Five words from Anthrokeight..
Jun. 28th, 2009 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3Fatherhood
Being both a consumer and a supplier, I have some strong views on this one (there is, of course, the related subject of um, son-hood?). Being a father, and choosing to be a father, is probably the most important thing in my life of these past 20 odd years. I can't imagine a world without M, can't begin to imagine what I'd be without having him in my life. I'm not sure how father/son relationships differ from father/daughter, but all he has brought me has been joy and pride. Oh, ok, and occasional nights of worry and panic, but mostly joy and pride. I love the fact that he can now tell me off, that he can criticise my driving (he's wrong, of course) and that we can spend time together as adults. Now that we live in different cities I sort of dread him and I having the same relationship that I've had with my dad for the past 30 years or so, but on the other hand I think I have a pretty good relationship with my dad (we see each other all the time - every six months or so).
Transition
*chuckle* Yes.
I was pretty sure I was in transition a couple of years ago, but now I'm starting to see it as a constant feature - we're always transitioning. I think my dangerous phase is when I'm coming out of a relationship. And I'm now brave enough to see that I'm dangerous to myself then - at my most vulnerable andleast careful. A bad combination.
Argyll
Just a joyfull place to be, for me. I would have called it my spiritual homeland, except I've been having a sporadic conversation with a friend about what it means to relate to places, and I'm almost sure that my spiritual homeland is located about twelve inches south of my head. It's a variation on "wherever you go, there you are", along with an acceptance that that can be a good place.
Argyll, though, is probably where it takes least mindfulness to be me. I'm close enough to earth, air, fire and water to be in contact with them without having to think about it (in our heads, as Zelazny points out somewhere, we are all Platonic alchemists).
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unblinkered
My current and totally delightful squeeze, for those of you who don't know. We came together when I was at the end of my dangerous phase (I hope I was at the end) and it's been a relationship unique to me for the last 20 years or so. Since I split up with Kay, my second girlfriend and the first person I lived with, almost every relationship since had started in deceit, in that at least one of us was in another relationship when it started. That brings its own level of excitement and complication, and tends to lead to decisive declarations (and even, in my case, marriage) but I think it has an ongoing legacy which can eventually poison the wells. Not inevitably, but often.unblinkered knew almost all of my past (and present) when we were still friends, and I made a point of revealing everything before we started seeing each other. I have a rich and, um, complicated past life (I have referred to it as legendary - half history and half myth), and some of it might bother her, but none of it will surprise her. I've no secrets to tumble out of closets, and I'm working hard to keep it that way (I say "working hard" but actually it's not that hard at all - it's mostly a matter of breaking some old habits and reflexes, some of which were defensive, and some of which I now see were offensive in all sorts of ways).
This does seem very much about me, not her, doesn't it? Partly that's because her story is hers to tell, if she chooses, and also because of one of the oldest and earliest reflexes I mentioned above - I never wanted to be one of those guys who talk (or brag) about their relationships in public. I don't want to start now :-)
Kelvinbridge
I'm never entirely sure if I stay in Kelvinbridge, but apparently I do. It's the area of Glasgow's West End to the north of Kelvinbridge underground station, and to some extent I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I live here. It's leafy, based around the river Kelvin, which links the Botanics to Kelvingrove Park, holds one of Glasgow's biggest private schools, has a lot of student flats, and is within a mile of Maryhill, where I was born. The problem, and it's not a bad problem to have, is that it's also a byword for poshness in Glasgow. Kind of like Morningside in Edinburgh, or, I don't know, Knightsbridge? in London, and I still have a patina of socialist guilt about living in such a bastion of privilege. Like I say, there are much worse problems to have.
