Black and white time, but in my imagination, the sky is red at dawn and sunset. Red and mist sky. Bitter burning cold against the skin.
See, you get out of Christmas and into that strange limbo time that tastes of leftovers. Wrapping paper tumbleweeds blowing up the streets and work colleagues trying not to make eye contact with each other, after the one day a year that they lived totally in the moment.
It makes me impatient. I'm waiting for something.
I mean, literally, at the time of writing, I am waiting for something (an eagerly anticipated visitor) but I'm always filled with that feeling at this time. Something about running taps into it. The wind. Grey cliffs and some silence inside. Crow sounds and the laughter of ice.
The sky takes on a certain frozen light quality. There, a broken jet trail falling apart like pine needles. That sense again. Expecting. Senses sharp. Almost primal, ancient starvation warnings kicking in. I want to hug stones. I can believe in turning a corner and seeing the utterly inexplicable crouching in the moorland heather, amber eyes or maybe green, focusing sharp and utterly impossible.
Our expectations of these days at the start of winter build a context of the liminal, that transformation is possible. One of the thin spaces in which anything could be possible.
Hold that feeling, that idea. It doesn't go anywhere, we just get distracted. The Noise obscures the Signal, but it's always there, a number station broadcasting freedom data. The secret that we miss sometimes; every day, every place can be a liminal place. Every second, just by pausing and looking beyond the immediacy of the day-to day narrative that has been built around us, something more is possible.
In the cold days of winter, I can see this with greatest clarity. Every moment is a railway platform and every movement is taking me somewhere astonishing.
Video playlist
The Glitterball - Children's Film Foundation seasonal adventures in a rusty and battered New Town with spherical aliens and a lot of pylons. I blame this movie for a lot of my aesthetic sense.
At the Earth's Core - I've got a thing for people in animal skins, OK? And giant steampunk drilling machines. And evil pterodactyl people. It was always on in the afternoons at this time of year.
Audio playlist
Belbury Poly: The Owl's Map or Belbury Tales - electro spooky constructs from the collective unconsciousness of a distorted 70s England, haunted by strange voices in the ether and weird glimpses of ancient rituals on the teak framed analogue TV in the corner of the pub.
David Bowie: Low - I don't think I need to explain this.
