Ever decreasing circles

I was at a family funeral yesterday, of my second cousin once removed, Margery. I’d only met her a few times in my life, but I think the fact we were both devotees of the English language fostered a connection between us. Both my parents and my sister attended, and it was a very emotional service; I think I was more affected by the tangible grief of her siblings and children/grandchildren than my own emotions.

After the ceremony, we repaired to a hotel in Margery’s hometown for the usual drinks and sausage rolls and a chance to once again delve into the horrible mixed metaphor that is our family tree. There were probably around 30 people there that shared a common ancestor just three/four generations back, but none of the younger of us seem to know who anyone else is, so there were a lot of introductions followed by even more head-scratching as I tried to explain to everyone how the concept of ‘cousins’ works and what ‘once-removed’ means. Anyway, I’m glad I got the chance to put some faces to names I’ve seen on Facebook and the like. And hopefully the interminable family stories will make a little more sense now.

But back to my favourite topic now; myself. At one point, as Margery’s three grandchildren ran full pelt through her brother’s house and conservatory, I found myself talking about ‘the kids’, and in one fell swoop I realised I’ve almost completed my journey along the path to the dark side. I’ve turned into a terrifying amalgam of my emotionally crippled father and my uncle, the rather more sensible family pater. Sitting inside the house while ‘the kids’ play outside is one of the signs of oncoming middle age, I’m afraid.

Similarly, I started a leisure class tonight, in German, and after the session had finished, I popped into Borders to buy the module’s proscribed materials, a BBC German Book/CD pack, for full price, at 9pm, before commuting home on the train. I don’t know if other people fully understand the appeal of the middle-class commuter life to me; I’m not sure I understand it myself. Perhaps it’s due to the romance I find in the tragedy of wasted human potential, the fact we’ll all settle for just so much when we think our dreams are beyond us. I think, tacitly, I’ve abandoned all my own aspirations, perhaps even that of becoming a published author, and I’m more than willing to accept the consolation prize of being a competent professional. I think I may need to visit a psychiatrist before long…

However, I’m doing well to keep up the pretence of writing. While I’m currently ‘writing’ a novel, ‘editing’ another, and penning three or four short stories, in reality I’ve typed nothing other than brainless tweets for about five months now. I am honestly constantly thinking about my stories, selecting words and phrases I might use, and won’t use, whittling characters from the jumble of motivations and quirks in my own neural net, and plotting out where tale is going to go next, but in reality, if I’m not actually putting words in a word file, I’m not actually doing any writing, am I?

Hopefully the longer, college free, summer days will concentrate my mind somewhat. I need to write some songs as well, because I’m letting all my rage store up in my spleen, and that can’t be good.