Not taking myself or life too seriously. At the same time.. Not letting my own absurdity cloud my judgement?! Not entirely sure yet of how to achieve this ‘balance’. Alternating between coffee and lager seems to keep things clear and calm for now.

Adam has not smoked for two weeks. If he has a rare moment of panic, or stress.. it strangely clears my vision temporarily while I try to fix him. I suppose this is how some people become addicted to helping others.. There is no time to be selfish, your concern is constantly elsewhere. No time to dwell on your own sadness or frustration.

The ‘self’.. (Aargh..) The ‘self’ is the most vast, unexplained plain of existence we will ever know. You will never know anybody else’s system of memories and experiences as well as you know your own. And of course.. nobody can ever know yours quite as intricately either. It’s a mess in there. It’s your own.. wonderful, horrible, fantastic.. mess. Well.. I can only speak for one person. (Something like this. I wish it were a song. A song is so much easier than a blog.) I wish I could be less selfish more of the time. I can’t help day dreaming though. I day dream.. sometimes spiralling into this weird, sad, angry place.. where I cannot laugh, and I cannot be reasoned with. The self is something of a big tangled blob of moments. I am definitely somebody who lives ‘in the moment’, so to speak. But I think there are perhaps some, if not many, millions, of moments in which I should not live. I should just shake them off and move on. Without a doubt. (There must be a trick to doing this.) Is it.. therefore.. selfish of me to want to be less selfish?! Aargh. Must go play guitar and sing something.

Adam has been smoking since he was thirteen years old (Pretty much exactly half his life) I am really proud of him, but I only let him know in small doses.. I think because I don’t want him to feel any pressure, or something..? He will know now. I am really proud of him.

Recently I allowed the buzz from successful busking to go to my head. The challenges were yet to come, but so far.. I have surprised myself at how I have coped with them. This lifestyle change has had a much bigger effect on the both of us than I think we could even try to fathom at the moment. I guess when we are back around people or places from the past, we may see then how we have changed. Work wise.. (Music?!).. I have learnt the importance of utilising every day of good weather in its entirety. You never know when the heavens will open, or the air freeze around your fingers so you can’t play guitar. We spend a lot of time in the corner of alternate Wetherspoons’. At the moment I am sat by candle light in the boat as Adam practises The Godfather Theme on accordion. It’s a little surreal to say the least. Sometimes when I’m singing in the street and I get it just right.. I get this euphoric feeling where nothing else matters. If I have caught the attention of a few strangers, and they have stopped to listen. I’m not worried about how I sound in these moments. I’m just singing. As if there is nothing else left in the world for me to do.

The boats engine is on its last legs. We have no power, just candles and a gas heater and cooker, and if we go anywhere near an actual current.. a river, for example, as was the plan.. head to Oxford, check out the music scene there.. we will undoubtedly be in much deeper water (literally and figuratively) than we are now. The propeller part of the engine hangs on by a mere single bolt. I know very little about mechanics or engineering, but I know we are stuck in Newbury. Wait.. Stuck is the wrong word.. We are here for the time being, being happy and positive with ‘now’.. doing our best with what we have. Having so much time to make music and book gigs and make plans is a massive blessing.

I realised lately that I’m silly when I’m not feeling sad, and almost (almost) the same vice versa, but never quite so simple in that direction unfortunately. Stop being sad.. be silly. No.. be normal.. What would a real grown up do?! The same thing I think. I think I think too much. <I will come back in fifteen minutes. We are moving to a local pub to charge up the phones and plug in the laptop. I’m only saying so in case the writing changes because the walk (or the lager) has unfogged my head. And to highlight how sometimes electricity is like a mini miracle.>

I dream of doing this, this exact lifestyle.. not necessarily on the boat.. travelling, one way or another.. taking the music to new places and people. Learning and improving skill sets and… living the dream, regardless of how small it may seem to others.

I never thought I would play a gig. When I was 13 years old, secretly recording myself, my songs, onto the family p.c. To play a gig meant to headline Glastonbury. It was that or.. stop dreaming and plan a real career. Plan a real life. I never had any idea there were a million in betweens. That’s all this moment is right now. One of those in betweens.

Bex.

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