For Catherine

I learned a couple of days ago that one of my school friends had passed away just before Christmas after a short illness. This made me sad. Catherine was a beautiful gentle human being. She is the first of my school friends to die from so called 'natural causes'. And that's supposed to make it 'OK' is it? Moments like this are that curious mix of knowing that such things are a common experience for us all, an inevitable part of being alive and yet such a deeply personal one too. I thought why her? why that way? who will be next how will happen? We get pretty meta-physical at times like these.

The news however brought the past vividly to life. The school disco, the sound of Procul Harum playing at the end. I can remember what I was wearing, I can even see the type of early evening summer light as we hung around outside and chatted. I haven't seen Catherine for over 20 years. For one week in 1968 she was my 'girlfriend' and then she became the childhood sweetheart of a good friend of mine, and eventually they got married.

In quiet moments I often imagine that we have a thin piece of red cotton attached to our backs and that you can follow the path through life you make on a map. I also imagine the paths of other people and see where they meet, cross over, drift apart, run parallel. The redlines of Catherine and I. The social connections of everyone we meet. A complicated red social network. Why am I writing this? why on a blog? It might be a way of bringing a section of red cotton to life. Before I've always held these things in mind. I've never really thought about what the cotton looks like at the end. When we die. A clean cut? frayed and dishevelled? Our final strands casting around trying to grab the life line of others? I have no idea.

This post wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Catherine.

Climb Evr'y Montaigne

Does Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne (1533-1592)have a claim to be the Grand Father of Blogging?I learned about him for the first time listening to the BBC radio morning programme Start The Week He was a contemporary of Shakespeare who lived in France and travelled widely. It is claimed he invented the writing form we call The Essay. Montaigne has come to my attention some two years plus into my blogging expedition, and he has become a source of inspiration, even though I am yet to read his work.

His writings are ponderings, they are might be's and might nots. They aren't the stuff of a 50 ways to....blah blah, or how to re-design your blog template and integrate the latest social networking application across all your other applications. Neither is he about 'monetisation'. He is about committing his thought to 'paper' and engaging in a journey of thought inspired by journeys in the real world.

Looking back at my very first post it is far more (humbly) in the style of Montaigne than the Pro Bloggers than dominate the blogosphere in their marketing and tech-geek niches.

So...for a while back to my roots. Monataigne pondered...do I play with my cat or does my cat play with me...I like that sort of pondering.