Is the sunlight

The Fireside Bowl in Chicago — in the memories of aging white hipsters, the purists — was the place for B-grade emo and punk and hardcore acts, a central reference point as we all evolved through the late-nineties. Our jeans got progressively wider at the bottoms, until we decided it was time for them to be tight. I remember the first couple of times I was there, and all the awkward energy of being 15 or 16, standing in the back of a room as it filled up with older kids, and being worried about making curfew.

It closed for a while, the Fireside, but that was after I left. I don't remember the last show I went to, but the last show I remember was the Dashboard Confessional in May of 2002. Heather and I went together, although we had broken up already, and the place was packed out: Chris Carrabba, the singer was just about to break out and he shouted at one point, 'If you aren't going to sing along, get out because there's a whole crowd of people outside who wanna get in and sing!' It was just starting to get hot in the city, and after the show finished, we wended through the crowd holding hands, like we had forgotten we had broken up.

I was telling myself all sorts of lies that summer and growing my hair out while I painted houses. I was going to get over this, no matter what, I thought, pull my old life out of the abyss and resurrect it all, but the summer ended and I went back to school. And then autumn came and I fell in and out of love and in the Spring, I was in Hyde Park, just a half mile from where I am right now, sitting on a bench and thinking that there was no way any of this would get put back together, was there.

Then, this January, the Decemberists put out a new album and I saw they were coming to Birmingham. Yoko and I talked about going together, but we still haven't found someone to watch the kids and Yoko excused me to go without her: you should go, you should get a ticket. I held out hope that we would work something out, that we'd get someone to watch the kids, but then Yoko's friend from MK planned to come up and stay the night and the plan of the date dissipated. 

When Wednesday night came, the night of the show, I wasn't quite sure what to wear, but put on a blue Gap jacket that I bought in Niigata in 2007, on sale for 5000 yen and rode my bicycle to the City Centre. I met my friend Minnesota Matt at the venue, and we got in when the doors opened and waited for his wife to come via three or four buses from work. I bought an overpriced beer and we talked about all the bands we had seen, all the places we had seen them. Matt's wife came after the opener, we were all chatting when someone started calling my name. I think this person knows you, and indeed I did: it was a friend from college who was there, of course, yes, she was living near Brum and, yes, of course, we were all at the Decemberists together. All the Americans would be, these two are from Minnesota, can you believe it?

A guy I watch on YouTube says that scents are strongest memory triggers; perhaps faces should be on that list as well. I had a sudden rush of memory like you do when you see someone you haven't seen in a while, and when you have changed so  much. She knew me when I was growing out my hair and following Jesus and not wearing shoes. Yes, I remembered now, I had particularly hounded her about Jesus, and we were in the same writing classes and I could remember lines of her poems. Her mother  had died. I remembered that we had a reading together once in the Knox College Old Main Common Room and I remembered what an asshole I had been those years. 

The band started to play, finally, all these songs that I have known for years and years now. Records that spanned all the countries and timezones: I had the Crane Wife in Japan and ran across the Agano River bridge, listening to it on my iPod shuffle. Then the song that is on the new album, the one I've liked so much because it describes how I feel so well: I am waiting, should I be waiting. Yes, what should I do. Everyone was dancing almost. All that energy, my mouth open and singing along.

I rode the bike back home and Yoko and her friend and I sat on the carpet in the house on Victoria Road and drank leftover champagne. I told them the story of the night, of my friends and my former life in college and all the embarrassing things I had done simply because young love didn't work out and I believed in the wrong things. The long thread of the past can be untangled enough for it to make sense for a moment, for an audience of Japanese women patiently listening to me retrace my steps. All before you knew me, before I started to cut my hair and think about my posture. All these mistakes I had made, when I was barefoot, my Evangelical Jesus phase, and how young I felt all night long — that tightly drawn guitar string inside of me plucked again.

I'm hopeful, Colin Meloy sings, should I be hopeful. The past is a kind of residue, a smell on my hands that fades until something serendipitous happens again. I'm not sure hoping has consequences one way or another. 

Leaving

The early morning bus to London leaves at 4:45 from Hill Street in the centre of Birmingham. It's been a long time since I have been on a bus in this country. The last time was when I went to Newcastle for a conference. I think, at least. I don't remember.

I had been excited about the bus initially because of the WiFi, which worked brilliantly at first and then, as these things do, went away. I sat pushing connect again and again for about ten minutes, before giving up. I had said to Yoko as I showed off the £1 ticket and the website, ‘The bus has WiFi, so I can work,’ and she had said something about how it might be good if I spent some time not working. This sounds good in theory — not working — but I'm not sure I am capable of it, given how my work is really just thinking about things and writing down the interesting thoughts that come up. I suppose I could stop writing all of them down, but that seems like a waste.

In December, I stopped eating meat. It wasn't the first time — in college I became a vegetarian on a dare of sorts from a beautiful first-year Sri Lankan student in the Christian group I was leading. After I had gone to some talk about sexuality and the portrayal of women as meat and was saying, I'm not sure if I can keep eating meat, she looked sceptical: ‘Of course you can’t stop eating meat. Look at you.’ Indeed, this seemed impossible. I was probably eating meat at the time I said that I would stop. None-the-less, I gave it a go and held up for some six months. It caused a great deal of stress to my mother, I remember, at Thanksgiving, because I wanted some Quorn chicken nuggets, or something ridiculous. Suddenly I was better than everyone, a recurring theme in my life.

