and it's a lot easier to go to the material than to ILL it in expensive dribs and drabs. So there's that aspect.

I also want to look over the sites again, to see them once more in their landscapes before I begin revisions, before I bring the theory and the archaeology together, and also to walk from Epidavros town to the sanctuary which lies about 8km distant. It is all very well to speak of experience, but one learns a thing differently from books than one does in the dry air and the dust-swirling spring winds of a Greek acropolis, and if I am to succeed even a fraction, I must be able to bring landscape and archaeology and evidence and humanity together in a way that makes not only logical, theoretical sense, but felt, practical sense as well.

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

Thanks!