August 23rd 2014

An important part of my one year long project is to catalogue the minutiae of daily life. National moments energetically jostle for space alongside the mundane of the blog pages, yet it is the everyday that fascinates me. We all live 24 hours a day, yet how many of us can recall more than half a dozen things we did yesterday, or indeed anything we did a month ago? A reason then, a cause celebre, why diary writing has a long and distinguished past. Historians have long delved into the annals of the diarist to extrapolate what really happened, increasingly it is the mundane diarist who now illuminates the past with a spectrum of routineness. Yet blogging, this 'new kid on the block' form of diary writing, is markedly different. By and large diarists wrote intimately. Some may have harboured thoughts of future publication, yet most wrote a personal memoir for their own amusement, to clear a mind of a days trivia, or like me, the pure joy of writing. I'm not a great writer; my Comprehensive education left gaping holes in my grasp of English grammar and spelling, an appalling education breeds a lifetime of failure with the floating apostrophe, but that is of little consequence. I have risen above this conformity of language. I write as I wish to record my thoughts, at a moment in time. Linguistic errors can be corrected, remembering the detail cannot, as time fades a moment of clarity.

To write a blog is to lay bare the deepest of thought to an unknown public, beautifully encapsulating the modern worlds craving for instant gratification, a gratification which is not a problem in itself, but we are losing the creative ability to stop and stare, to revel in silent inactivity. As I write this, having replenished the seed feeders outside, my concentration flicks between this posting and the 30 or so sparrows jostling for dominance in the buffet bar I have supplied. Like drab workers heading home from a day's toil desiring to be at the front of the bus queue, they jostle, peck, flutter and swap places awaiting their turn at the breakfast provision. I adore my sparrows, nesting in the roof-space they endlessly and cheerily chirrup their presence. Yet, I am their only observer. Failure to record this moment at 7am on a glorious autumnal morning, with the sun shining, gulls calling along the coast, house martins on the wing, failure to mention the feeling of transcendent peace over the land, would allow the moment to drift into the obscurity of time and be lost forever. Even now at 7.30am that moment has receded, the first cars now travel the lane, early shoppers maybe, or tired workers desirous of a long Bank Holiday weekend like the rest of us. The birds are still there, but the moment of peace just half an hour ago has evaporated alongside the toxic emissions of a combustion engine.  

More-so, writing a diary allows digression. I first sat at my laptop wondering what to write when the image above caught my eye. It is my world, my office, my desk, my detritus. I wake most morning between 5 and 6am, my most creative time of the day, yet weekday work beckons and time is short. Weekends, released from the pressure of earning a honest crust, allow leisurely pursuits of my life. Some toast, tea and sit down before the day awakes to write. Soon I shall publish this on the blogging site, post a link to Facebook. A few kind readers may comment. Most will ignore it, yet, every day since October 1st last year I have jotted down a moment of mundane in my life. A cathartic endeavour. Fascinating to think in a weeks time, my year will, like the summer now fading, be moving to a close. September will be my last month. Should this continue? I'm not sure, can one continue to record the mundane, continue to remain alive to a days trivia? Possibly, but who would read it. Maybe I am about to become the unpublished diarist then I always failed to be. The exploration of the everyday shall I yet savour for myself.