Bonus: 1980's-Glasgow
I think it was Issac Asimov who pointed out that there is no such thing as a "Golden Age of Science Fiction", since the golden age is always the years between 15 and 25, and I have to agree with him. My golden age, then coincided with the 80's, pretty much, and it was a very good time to be living in Glasgow. When I started university here in 1981 one of the "alternative" week nothing activites was a bus tour of Glasgow's slums and run down areas, so that students wouldn't be taken in by the early signs of regeneration. This taught me two things. One, that there will always be those more eager to be tourists of poverty than to help remove it, and two, that I could get a free bus ride home that week. The 80's marked the start of Glasgow reinventing itself from an industrial powerhouse (full of soot, noise and drunken welders) to being whatever the hell it is now - somewhere with no heavy industry, but lots of services and tourism (full of festivals, noise and drunken call-centre staff). We had the Year of Culture, the Garden Festival, "Glasgow's Miles Better" and pubs became places you could order an orange juice in without being chibbed.
The constant in all of this was the Glaswegian character - abrupt, with no concept of personal space, whether physical or mental, impatient of bullshit, wherever it was peddled, and very, very funny. One of my friends was talking about how surprising it is that Glasgow, a city of individualists who see servility as an alien concept, can be such a great place to shop. A theory I like is that it's because the shop assistants tend to treat you as a friend who's dropped by where they work for a bit of a natter and to pick up some shoes - you're drawn into this conspiracy, and leave richer in chat and lighter in pocket.
One other thing, while I think of it. The 80's was also the time when the first generation of immigrants of Asian origin started to come of age in Glasgow. This should have been the time when dissafected youth started to take to the streets, and we should have had race riots. That this didn't happen I put down to the fact that those kids grew up as Glaswegians, and share that Glaswegian sense of self worth, the refusal to believe that they are anyone's inferior, regardless of creed, colour or class. It may be that Glasgow will spawn a radicalised, politcal class of Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus, but I think they'll tend to cluster around inequalities of wealth, rather than religion. I really hope that happens with our latest round of Eastern European immigrants, and the clusters of asylum seekers in Sighthill and the Red Road, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it will.
Being both a consumer and a supplier, I have some strong views on this one (there is, of course, the related subject of um, son-hood?). Being a father, and choosing to be a father, is probably the most important thing in my life of these past 20 odd years. I can't imagine a world without M, can't begin to imagine what I'd be without having him in my life. I'm not sure how father/son relationships differ from father/daughter, but all he has brought me has been joy and pride. Oh, ok, and occasional nights of worry and panic, but mostly joy and pride. I love the fact that he can now tell me off, that he can criticise my driving (he's wrong, of course) and that we can spend time together as adults. Now that we live in different cities I sort of dread him and I having the same relationship that I've had with my dad for the past 30 years or so, but on the other hand I think I have a pretty good relationship with my dad (we see each other all the time - every six months or so).
Transition
*chuckle* Yes.
I was pretty sure I was in transition a couple of years ago, but now I'm starting to see it as a constant feature - we're always transitioning. I think my dangerous phase is when I'm coming out of a relationship. And I'm now brave enough to see that I'm dangerous to myself then - at my most vulnerable andleast careful. A bad combination.
Argyll
Just a joyfull place to be, for me. I would have called it my spiritual homeland, except I've been having a sporadic conversation with a friend about what it means to relate to places, and I'm almost sure that my spiritual homeland is located about twelve inches south of my head. It's a variation on "wherever you go, there you are", along with an acceptance that that can be a good place.
Argyll, though, is probably where it takes least mindfulness to be me. I'm close enough to earth, air, fire and water to be in contact with them without having to think about it (in our heads, as Zelazny points out somewhere, we are all Platonic alchemists).
unblinkered My current and totally delightful squeeze, for those of you who don't know. We came together when I was at the end of my dangerous phase (I hope I was at the end) and it's been a relationship unique to me for the last 20 years or so. Since I split up with Kay, my second girlfriend and the first person I lived with, almost every relationship since had started in deceit, in that at least one of us was in another relationship when it started. That brings its own level of excitement and complication, and tends to lead to decisive declarations (and even, in my case, marriage) but I think it has an ongoing legacy which can eventually poison the wells. Not inevitably, but often.
