12 September 01 disconnection and sadness


18:58:
Seat overlooking valley. Church clock strikes seven. No planes on the landing run this evening - they are diverted in case of an attack here as in New York - but I can hear some high flying ones above the lowish clouds.

Despite having completed what I've been writing for the last week or so I am feeling sad this evening... But the clouds move on and the trees stand here unaffected by my mood or by the public sadness though they are beginning to turn yellow as the temperature drops a little (if that is what causes leaves to decay?).

A red balloon with some string hanging from it floats above me moving eastward in the wind and descends into the trees on the other side of the valley.

There is almost no one about - is it because it's much cooler and greyer - or is it the shocking news - or is it normal for a grey autumn evening?

Disconnection and sadness. I think I'll move on.



19:50 Station, after sad walk in dusk. Almost no aeroplanes.

The road is already resurfaced (only last evening I watched a few men with vast machines just beginning the removing and relaying of the road surface to a depth of ten centimetres and now cars are already driving over it).

Saw very few people. Found a thousand-page domestic goods catalogue which I carried here and am leaving on a dry seat out of the rain in case anyone can use it. I don't like to see something, even so materialistic a thing, going to waste.

Lights in the hospital shine on despite everything, but now I see and feel how very vulnerable is everyone in this artificial culture. It's a wonder it works (for those who benefit - though for probably half of the six or seven billion of us it doesn't). This is indeed a culture of transition, it cannot possibly last very long without changing.

It's unusual for me to be noting thoughts so sombre, even fearful. It may not be long before my instinct for the positive suggests something to do that makes me (or allows me to) feel happier.