All The Thoughts (Mexico - Yorkshire)

1. So, yeah, I’m back in England. Been here just over three months. Mostly just working, refereeing, tinkering away on a little music editing hobby. It was all exceptionally strange at first – my brain still three parts in the US, images of mountain vistas constantly interrupting on Yorkshire urban scenery; unable to understand what people were saying in their weird Yorkshire accents; confusion over morning frost and the necessity of gloves in August – but I soon got used to it.

2. But wait! What you’re thinking is: say, last thing we heard from you you were on the beaches of Mexico living all paradisiacal an’ shee. Well, like I keep saying, number one, don’t believe everything/anything you see in pictures. And, number two, it all went boobs up anyway ‘cos of…various reasons, but mainly revolving around me deciding one day to trim my facial hair into a Hitler moustache and kill all the pets (cats, dogs, a goose, etc). People didn’t like that. And so I was sent to the mountains to thunk about what I done and – I went nutso.

3. That was fun (not really) and I wrote eight billion words in my (secret) blog about it, and then finally flipped a coin and bought a plane ticket to Cancun. Saw some giant turtles there laying eggs, but it was boring and I went right back to sleep. In fact, the most exciting thing in Cancun was going to a nice big supermarket – and that’s when I realised it was time for going home. So I bought a $160 ticket to Madrid. Landed. Thought briefly about joining the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago – why not! I had total freedom, etc – but instead hopped on a plane to Paris and arrived just in time to guide someone in an iboga journey. Plus saw Jim Morrison’s grave, finally, which was even more boring than the turtles.

4. It was nice to be back in Europe – everything seemed all sophisticated and intelligent – and I began a heroic quest to replenish my body with good bread and cheese. After Paris I made a plan to go to Germany and see a mystic Indian lady there who seems sort of pivotal in various ways, but on the morning of departure I woke up to a cute little lady elf telling me to head for Calais instead and an hour later an email came confirming she was right. So I got there, hitched onto the ferry – none of the weird chaos the news had been promising, as usual – and the lovely German man drove me straight to my lovely friends in Kent. Ah, how lovely! And, boy oh boy, we’re back in England. But it doesn’t hit me yet…

5. Too short a visit in Kent – though lovely, nonetheless – as I’ve an elf-inspired deadline to hit up in Yorkshire: the last chance to attend a fitness test if I want to progress in my refereeing (oh, the wondrous ways of these undercover elves and the mystics that send ‘em!) A blablacar straight from former home of Canterbury all the way to place where I grew up South Elmsall. Eager for nostalgia and fish and chips! But all I find are scowling, ugly people and, alas, the fish and chips are too greasy. Not a great start.

6. Then I get a train to Wakefield, buy a pair of sneakers, and hurry to the athletics tracks where fourteen football referees are preparing to run a minimum of 2.6km (1.62 miles) in twelve minutes or else be thrown into the fiery pit of Sheol and never ref again. I’m nervous. I haven’t sported in four months and was out of shape then. I’ve barely moved the past three months in Mexico, beyond sandy Mexican hot beach walks. Will I make it? Will my knees hold up? Can I even run that far? Somebody says, follow that guy, he’s good (pointing to a tall lanky youth, perfectly built for middle-distance running) and so I get on his shoulder and, you know what, it ain’t so bad. In fact, coming into the last lap, everyone else far behind us, I decide there’s more in the tank still and leave him behind as well. Victory! An extra two hundred metres beyond the requirement! Life in the old dog yet.

7. Everything is accomplished. From the Pacific side of Mexico to the Caribbean to Spain to France to Kent to Yorkshire – all in the blink of a sad dog’s eye – and suddenly I’m on a train to my former boss’s house (where I’ve been invited to resume my position of lodger) and about to start work riding a cargo bike ‘round Leeds. Everything’s exactly where it was when I left it. The same bedsheets. The same cups. The same women working on the same reception desks – gadzooks! I even remember their names! – and…

8. Oh, it’s ever so strange, those first few weeks. I genuinely can’t understand what people are saying. American accents never felt odd to me; and I was confused when they commented on mine, ignorant of the difference. But in Yorkshire I feel the difference keenly. And the faces! Oh my, I know I shouldn’t say this, but those first few weeks I just couldn’t get over how ugly almost everybody was. And why are they constantly scowling, and shouting, and swearing at strangers. Everything is grey – the sky is grey and the faces are grey, and the buildings and the ground and everywhere I look – and it’s almost too much after being blasted so long with Mexico and California and Colorado blues. And yet…it’s like none of that ever happened. Like a dream you wake up from that almost immediately fades. Here I am, back in my old job, my old city, my old clothes, my old bed. Nothing to show for it except two years older (two years closer to the grave) and the memory/dream as tangible as a wisp.

9. Still, there are good things: back to reffing and running around and telling naughty misters not to be naughty and blowing my whistle. And work is good – boy, how I’ve missed work! – and it sure takes the edge off all that thinking too much when a man has too much time on his hands and himself and his life on his mind. That shit’ll drive you batty. And it pretty much did. Plus, there’s always the money factor – I had thirty-three quid when I landed back in Yorkshire – but it’s three months later and I’ve something like three grand in the bank, so at least that’s freedom to bugger off when/if the urge should take me.

10. Other good things: I really appreciate the freedom of England, especially when compared with the US. Being able to cross roads whenever you feel like it. No looking over your shoulder for cops wanting to shoot you or issue tickets ‘cos the sheriff says figures need hitting this month, boys. It’s nice not living in a police state.

11. Plus: really good reasonably priced bread, and ditto for cheese. And it’s nice that people seem mostly normal and smart. Although I do miss that American curiosity about life. Very few English people seem to have that. We’re a vastly more materialistic culture, in my (seldom) humble opinion.

12. Anyways, I seem to have grown accustomed to the ugly faces and the stink of the traffic pollution and the grey wet weather and the strange shouty voices. Which is good in some ways, and perhaps a little disturbing in others. Fine line between tolerance and obliterating sensitivity and awareness, as I’m fond of telling the cigarette-sucking twelve-year-olds I meet every morning while I’m waiting for my bus.

13. And talking of buses…I’ve been recording an interesting series of conversations, all surreptitious-like, pretending I’m nodding my head to music under giant headphones. The things people say! I used to hate travelling by bus but this has sure made it worthwhile. Watch this space for insights into Yorkshire folks’ minds.

14. Here’s a little snippet to whet the whistle, from a couple of Mormon/Jehovah’s Witness-type young women sat upstairs on the 33A a month or so back: M/JW-t #1: “You know how HIV was God’s punishment for homosexual sex?” M/JW-t #2: “Yes?” “Well I’ve been thinking: what if having children was God’s punishment for heterosexual sex? A foetus is a bit like a tumor or a parasite, right? And it’s costly and unpleasant and takes over your whole life. You have to go to the doctor to get it removed. It’s contagious and spreads. It’s…” And on and on; you can imagine the rest. And, believe it or not, that’s not the maddest thing I’ve heard on the 33A…

15. I think that ‘bout brings us up to speed; time to go fry some eggs and brew a pot of green jasmine tea and head on into Leeds to go zooming ‘round delivering packages and taking my rightful place as a cog in the machine so that ladies working in finance can receive vital papers from Bahrain and fancy shoes they’ll later send back to Amazon or Mango while the planet spins inexorably towards its ultimate destiny dissolving in the sun and another human body grows greyer and older and stumbles blindly towards the grave and – for what, for what? – is that enough groaning for you, old man? ;-)