As weeks go, this has been a difficult one for me. Nothing bad has happened to me personally (other than the leaders of our race seem intent on starting world war three), but it has been challenging in the extreme. On Tuesday I wrote of the challenge that visiting the chapel at the hospital where my mother had treatment for cancer in 1970 posed. I had a major and very disturbing flashback, which I have to admit had affected me deeply this week. On Thursday night, I had another flashback. A more pleasant one, but all the same, in the context of the week, it was a little bit disconcerting. I went to see John McKay's Reactor at The Lexington. John was the original guitarist in Souixsie and The Banshees and his guitar defined their style. As I watched the band, I was transported back to 1978 and the Roundhouse. His guitar style and sound is to me a very fixed moment in time.
All of this has put me in a very reflective mood. It seems incongruous to me that there was only eight years between me going to see my mother having cancer surgery as an eight year old and going to see Siouxsie and the Banshees at the Roundhouse. The gap seemed like a lifetime. I had gone from being a child to an adult. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to make music. I've changed very little since then. Of course I have more experience of life, I've matured, I am less impulsivre and my body can't physically do what it could then. But in the moments when I am making music with my band, I am exactly where I was. In recent months, the band has re-imagined a couple of songs from our earliest incarnation. I think it has worked rather well. The songs captured our teenage angst. The re-intepreting has added a new dimension.
I'm 62 years old now. If I make the same age as my father, I've got seven years. Maybe I won't, or maybe I've got 20 more years where I can do the stuff I want to do. Who knows. In the few years, since lockdown, many of my friends have started to seem quite old. I find this difficult. I asked a mate recently if he fancied going to see a band we both rather like. His response "I don't do gigs anymore". That scared me. There is nothing physically wrong with him. He just has decided he is too old for live music in clubs. The Who once sang "Hope I die before I get old". What is getting old? I've not really given this too much thought. Maybe it is when you stop doing things you like, for now other reason than a number in the age box?
I'm sitting here, looking at a Jay on the tree in the back garden. I envy his lack of worry. He is living in the moment. He doesn't worry about growing old, about Trump and co. If he finds some tasty morsels for dinner, he's happy. I wish life was that simple for me.
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