I haven't written for a while, because I've been in the process of moving up to Edinburgh from the Midlands, starting a new job and feeling ever so slightly stressed by all the minutiae and loose ends that need tying up in situations like this.
Its been a reasonably relaxed move though overall, folk have been great, Edinburgh is a stunning and very cosmopolitan city which I'm going to explore in greater depth when my head's been screwed back on properly.
I particularly like the quirky little charity, coffee shops and secondhand bookstores in the Stockbridge area of the capital.
Stockbridge is like a village within the city, it has a more laid back, arty vibe going on, in contrast for example, to the screaming bagpipes and international tourist clientele of Princess Street (I have to catch buses there, and during the 'Fringe' I'd never seen crowds like it, not even in big bad old London).
Edinburgh is very hilly and labyrinthine. There are hundreds of narrow, cobbled back streets and cute little mews in which to wonder, and all around the implacable grey stone and big sash windows, choked with history and an almost academic seriousness.
I can understand why the place was one of the pillars of the Enlightenment (The Athens of the North), wherever you are, there always appears to be a vista, some monument or building to deconstruct, a quiet square, or a long, almost Parisian boulevard in which to wander and reflect on the big philosophical questions.
On the surface, the ghosts of Edinburgh's past - the harsh scientific empiricists - appear to be slapping your face with a cold hand at every turn: the architecture is fortress-like and heavy, a force of nature, timeless in its monolithic solidity.
And everywhere that searing, unforgiving light, no place for shadows, nowhere for truth to hide.
Edinburgh in daylight is a laboratory of hypotheses tested and refuted, cool Presbyterianism meets the Bell curve with lazy superstitions given short thrift - the perennial "Och Pish!"
At night the city wraps a warm cloak around itself, snuggles up in front of the fire, and allows the telling of fantastical tales.
The intellectual severity of day gives way to the good-natured alchemy of night. Burns' tales of apparitions and the exotic elixir's of Stevenson are more believable in the narrow, cloistered medieval gloom.
The pale, stiff academic of morning becomes the Renaissance magi of evening, stirring his crude porridge of chemicals in search of the microcosm and the macrocosm.
The Scots I've met so far, and know all seem to have this curious mix of an almost frightening practicality and earthiness, mixed in with a romantic interest in the more esoteric/occult phenomena of human experience - especially after a couple of drinks.
But then again, I guess its the Yin and Yang, the tension between the rational and the irrational, young and old, science and magic that so enriches cities like Edinburgh and keeps them diverse and fascinating.
I've very much become part of this night/day, empirical/magic world myself since moving up - I'm a note taker and personal tutor in the day and an amateur hermeticist in the evenings...well I do psychology in the day and read Colin Wilson and Terence McKenna books in the evening (quite like 'Most Haunted' too.)
Alternative realities, whether drug induced, cosmological or quantum related have always been more appealing to me, than what passes as the (often) psychopathological banality of everyday life.
But hey, some empiricism is quite fun - Edinburgh highlights so far: Microwave haggis with 'neeps' and 'tatties' and witnessing the fake Pope mobile while I was on a bus to work (seriously!). I was a bit suspicious from the off though, it looked more like an ice cream van for Hobbits.
Anyway,I feel so much more settled now and can see my past and present in a much more objective way. I feel a bit like an alien, but a very curious and happy alien, just watching the wildlife saunter past my cafe window - not getting too hung up, just reflecting on it as it passes by.
The problem is how to articulate this chaotic swirl of emotions and epiphanies when they spring to consciousness?
I'm going to try some different methods of expression in future, different tools for getting the depth of feeling across: stream of consciousness, prose poetry, whatever - I find the narrative convention a bit wooden sometimes, a bit of a strait-jacket.
Anyway, I'll give it a try.