unblinkered knew almost all of my past (and present) when we were still friends, and I made a point of revealing everything before we started seeing each other. I have a rich and, um, complicated past life (I have referred to it as legendary - half history and half myth), and some of it might bother her, but none of it will surprise her. I've no secrets to tumble out of closets, and I'm working hard to keep it that way (I say "working hard" but actually it's not that hard at all - it's mostly a matter of breaking some old habits and reflexes, some of which were defensive, and some of which I now see were offensive in all sorts of ways).This does seem very much about me, not her, doesn't it? Partly that's because her story is hers to tell, if she chooses, and also because of one of the oldest and earliest reflexes I mentioned above - I never wanted to be one of those guys who talk (or brag) about their relationships in public. I don't want to start now :-)
Kelvinbridge
I'm never entirely sure if I stay in Kelvinbridge, but apparently I do. It's the area of Glasgow's West End to the north of Kelvinbridge underground station, and to some extent I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I live here. It's leafy, based around the river Kelvin, which links the Botanics to Kelvingrove Park, holds one of Glasgow's biggest private schools, has a lot of student flats, and is within a mile of Maryhill, where I was born. The problem, and it's not a bad problem to have, is that it's also a byword for poshness in Glasgow. Kind of like Morningside in Edinburgh, or, I don't know, Knightsbridge? in London, and I still have a patina of socialist guilt about living in such a bastion of privilege. Like I say, there are much worse problems to have.
Bonus: 1980's-Glasgow
I think it was Issac Asimov who pointed out that there is no such thing as a "Golden Age of Science Fiction", since the golden age is always the years between 15 and 25, and I have to agree with him. My golden age, then coincided with the 80's, pretty much, and it was a very good time to be living in Glasgow. When I started university here in 1981 one of the "alternative" week nothing activites was a bus tour of Glasgow's slums and run down areas, so that students wouldn't be taken in by the early signs of regeneration. This taught me two things. One, that there will always be those more eager to be tourists of poverty than to help remove it, and two, that I could get a free bus ride home that week. The 80's marked the start of Glasgow reinventing itself from an industrial powerhouse (full of soot, noise and drunken welders) to being whatever the hell it is now - somewhere with no heavy industry, but lots of services and tourism (full of festivals, noise and drunken call-centre staff). We had the Year of Culture, the Garden Festival, "Glasgow's Miles Better" and pubs became places you could order an orange juice in without being chibbed.
The constant in all of this was the Glaswegian character - abrupt, with no concept of personal space, whether physical or mental, impatient of bullshit, wherever it was peddled, and very, very funny. One of my friends was talking about how surprising it is that Glasgow, a city of individualists who see servility as an alien concept, can be such a great place to shop. A theory I like is that it's because the shop assistants tend to treat you as a friend who's dropped by where they work for a bit of a natter and to pick up some shoes - you're drawn into this conspiracy, and leave richer in chat and lighter in pocket.
One other thing, while I think of it. The 80's was also the time when the first generation of immigrants of Asian origin started to come of age in Glasgow. This should have been the time when dissafected youth started to take to the streets, and we should have had race riots. That this didn't happen I put down to the fact that those kids grew up as Glaswegians, and share that Glaswegian sense of self worth, the refusal to believe that they are anyone's inferior, regardless of creed, colour or class. It may be that Glasgow will spawn a radicalised, politcal class of Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus, but I think they'll tend to cluster around inequalities of wealth, rather than religion. I really hope that happens with our latest round of Eastern European immigrants, and the clusters of asylum seekers in Sighthill and the Red Road, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it will.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 07:09 pm (UTC)Hmm...
Ok:
London
Style
Writing
Travel
Fandom
How's that?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 07:17 pm (UTC)And all the things you say about Glasgow are all the things I love about it.
Thanks so much for the bonus answer!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-01 08:59 pm (UTC)Politics
London
Coupledom
Travel
On Being Blonde :)