Travel:

‘Many a trip continues; after movement in time and space have ended’

-       John Steinbeck. 

I always liked travel as a kid.  I’m of a generation where I can remember trips to the seaside as a kid; myself and my brother, pushing against the wind of early 21^st century health and safety; by sitting in the boot of a hatchback car.  When I was older and a little less risk averse, I would stand in the departure hall of John Lennon Airport and gaze into the cerulean skies.

I didn’t travel far.  Into Central Europe, at a push.  A maximum of two and a half hours flying time.  20 minutes, if I went to Dublin.  With a further two hours on the airport bus, as it pushed and fondled its way along the M1 into the city centre.  I did the usual touristy things there, in Madrid, in Amsterdam and Berlin. In a way, this was me running away from reality. I know: a process as futile as it is facile.  I’d go to places that would make me cry.  The exhibition that surrounds Picasso’s Guernica at The Reina Sofia.  Putting my fingers in the bullet holes at Kilmainham Gaol.  Looking at the measurements of Anne Frank and her sisters, rise, rise, rise and then stop.  The corridor in The Jewish Museum, one side with cities where Jews settled, names of concentration camps on the other; that ends in a dark room with single point of light.

 

And then, things changed.  I fell in love with my wife.  Minor consideration was given to the fact that I lived in Liverpool and she lived in Devon.  Who considers minor, vitally important shit like that?  She visited me first; she’s that kind of woman.  When it was my turn, I had to undertake the 269 mile train journey.  If you’re not a British reader, this involves traversing the fractured, crazy, imperfect, antique lines of the British railway system.  Liverpool Lime Street, where the Scouse accent fades away along rusting, Victorian tracks.  Change at Birmingham, where my train was always at ‘the extreeeme end of Platform 9AY.’ The old spa town of Cheltenham. Through Bristol, a city a lot like Liverpool.  And then Devon, where both the eyes and the soul bleed green.  And it’s cream first on a scone, always.  It’s the law. 

Occasionally, we make a journey North.  I don’t drive, my wife does.  English motorways, both dirty and delicious at the same time.  The iPod; or the radio on.  Most of my journeys, alone or with my family have been accompanied by music. Time was, when I used to take a sleeve of CD’s abroad.  First iPod, my whole record collection.  Now: whatever radio I’ve downloaded.  My stepson is currently obsessed with Gary Davies’ Sounds Of The 80’s. I’m sort of obsessed with it too, secretly.  Don’t tell anyone. However, I will, constant reader tell you a secret.

I’m considering learning to drive. Those who know me, consider this to be something of a joke.  Living in rural Devon, on the top of a hill, with the nearest big town 45 minutes away… this has become somewhat of a necessity.  I’m my wife’s carer, this is another skill I need to know, and it’s not something I have much choice over.  Anyway, it plugs into my psyche, part of a dream I’ve had for a long time.  It’s time for me pump the metaphorical brakes and move on. And anyway: it sort of links into something I’ve always dreamed of. If I could live inside any of my favourite books, it would be On The Road.  It’s a beautiful, raw, honest piece of writing.  I’d dismiss the Capote quote, about it being just typing.  It’s more than that.  I’d also run down that it’s just dreamy prose for gap year teenagers.  Such criticism is that of the ignorant, usually those who’ve never actually read it.  Try it, you might like it.

As well as the book, I have the audiobook (beautifully read by David Carradine, Grasshopper).  The ‘mad ones’ quote is one of my favourite in literature.  I loved the film, even if anyone else didn’t. The book has been part of me, for just under a quarter of a century. I could dig; still do the intense, addictive loneliness of Dean Moriarty. Travel means seeing places you’ve always dreamed of… and often, being intensely disappointed by.  Case in point: for all the iconic threat of The Berlin Wall, the remains are just bricks covered by graffiti.  My favourite: ‘God is here’. Someone sprayed underneath ‘Where?’

Should you travel alone or with a companion?  That is entirely up to you.  Every Paradise needs a Moriarty.  However, Sal didn’t live on a Devon hill and faced walking down it on a Summer’s day.  I quite like sitting in the passenger seat, with my wife driving and my stepson in the back, singing along to If I Was by Midge Ure.  I think I don’t need the emotional relief that travel gave me; my mind appears to be a different, more wonderful place than it was thirteen years ago.  Conversely, travelling alone, gives you a sense of independence, freedom and lets the mind wander at the same pace as the road. 

