California Diary 8

On a train from L.A to Santa Barbara: 15th August 9.24am

Sometimes a great ocean can make the world of difference.

I have to get away for a couple of days on my own. I need to see waves and smell salt. The desire to have a solo adventure has been rising in me since Sunday. So I'm on a train as I write this heading for Santa Barbara. I love the romance of trains and this one is just right. It's a Double-Decker, full of old aged pensioners who appear to be on a kind of beano. They are laughing, chattering and sucking on boiled sweets. Outside there is a mist that phases the mountains that surround the city of Los Angeles. Occasionally, the train exerts its whistle and it makes my heart soar. Maybe everything will turn sepia in a minute and Marilyn Monroe may walk through the carriage, brandishing a guitar like the scene from 'Some Like It Hot'. Knowing my luck it will be Tony Curtis trying to sell me some of his terrible art.

From Cocaine to sugar cane. From Basildon to Burbank. Why do I always see my life from a window, mirror or screen? I've got to stop it.

Yesterday was one of those lazy days. We did not do much at all except go shopping for some groceries in the morning. Paula and I were to be hosting a little dinner party for some of her friends in the evening that secretly I was dreading because my introspection did not want to be disturbed. I like Paula's friends a lot. They are clever, funny and charming, but I came here to get better and work out my problems. It's vital that I do.

So I called Amtrak and a hotel in Santa Barbara. I made a decision. Choo Choo¦..

I became restless in the afternoon and so went for a walk up and down Glendale Boulevard for about an hour. I'd stop randomly at storefronts, not really looking at anything. There was a sadness creeping into me that I have learnt to hate recently. Melancholia is part of the disease of depression. It inflicts a dream like state in the mind that is damaging and useless. I began dreaming of someone a long way away. Someone whom I will never see again because I went bad. I begin to sniffle and there is a tear. It's a sick feeling that makes me feel light-headed and disorientated. I've learnt only recently that I have to throw these emotions away as soon as they appear. The trick that I use to do this is to think of a good memory. The one I like most, and that works is of my time spent in Australia. It's of me and Jane walking nude along a deserted beach in the North West at sunset. It's her birthday and I ask her to marry me for the hundredth time. She says no of course and I accept it as usual. We laugh and I chase her into the ocean. It was the happiest of times, where everything seemed possible. I hold that picture frame in my head when I go sour. A frozen snapshot of the good that I am capable of. Of the love that I can give.

I move along the Boulevard some more and stop outside a store that sells coffins. Gold, silver, wood and some kind of glass. Perhaps they are expecting Snow White to pop her clogs soon. Or maybe Hilary Clinton. Is there a difference?

I bet it costs a fortune to die with grace in California.

The dinner party in the evening is a great success. We eat pigs in a blanket and spinach pie. We drink lots of beer, and then toast some marshmallows with melted chocolate. I laugh with friends, some I have known before and some are new. It's fun and frivolous, but everything is on the surface. As everyone leaves I hear a train tracking itself in the distance.

This is where I have to go, and where I am now. On a journey to the heart of the matter.

Quote of the day:
Stop dreaming of the quiet life, cos it's the one you'll never know.
Paul Weller