Margarita and the Moon

Have you ever looked in the mirror?

I mean really, really looked?

And do you know who looks back at you? 'Obviously it's me!' you say. 'Don't be ridiculous'!

But who is 'you'?

Something that is here, right now. Something that exists in a 'world' which flickers.

A beautiful world, so fragmented. Why fragmented?

Because people think they exist!

We have the choice how to respond. We create our own existence. Only two emotions exist. Fear and love.

I stood there, looking at myself (like a demented old woman with cats) And 'When Under Ether' came on. There was a flash. I knew that it was going to come on at this point. It was part of the script.

I walked into the bathroom to have a piss, saying to myself not to listen to subliminal meditation CDs again. I had the vision of the crazy cat woman being escorted off the the loony bin.

And then I saw through the foggy glass a huge white ball. And I realised that tonight was the night of the full moon. So I got my fags, put on my dressing gown and went out for a smoke.

And there it was. Hanging over the field like an image from a dream. So bright, so glorious. And my conciousness was filled with it -  with its light, with its mystery. The wind then blew up around me and I inhaled it with the smoke.

It was so beautiful. So beautiful to be standing in this dark silence with the moon's white light raining down upon me.

I wanted to get lost in it - like Margarita in that book by Bulgakov. Margherita putting the lotion on her body and jumping out the window, leaving her depression behind in a nano-second. Flying over the city on her broomstick, looking down and laughing.

The power of laughing! Laughing at whatever is thrown up on your screen. Laughing with the others, because really, who wants to fight with their self?

That dream with all those people attacking me for no reason. The energy I used fighting those people! I couldn't understand - what had I done to deserve this? So I fought. And then I woke up, exhausted, and realised it had all just been a dream.

The people I was fighting only existed in my head! If only I'd realised that the only person I was fighting with was me!

I get it all now. I finally understand. Nearly a year and I realise the truth. And it's wonderful!

I remember W asked it what was the purpose of life. And she saw it all! Her life in all its glory - the people, the experiences that had made her who she was. The purpose of life ...

(drumroll please)...................................................

The purpose of life is simply - to live life!

And to have fun. Because it's all just an enormous joke!


Everything exists
Everything is true
And the earth is only a little dust under our feet

Masks

Fish jumping out of the river - salmon, going up to the sky.
It's lonely, like that village in Austria with the hill walkers and the river and the mountains with snow.

The water was refreshing and cold. That strange child's room with the doll looking out. The window with view and the goat with the bell walking around, lost.

But it all went, just like that woman who came to my mind earlier with the black hair and the glasses and the children, who always gave me a lift.

He's coming apparently. It doesn't interest me, after Shanghai and all the uproar about it, and then what.

Only so much reading before you go mad.

That little cottage by the foot of the mountains with the sea and the old man - was it Carlingford? Sitting by the fire and reading Gide and remembering the other farmhouse.

The one in Donegal with the woman and the stove and that goat that could open the gate. That picture in the hall of him when he was a boy, with the lovely teeth and the smile. But the model thing didn't really stick.

Remember N saw him with his yellow teeth and yellow skin? Well I guess that's what smoking does.

That creepy woman with the grey hair on the bus, standing over me, reading the advert. And her friend, with the long glossy hair and the lipstick who looked like a witch.

I saw her in forestside last week.She looked straight at me.

But Belfast isn't the same anymore, looking back. It's always looking back to when I was here before because its all gone. Maybe there's an alternative Belfast with yellow sunshine, and churches, and bells, and swifts.

I mean that group, alway pretending, always pretending.

The A--. spinning around and round. The forest, the dream with the singing and the dancing and the light. When the clock disappeared and she said "My ego has been completely shattered" on that morning train, in white, looking at all the people.

Coming back to W's on that sunny afternoon, nearly a year ago. And I had thought about them and their family and how sad it must be.

That little boy with the cheeky smile who ran and hugged me when I came back but I felt awkward because I didn't know the protocool. Following J about the sports hall. The boy with severe autism who used to cover his ears and scream. He would run up to you and clasp and look into your eyes, and laugh like he was possessed.

And that time I saw him in the graveyard with the old man and A, running out from behind a tombstone.

Brighton. That house with the music and the cooking and the screaming child. The bookcases with the faces looking out.

She was on fire all the time, every moment exaggerated. Brimming energy and happiness, despite the child, and the screaming. T. slinking about like a mouse and the chats in the kitchen that went on all night.

But yet I never cooked, or finished that monopoly game.

And now being back here, even if they are smiling.

 That room with the photos and all the memories, sitting in the conservatory as if it never went away.

Whitehead train station today with the sun beaming down and the gulls floating about. My eyes closed behind sunglasses.

Sitting on the steps of the School of Education it was so cold and bright in the evening sun. Those people in Dukes with the sunglasses laughing and I sat there and saw those days standing out with them smoking, and that 'Out Out' poem by Robert Frost came up on my phone.

And I thought about playing on the steps with R. when I was a child. The bouncer told us that story about how the stone was haunted and we freaked out and couldn't sleep.

But his house was weird anyway with the floor boards creaking and that picture on the shelf.  I stood on the tail of his cat and it screeched and yelled and I nearly died.

Remember the dream in that hotel in Perth with the taxi driver? "You're tripping mate".

The heat and the bike, cycling along the sea in the morning. The vantage point looking out over the bay and those markets with the lights, the insence and the tarot cards. The palm trees and the beach with the stars gazing up. The tropical smell floating through the warm night air.

Then that street in Singapore with the swells of coloured tapestry. And I was looking at the model of Ganesh and she said, "Don't go home, stay".

And I woke up, back where I had started.

Some Sentimental Tosh About The Moon

The sky is beautifully clear tonight. Dark blue and pink. The city lights spread out before the window, like the images in my head.

Days, trees bursting with green, bees floating, seagulls whirling like paper.

The distant hum of traffic in the background.

The world spins.

On Sunday morning I woke up in a dream, and realised I was dreaming.

I climbed out of my window, and jumped - because I knew I could fly. And I could! And the feeling of freedom, of immensity, the mystery was all-encompassing.

The world outside was the same, but orange and flickering, like I had walked into a painting.

And life was there, and life was a dream. The scene changed, and I walked through another, and another.

But part of me knew I was asleep, which made the colours all that more vibrant.

It all faded when I woke, like smoke on the wind.

But it spread out all around me in my bed as I heard the car disappearing down the hill. And I felt, a feeling of awe, I guess.

Awe at the fact that I'd been lucid dreaming.

Awe at the fact that it was another day, and I, Josh Hawthorne, was alive.

But we can't fly here. Here we stay still. Cut off from reality in our little boxes. Dreaming that we are characters in a play.

What are we really?

My back garden looks out onto a field. Sometimes, being unemployed and an insomniac, I go out in the middle of the night and I sit.

I look up at the sky. The silent field where the stars spread out like perfume.

And the moon oversees it all, painting it silver. And I look up and feel so small.

Who am I?

It's funny. So sentimental. How many crap writers have written about the moon?

So I go inside, and see what's on sky movies, and go to bed.

Because the gap can never be bridged - between ourselves and others, between our dreams and reality.

Reality is so boring, so humdrum, so normal, that we simply take it for granted. Pulling back the curtain's a bit too scary.

So let's block it out, and earn money, and work in jobs which we hate, and go out and get drunk at the weekend, and have sex, and talk shit about nothing.

Because if we tried to jump out the window in real life, we'd break our legs.