My attitude to travel has changed from luxury to necessity as I’ve gotten older.  Falling in love, has made me a braver soul.  Brave enough to leave home, but with just the right hint of sickness to find my way back.  Dipping into my past, driving into the future.  Always moving, whilst staying still.

Routine:

“Routine, in an intelligent man is a sign of ambition”

-        WH Auden

I’ve been doing a lot of gardening recently.  Regardless of the weather, myself and Mrs McCready don our scruff, sort through the garden tools and get down and dirty with the Martian soil; in both front and back gardens.  Whether this is under Devonian sunshine, or Dartmoor drizzle; there is a need, an urge to get another portion of the Stakanhovite labour done.

 

It’s weird that something that involves such hard work, the occasional cross word and the consumption of tea in a tin mug has become part of our routine. Everyone on this earth, from Donald Trump to the person you’ve just passed in the street has them.  Routines can become a prison, a cage of bones that bind the soul.  Or: they can become the place you fly from, the place you can come back to and know its home.

Before I left the wonderful world of full time employment, I had routines.  Music, as you know, was a way of protecting me from harm.  However, I did need a long walk.  When I lived in South Liverpool, this was generally across Sefton Park, avoiding lines of schoolkids, in the general direction of the bus route.  Taking in air from green trees and budding, flowered, herbal dreams of students in their bedsits.

When I lived in Birkenhead, it was a straight line.  Away from the bus station, but still taking a linear direction.  I was limited by the river, but that little hint of green air from Central Park and Georgian architecture was enough to set me up for another dose of grim reality.  Sometimes.

 

My routine now is different.  If I’m writing, I have to be sitting at the living room table.  The notes have to be done in pen, in a notebook my sister-in-law bought me.  I listen to some BBC 6Music I’ve downloaded, generally Guy Garvey.  Occasionally, I’ll gaze out of the window. A Nespresso will be made, at about 300-350wds mark. That little kick of caffeine is generally good enough, strong enough to get me to the misty, magical heights of 700-900wds. I’m sure George Clooney would be proud of me.

Occasionally, I’ll buy into other people’s routines.  Sometimes, when my son is distracted (this doesn’t take much) I’ll go on his X-Box.  I’ll generally play an old copy of FIFA.  I’ll play as Liverpool and I’m getting back to where I was a decade ago.  Last result: 3-1 against Watford, coming back from a goal down at half time.  (Henderson, Can, Lallana).  That’s his routine: he gets itchy if he doesn’t go on the X-Box every couple of days.  I don’t, it’s something I can dip into every now and then.

See also: kissing my wife first thing, then getting up to make her a cup of tea.  I’ll generally potter – breakfast, radio, write my journal, get my thoughts clear as the day begins.  In this way, I’ve become part of my routine, she’s become part of mine. 

So: routines are something that is as much lethal as lovely.  They are something you can bounce off; or stop the soul from functioning. As a writer, routine is like spinach for Popeye.  It should be somewhere between Stephen King (six ‘good’ pages) and Jack London (six hours on Whisky). I know my routine, but I’m not going to buy a set of Brian Eno Oblique Strategies Cards.  Possibly.

As a human being, it is essential you filter through your day.  Be judicious, use the finest toothcomb.  What are you doing, who has become routine? What can you live without? Who can you do without? Life is as much a marvellous process as it is a mundane one. 

Perhaps at the end of the day, it’s all just a question of breathing.  Something that has become part of my day, since I moved to Devon.  As the sun is going down, I sit on the seat at the end of the garden.  I look down the verge of our garden, past the fruit trees we’ve just planted and into the valley.  If I smoked, in either sense of the word… I would be lighting up. I’m accepting the end of one day; as much as accepting another.  I breathe, ignore social media for a few moments and let the light dance across the fields. 

If this is routine, this is what it should be.  Essential, enlivening, comforting.  If it isn’t, kick it to the curb, the very edge of the peripheral. Some things you can live with, some you can live without.

Take a breath, ask yourself: is this routine?