When I turn out the lights

The rains come back in a welcome way after the summer of climate change and the worry I had every day it seemed that it was warmed than it should have been. Even now though, when we have a fire drill and go outside and a colleague points out there are mushrooms growing because it is both warm and wet, I wonder, is this because the world is burning. How quickly are things changing, how quickly will we all need to adapt. I shouldn't think about this, but I do, and then when I don't, I feel badly that I haven't, even though it does nothing but make me even more miserable than I normally am. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection of glass as I walk across campus and don't recognise the fat man I am now in this body with a beard. Who am I — I want to say it to myself, who are you. Where did you come from.

Naomi and I wandered through the city yesterday, going in and out of shops and looking at vintage clothes, before we came up to the Cathedral to see the others sing. The cathedrals cause you to look up, of course, to think about how small you are, and I contrasted this with my experience of Christianity when I was younger and how internal it was all meant to be. Everyone sang and I got lost in my thoughts so that Naomi had to point out to me where we were in the order of service when we came to the last hymn.

Outside of the church, it seems as though Brexit Britain has taken the sort of toll on the mental health of enough people that you must be careful to not trip over the young and the old people who are sitting on the ground in sleeping bags with paper cups and cardboard signs. This contrasted with the evangelical Christians that were singing on the corner with a homeless man, standing uncomfortably close to them and singing and pointing in the way that caused a kind of tension. Another preacher on the corner was telling everyone how sinful they were and how they would never repent even though that was all we needed, a kind of religious taunting, just daring us to ask for forgiveness, while another man in dreads was giving away incense that when someone tried to take without paying, was told that they should make a donation to some charity. I had the girls hold my hands so we could weave through the people, look at whatever new halloween plastic was for sale, although the girls are now aware of this, of the oceans filling with rubbish and won't buy it now.

Now it will get cold, hopefully and we'll have at least one more winter. Someone asks how I got permission to grow my beard and I want to answer, I'm thirty-seven now, my whole life has been asking for permission. I don't need permission any more. My headphone broke and I bought new headphones. I don't need permission, I don't need to say anything. I stand back and watch the children start to sort things out for themselves and I think, what does it matter anyway. I can't sleep, it's two in the morning and so I suppose I'll open up what ever file I'm working on. Meditate, and make some coffee. The world will spin with you, you don't need to do anything to have it keep you going.