The WiFi taunts me some more. It’s connected it says. I click. It has not actually connected.

This time, I stopped eating meat for some different set of reasons, mostly about trying to ‘do less evil’ or some other nonsense, following a dumb conversation on Facebook. Say what you want about sentience, I said, but meat farming is one of the single worst things we are doing for the environment. This was true, in the way that stupid things young white hipsters say are true. Yes, of course, not eating meat is probably better for your body and for the environment. Fine, so is not wearing that shirt made god knows where and those leather shoes. Your belt is leather too, asshole.

Anyway, I stopped eating meat and it went fine: I was eating lentils and bread, and the kids had accepted it, but my body suddenly lost control of itself and I gained back some seven kilogrammes from the weight I lost at the end on 2014. It felt ridiculous that bread would do this to me, but the numbers didn’t lie, and despite running around like a madman, the weight kept pushing up. I felt awful, I looked awful, so I relented, finally, and had some chicken, thinking this would help solve things. Of course, it didn't, I just felt worse that I had both gained all the weight and also now was killing something, thinking it would make me sane. My weight stayed up, and I was angry now too.

All of January felt that way, a bit mad and manic as it usually does, although I’ve lost the extremes in my domesticity. To be fair, my talent as a writer or academic or theorist (which is what I really want to be, now that I'm edging into my mid-thirties) doesn't really justify being mad. Besides, there were things to do all month: I had some meetings the first week back and had to give a talk in London. I interviewed to become Reader, and after the interview knew immediately that of course no one had any real interest in making me Reader, but again, there was no time to be depressed: the kids needed to go to swimming, after all, and gymnastics. All I could manage was muttering under my breath in English and stepping out to take a walk and smoke. Where’s daddy? He's walking around the block, don't bother him, he's left his wallet.

Sure enough, the letter came two weeks later in February, stamped twice ‘Private & Confidential’, sitting on my computer keyboard on a Saturday morning. Yoko hugged me, but it was the sort of consolatory hug you have as partners after nine years, Sorry about that, you'll do better next time — we need to get the kids to the gym, put your coat on.

The Megabus WiFi page comes up. It asks me to accept the terms and conditions. Yes, of course I do, I tick and click. Nothing. The page reloads. Do you accept the terms and conditions? I just did. I tick and click. The exclamation mark appears above the WiFi bars. You don’t have Internet access. No shit.

In the end, I felt the Readership didn't matter: I didn't want it anyway, did I. Waiting three or four weeks helped. Yes, of course not, it’s not time yet, just let me get over it now and pretend that I didn't make a fool of myself in front of the top management of the university, all looking at me like a twelve-year old in an ill-fitting sport coat. I’ll get back to my bid writing and my mediocre teaching. Answer some reviewers commenters: everyone’s got the same criticism. You aren't really saying anything, are you.

February will be done soon enough. I get paid tomorrow and we’re finally going to get some help, Yoko and I. I ate a bit of chicken, and then told myself I can be a flexitarian, it’s okay: be an aspiring vegetarian. Vegetarians are hard to accept as they are so successful, healthy, and moral; aspiring vegetarians you can accept as failures like everyone else. I’m still feeling fat, but only when I think about how thin I've been in the past. I'm doing okay, actually: my thin jeans are fitting fine.

And the sun is coming up over London. I’ll give the WiFi another shot, but it doesn't really matter at this point, does it. I’m here in London. The million dollar Zone 2 homes outside the window. Maybe this is in my future. It’s okay to have dreams, isn't it. Just keep them realistic, okay. Don’t expect too much from your dad. He’s going for a walk now, give him a bit of space.

Now just a bit more

In 2005, that February, I bought both of the new Bright Eyes albums and put them on my iPod. It's ten years ago. I had moved to Niigata in September the year before, feeling like I had failed at my faith and I just wanted to be alone. I walked up and down the Shinano River in the middle of town, back and forth. Now, ten years later, I realise that this was one of the last times I was really free.

Then it snows

Like I said, it got cold again. Not snowy — snow is in the air sometimes, but it doesn't stick. Instead, it's dry and cold, where you see your breath and the girls' tiny hands get wrapped up in my grey gloves as we make our way up Tennal Road to their school in the morning. The sky is electric blue or grey too. I kiss and hug the kids goodbye and feel like I don't appreciate it enough.

The winter is slipping away like that. Today, I walked home from the City Centre, after giving blood. It was raining, but not raining, the way it does in Birmingham, in the whole of this country. You don't realise you're wet until you're very wet. I bought roses for Yoko and the girls for Valentine's and thought about the last time I had bought roses for Yoko, if I ever had. They sell 18 of them at Morrison's, a number that struck me as odd as I walked them home, past the Botanical Gardens and then into Harborne. When I stood in the entryway with them, Yoko came to greet me and took the wet bag from me. I have never given you roses: in what other ways have I failed.

The days have been passing without much to say. Every day feels like a small pebble I run to the top of the hill. None of the pebbles are beautiful or unique, but the mountain is growing, bit by bit. It's a metaphor. I get up and take the kids to school. I run and work out and then stand at my desk. Some days I teach. I keep a list of things to do. At 5:30, I run home. We eat, the kids go to sleep and the weekend comes. There were all these things that happened. I should have written them down.

Children growing up is like this, I suppose.