Like water in cupped hands.

There are those thoughts, thoughts and feelings, which one longs to hold onto. And yet in the moment you have the idea to grab hold of the feeling going through you, the thought going past, it starts to dissolve and you clutch madly at nothing until whatever it was has completely disappeared. That's okay, they'll come back one day when you least expect it, within you somewhere but not consciously reachable.

Then there are those thoughts, thoughts and feelings, which one wishes will never return. And yet even at your most conscious moment as to how you feel, what you think, not one part of it will dissolve. You wonder how this can be, when all the best things last so briefly and this irritating little bugger of a thought won't leave you alone. It has such a loud voice, such an anchor to every waking moment.

Bad thoughts have become like a bad habit for me. Easier to ignore, easier to forget but still ready to creep up in my moments alone, as if my mind remembers that those are the times when those thoughts were most potent. When I was most vulnerable. I just think it's silly now, now that I feel happier, calmer, better. When I think those bad thoughts I can recognise them as not real, eventually, but it feels like I've just bitten my nails for the sake of a past nervous tick which no longer serves a purpose. It is as if ghosts of bad thoughts and bad feelings reside in me going through their old routines, running out their inevitable course despite the fact that most of the time I'm not listening.

I guess it's slightly sad that the good feelings, once realised, slip away like water in cupped hands. But then you wouldn't know, would you? If the bad ones left no mark, no measure for how bloody brilliant things can be. I suppose I should just stop trying to cling so hard onto it all, but I am getting better at that.

Edinburgh

You know how memories, or the feelings that are strung along with them, have a taste? Or a smell? Or a sound? And when you dredge them up, or return to something recent but that was sharp and potent you feel it all the way through you? On your tongue, through your nose, a ghost sound ringing in your ears. 

I find it quite painful, a bitter sweet sensation, even if the memory is a good one. In fact, almost especially if it is. If I was in love (with a place, with a feeling, with what I was doing) then the notion that it has been and gone feels quietly catastrophic. Huge waves of emotion for something I can only retrace in my head before sleep, or in moments of reflection. And this emotion has nowhere to go, only to rise up in me, force me to recognise it, remember things that were but are no longer, wait for it to fade. Sometimes I find myself caught between clutching to the feeling of how brilliant the memory is, how powerful the emotion, and at the same time wishing for time to pass so it can be less sharp, less immediate. 

The exact memory I keep visiting is a recent one, so the feeling is still very strong. I can still taste it, smell it; dusty, ever so slightly of sweat that isn’t mine, cheap wine, after shave, shampoo. And the sound is quieter, but street music and thousands of people all moving together at once, their excitement palpable and matching my own, shouting, laughing, dancing. I can hear it. And I want it. I want it all back, the feeling, the taste, the smell, the sounds, the brilliance of it all. 

But it is locked now, into something that happened, something anticipated, something experienced, something only to be remembered. Until next year, when I can go again and find new tastes, new smells... same sound maybe. 

God it’s painful, and so lovely.