Reconstruction of a Madman

You know, so much has been going on recently that I managed to forget that I've kept this blog active, albiet with several breaks, for two years now!  Happy birthday.  Or whatever.

Things have been really tough recently though, which is why there hasn't been much publicised activity.  I lost my job, my relationship broke down... actually that's kind of it. but in all seriousness when those two things happen within weeks of themselves, you can't help but get battered down.  

Like before, I'm not here to talk about the hows and wherefores of what happened with my relationship.  It isn't right to air it over the net like this, I won't be bothering.  Thing is that things changed, and that's how things have to be.  I'm still in an emotionally unstable state, I'm not going to lie, but I'm doing all that I can to remain balanced, especially in public.  In all honesty though, I loved her with my whole heart, and did everything I could.  I'm so pleased and proud of what we had, so many good things came of it.  While I might be desperately upset, I'll never forget that, ever.  I know that past the pain lies time for cherishing, and so many memories.  

Okay, enough already.



And what about this job then?  I've been in all but full time employment as the Music Administrator (read as Departmental Undersecretary) at Truro School, a private day and boarding school some 800 pupils strong.  It's been far from easy.  Upon starting, I fell to a particularly nasty depressive episode, because unsurprisingly, the incredible gear change from being unemployed for basically your entire life to a full time (8:30am til 4pm, 5 days a week) job is a killer.  There's no middle ground, and BAM you're on all day every day.  Having to learn how to fit in with the system, meeting new and unfamiliar people every single day.  At least I get to wear a suit just like the good old days, right?  Right.  My core tasks involved sitting behind a desk all day, making photocopies, answering the telephone and generally doing as the Head of Department told me to...except on the odd occasion that I said "No".  Let's recount my favourite episode...


Head of Department - "I want you to get all the kids' choir folders, and make sure that every single one of them has each piece of music."


Me - 'No.'


HoD - "What?"


Me - 'Half of them don't turn up anyway, why not leave it to the kids to be responsible for their own music, because then all the people who actually attend will have the right music, and then those who don't come won't have a folder, so there won't be any wasted copies.'




That little exchange went down like a lead balloon.  Anyway.  I started working there in January, on the 5th, literally the day after I got back to Cornwall.  I basically treated myself like I was invincible, not immortal (as of course I am), and fell foul of it.  The strain was immense.  Things leveled out though, and I carried on.  I was an agent of varying success; while things would have gone much worse without me (as a quick fix stand in), everything that could go wrong on my watch did.  Basically!  I was asked by the HoD to seriously consider my job, and if I wanted to continue in employment there over the half term.  I did, and thought (at the time) that I would merrily wish to continue into the summer term, or Trinity as I still know it. Things were moved in powers above my head, however, that confirmed my empolyment would end once my temporary contract had come to a close, on the 30th of March.  The decision had been made by the 9th, and official correspondance signed, which was not posted until the 14th, let alone received until the 16th of the very same month.  An annoyance, but nothing more; the contract stated that I could be given a week's notice, so a fortnight was no problem really...Okay, I was less than pleased to have discovered it especially after the long schlep down the hill from School to the Scholary, but that's how it goes.


Another milestone from my time at Truro School was my playing of the Chapel Organ in a concert, called Organ and the Word.  I opened with the could-have-been-smoother Croft D major Voluntary, and absolutely oafed it out the park with selections from the Couperin Messe pour les Couvents, witch went down like a storm.  YES THE INEGALITE!  The Chapel organ is the ex-Jesus College Cambridge Instrument, originally built by Mander, and therefore christened in the same way as my excellent friend Mr. Harry Macey would, as the Mandermonium (a name that went down like a storm again...har har), and was built in 1971, an early Neo-Classical instrument.  

Now, I would obviously have much preferred an instrument from 1791...but my experience with the Neo-Classical aesthetic drew me, yea like a moth to a flame.  While it may be scaled down immensely from the mighty Collins (which I do miss very much), having a chorus up to a IV Fourniture on the Great was pleasing once again.  There was even a tierce for my characteristic Dutch warmth... Although I never took the Pachelbel G minor Fantasia to play sadly!  The Collins registrations inside my Pachelbel book reveal an eclectic reed building, with a HW of Trompette 8', Oktave 4', Quint 2 2/3', Superoktave 2' and Tierce 1 3/5', with a RP of Dulzian 16', Gedact 8' and Principal 4' coupled up.  Gritty, reedy, earthy and downright nasty, especially in that E flat minor moment, flavoured by the Valotti temperament.  Delicious!  


However.  Now is a time for looking forward.  This may prove more difficult in some circumstances than others, but there's time.  Time is what we all need every now and again.  I need some time to reassess.  I need a job, yes, but a 9-5 desk job is somewhat outside of my power.  I felt stretched to my absolute limits.  The number of days where I didn't want to get out of bed aren't worth talking about, so I shan't bother.  I do need money coming in, to fuel the lifestyle I have become acquianted with, to fund travel hither and yon, and to keep getting past this overdraft.  Originally, the first letter of the title of this post was a 'D', but I figured that it was better to look forward instead.  While I might be cut up right now, I know deep down that I am in a position of many opportunities: emotionally, professionally and financially.


I will never give up, and that maxim reflects on everything - I will certainly never stop trying to improve myself in every way shape and form available.


Watch this space, because with the increased amount of free time I have now I shall certainly be finding time and place to write some more.  I have several drafts to finish (or actually start afresh...), and Lord knows I've got a lot to say.  I'm just so outspoken.

Vignette XXVIX

Who remembers when I said this?

'Let it be said, "The Quality of Mercy is not Strained".  Once it becomes a strain, what is it?  Ruined?  Or maybe a necessary evil, in and of itself.  What truth is in mercy, what mercy in truth?'

I'm thinking of getting that maxim inscribed upon me.  No, not on my jaw like where I learned it from.  But anyway.  On with the show.  It's almost as if history is repeating itself.  

I'm...recovering from the unexpected and compeltely shattering end to my relationship.   While I saw the signs that it might be ending, I never really thought for a second that it would really happen.  I saw a rough patch as just a bit of a bump in the road, not as a prelude to valediction.  I'm broken and shattered.  Now isn't really the time or place to talk about it.  Another expression I've heard for a long time was "Go to bed with a writer, wake up with shit written about you", and I'm not about to perpetrate that.  It'd be petty, for starters.

But still, everything is so strained.   I feel neither mercy nor closure.  I am weak from heartache, from lack of sleep, from lack of food.  From just the sheer lack of everything.

I wish I could do something.  I wish there was something that I could do that mattered.  That could help.  That could even repair damage.  Some wounds may never heal though.   And I'll always feel the same.

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice. 

Vignette XXVIII

I'm adrift.  

I can't tell what the tide will do.  

The waves will surely overtake me?

The method, the meaning, the madness, the maladies, that misfortune is my cousin...

...That in the end, bitterness kills.

The rest?  Is that it?  Is this the course that lies ahead?

If the rest is silence, then now  c r a c k s  a noble heart.







What wrong have I done to you?  What good have I not done for you?  Listen to me.