Control

In the many days since I last posted, I've been in a desert. Not the flat, variegated expanse of Southern Californian desert. But the vast, monochrome undulating Sahara. Long, deep troughs with the peaks of sand dunes as punctuation.

Everything has paused. Photography. Writing. Running. Reading. Listening. After hours of looking for the stop button, I'm now trying to find the play button.

Reunions

A week ago, I boarded a plane for the first time since July 2007. As I sat staring down at glaciers on my way north to Seattle, I realised that this may have been the longest time I've ever gone without a flight in my life. Flying felt familiar and comfortable. A reunion of sorts.

Seattle was a literal and figurative breath of fresh air and it reminded me of London.

None of the manicured and fake foliage of Southern California. Instead, natural grass verges with dandelions and impromptu clusters of ivy-clad trees.

Pubs that have big windows, outside drinking and solo customers unashamedly reading a paper with a pint. None of the blacked-out seediness and social stigma of drinking in LA.

Crumpets and the best tea I've tasted in America: big, stewing pots of builders' breakfast tea with free refills. None of the weak, shadowy breakfast blends served up in overpriced LA coffee shops.

I felt nostalgic in all of this. But not in the crippling, longing way of old. The nostalgia wasn't a huge gash that needed skin grafts and stitches; it was a graze that needed a dab of antiseptic and a sticking plaster.

And, needless to say, there are many things about Seattle that don't remind me of London.

Mountains.

Lakes.

Waterfalls.

I returned to LA on Sunday. I appreciated the four-day change but I was pleased to be back.

Psychic Trigonometry

For me, 30-mile weeks only normally happen in the first third or last third of a marathon training programme.

But I'm not training for a marathon and yet I still managed to clock mileage in the 30s last week.

The distance between the mental peaks and troughs is bigger than it ever has been at the moment.

My mood is a sine wave with a huge amplitude (delirious excitement, crushing worry) and a tiny wavelength (hourly shifts).

All the energy carried along in this wave needs somewhere to go and running feels like the natural outlet.

What Burns Sometimes Returns

After a year spent posting each day, a week feels like a decade. The break has de-cobwebbed my brain and done it a lot of good. I've noticed that, without the Modus whip lashing at my back, I process the world differently. I'm less active in my thoughts and observations; I change from critic into reader. And, when I run, I don't look up or around and I don't stop. I think it's making me quicker and fitter. This is no bad thing because I'll soon be seeing JP in Seattle for brisk trails and hills. He's fast, he's light and he has the lungs of a machine. I'll need something in the bank to keep up (even if he his carrying an injury at the moment).

Parental Loves

I found the anniversary of my Dad's death, on St. Patrick's Day, more difficult to manage this year than ever before. And so too with the anniversary of his birth, today, St. George's Day. Previously on these occasions, I've been surrounded by familiarity; things familiar to both of us: London, my school friends, the Times, Arsenal, Vic Reeves, Broadstairs. But this year, I'm surrounded by the unfamiliar. There is nothing and nobody around me that he ever knew or ever will know. There is no fabric connecting the now me to the me when he was alive. I feel like I have drifted away from him. I missed him terribly on St. Patrick's Day and I miss him terribly today.

So my Mum's card, cheesy and sentimental though it was, helped soothe the deep wound. It didn't mention my Dad but it didn't need to.

I have a complicated relationship with my Mum. Distance, disconnection, denial. And all three in abundance since I've moved to Los Angeles. But sometimes I'll see a glimmer of something and remember why, despite all, I love her and always will.

Happy 79th Birthday D(e)ad

It all began a year ago. It was a premature present for my dead father whose birthday is tomorrow.

An incredible amount has happened to me in that time. I left a job, left England, got divorced, got married, applied for a Green Card and, today, received an Employment Authorization Card.

The sense of completeness after a solid year of posting and the impending reduction in my spare time as I re-enter the full-time paid workforce (crossing over from the sporadic volunteer workforce) mean that my Modus Eundi persona can start to relax. I will no longer be whipping myself into ensuring that a post exists for every day of the year. I won't go out looking for things to photograph or write about. I won't push myself to dredge and analyse the recesses of my memory. Sometimes, things will crop up that will inspire me to take pictures, think and write. And I will think, take pictures and write. Sometimes, nothing will crop up or I won't feel like thinking, taking pictures or writing. So I won't.

I'm going full-time. Modus Eundi is going part-time. Stick around.

Defying Damocles

Last time I found myself running around Echo Lake, I looped it five times and speculated on how many loops would light the fuse of dementia.

Today, I looped the lake six times. Only the need to get home and get on with the day stopped me running more. The first few laps are tough. You're conscious of the repetition. You tell yourself that you need to break away from the lake and search for variation in the streets. Boredom dangles above you in a way that makes you think it might fall, smack you on the head and knock you out. But then you settle into the routine. You forget where you are. Or, more accurately, you disappear into your lungs, heart and head. It no longer matters whether you're circling a lake, bouncing on the rubber belt of a treadmill or zigzagging through the city grid of detritus. If I pushed myself to loop the lake as many times as I could, I'm pretty sure my body would give way before my mind .