It is 4.45 pm and I am waiting for the sun to drop below the yard arm. Except I am not on a boat, it is winter, and more or less dark anyway. I am to be taken out for a meal as a birthday treat; an annual event that becomes incrementally filled with foreboding, as the years tick on by. I always have a couple of G&Ts before I go out for my birthday meal. Always. Habit, tradition, call it what you will, it is an essential ritual. Today, regretfully, there is not a single lemon in the house. Lemons can sit in my kitchen for weeks on end, being of bugger-all use to anyone, but the very day I want one there is none.
My daughter, who last autumn went to live in another country, sorted out shipping for a stack of belongings she put into boxes when she visited at Christmas. Today, the shippers delivered their cartons to my house and I have packed them. Somehow, the passage of stuff out of the house makes it feel permanent, makes it definite. To be honest, it makes me feel old. Its impact is heavier and deeper than the mere occurrence of another birthday. It provides a physical marker of a new personal era, a next step along the path of life. It gives rise to a pause for thought, a moment to consider intimations of mortality more broadly.
I feel this all the more keenly because for the past six months I have been writing my autobiography. At first it was a half-hearted attempt which I thought I would tire of quickly. I didn’t really believe I would seriously address the task, but I have done so. I am now so far sucked into it I have to keep going until I finish. In my manuscript I am at the point where I have left school and have been working in various jobs for several years. I am in my early 20s and about to get married. I don’t want to speak about personal details relating to my first wife and our marriage, but I have to find ways to talk about that period of my life and clearly she did feature in it. It presents a very interesting challenge in terms of writing the book. Writing an autobiography is very similar to writing fiction; the only difference is that the plot has its feet in history and real life, whatever that might be. However, the final manuscript will be merely one way of telling the story of my life; there could be many variations in the tale. Just as in classical music, the main events provide the notes and pattern of the theme, but I could embellish that theme in many ways, messing with cadences, emphases, tempo and crescendo. In music, silence can be extremely telling and important. In my autobiography, I choose those things about which I shall remain silent. In part, my decisions about what not to say will affect the temperature of the prose. I could decide to blurt out a lot of stuff and produce a vitriolic tome, or I could ease back and offer an altogether gentler tale. My inclination is to do the latter. By definition, it is the case that I shall be the hero (obviously I shall in my autobiography). I have to decide how I wish to portray my hero. Do I allow myself to boast a little? Should I avoid being too self-deprecating? These are fascinating questions.
I would like to say a few words to my Second Life blogophiles who come to my shows… let me reassure you that I am hoping to extend my repertoire over this coming year in 2011. It was one of my new year’s resolutions. I am hoping for a minor breakthrough with my piano playing. I do work hard at it. Paradoxically, I feel it is my guitar playing that is improving, yet I do much less work on that! I have been satisfied the way the gigs have been going though. I know my music is not to everybody’s taste and some feel that it is a bit of an acquired taste. Still, I feel I have made progress over this past year. I have now played around 650 gigs in Second Life over the past three years, so I definitely have a reasonable amount of experience. I’m looking forward to the coming year. I have a feeling it could be good, musically speaking. Ok. Talk to you later, and bye for now 🙂
John's Quavering Pencil 
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