990603.1833 st mary’s

perched on the side of a dinghy in front of keith buchannan’s sailing school on porthmellon beach . there’s a good steady breeze , strobing clouds across the sun . a couple of windsurfers dart back and forth between the moored yachts . samson , bryher and tresco spread hazily across the horizon . four children play with buckets , spades and a ball at one end of the beach . around me boats are pulled up on the sand , halliards jangling in unsteady counterpoint against their masts .

here i am , transitory in the midst of it all , unsure of so many things . i am barely back from london and returning once more on saturday . the rapid alternation of gugh and the metropolis leaves me jarred , dislocated . my time on the little island is drawing to a close in any case . rhondda and alan are back for the summer and my work calls me to st mary’s . a tent remains my most likely habitation but it seems there may be a shed i can employ as an office . i need nothing more . the prospect of moving my belongings once again , uprooting and resettling , adds to my sense of indeterminacy . i am of no place , rootless . perhaps this is the state i sought through this project ? certainly it affords a clarity unlike any i have known before .

the world moves darkly on but i find myself avoiding news in a way i have not done before . the correlation between experience of mass media and my state of mind became obvious during my time on gugh .

keith comes over and we talk for a few minutes . he thinks this state at which i’ve arrived means it is time for me to get a boat and take the next logical step , break all remaining geographical ties . of course that is something i have thought about . perhaps the time is nearing .

i suppose i sound gloomy , but really that is not how i feel . my current situation exerts a certain pressure on me , touches on some deep fears . i do not find these days easy , but i rarely choose my steps for their ease .

my writing is indulgent . is this inevitable ?

: cH