Tennis balls

"Time is precious, you should spend time with whom you want, you're off to Canada for four years in 87 days" Clare Rogers

How important are people to you? How many do you value those around you? How do you know? How does it change? We all go about are lives rather diligently with routine and regularity, over and over again. We walk down the same path that we forget where we set off from and moreover where we were heading in the first place. This quote was teh instigation of this blog and another reminder of a general and slow realisation I have had through a series of events including: my dad's death, moving to the barn, university life, challenges like cycling through france and running marathons in scotland, relatonships and friendships moving into and out of my life, some through choice others through circumstance, old faces, new faces, with all the above blended with a splash of my impending voyage to the far distant shores of Canada I find the beverage somewhat bittersweet.

I have realised how important people are and how much I value them. My move to university and the saga of my father has made me realise how amazing my family are. How much I used to take them for granted. Although it pains me to admit it at times my family are very influential on me. My mother is just the most phenomenal women and I love her deeply. She is my rock. My brother is my alter-ego, my go to guy, my wingman (in a more platonic sense, rather than pulling before you ask) and I know that he will always be there and look out for me. Even my aunties and uncles are key figures in my life. My uncles in particular have always acted as somewhat of a father figures to me. I admire them greatly for their trades, their intelligence and ability to reason with me unlike any other. Although at times I may not agree with them, they have always been the most level headed of individuals and never shy of a thought embossed in wisdom far beyond my years, and forever shall be.

My friends far too often amaze me. I have been fortunate enough to live with a group of people I am truly close to and be surrounded by intriguing people far better than myself. They know my world more than I know it myself and they far too often remind me of that fact. I don't tell them enough how much I appreciate them, so now is better than anytime to do so. I have friends in my life that have been through the agess. Friends I have known since I can remember. I have kept some friends from my earliest of adolescence, it is those that I know get where I am coming from (quite literally). It is these friendships that have been through the wars and out again. They have been battered and bruised over time and yet still remain impeccable. They are the most amazing friendships that I just cannot say how much they make me feel. My Cams boys (and girls) are wicked (they always have been and always will be) and I genuinely feel emotional at times about what they mean to me. Somethings are rarely spoke because they simply are too hard to explain. I simply leave you with the most appropriate comment I can articulate.....yyyyyyyyyyeeeeaaaaaaaaahh peaches.

I also appreciate a number of shortcomings I have maintaining my friendships. I appreciate I suck at texting back (often I dont) and I assure you its not because of value but rather a bad habit persistence of reading my phone and then being distracted by something shortly followed by a temporary episode of amnesia. I also dont call enough, i dont call those who are important to me merely for the sake of calling them to see how their day was. When I was younger, about 16 years old, I thought of an analogy to describe friendships and the maintenance of them. It was inspired by a rather long walk home from cambridge to where I lived at the time in histon. This was a round trip of nearly 2 hours. During which I somehow managed to acquire a tennis ball and played with it all the way home. The ball plus a continually thinking mind got me inspired and I thought about this idea. I find friendship maintenance is rather akin to you sitting in the centre of a large room surrounded by a series of tennis balls all rolling away from you. Hundreds of them. These tennis balls (or any balls for that matter) roll away from you. The rate at which they roll away from you depends on your strength of friendship and the environment and the circumstance of which you interact with the friend. If you for example lived next door and saw the friend everyday your interactions would be frequent and thus the tennis ball would be rolling at a slow pace. Conversely should your friendship be someone you once met say on holiday and they live in another country; the tennis ball rolls away a lot quicker, after all you know litle about one another and only interacted on a singular event basis. You in the fray of all this are constantly acting and interacting with your friends to either pull them back right next to you for them to start their journey once again or you are influencing them in terms of their pace of roll. Indeed I have come to realise over time some balls simply get too far out of your reach and are impossible to grab once again unless you get up and fetch it. Equally some roll at such a slow pace you rarely need to rekindle it. There are some that are behind you back, some that you miss that they even rolled away from you in the first place. To me this game and a game it is indeed, is a question of time and influence...that was my analogy anyway, I thought it was a rather apt depiction of friendships, we all play this game and we all have our preferences, techniques and consequences. The balls that say and the balls that go dictate our friendship circles and influence our lives to create a game very different from the one we started....

To me people are not aware of how amazing those around them are or can be. If you experience what its like to lose someone really close to you (and I wish it apon no one) then you know what I mean by appreciating someone more. When someone dies you realise a) who is realy there for you when you need them and depend on and b) whom you really care about and want in your life at times of need. Things get totally realigned. Rather perversely you see the world for how is really should be to you...to everyone. You are care-free about those stupid things in life you get entirely engulfed and consumed in. The pull of life suddenly becomes weightless and you feel, you alive. You are very conscious of the fact you are alive and how much of a privilege that really is. My realisation that I will be leaving to Canada and my life will change is slowly becoming a reality and once again I am starting to appreciate that weightlessness and how much I value and admire those around me. Those friendships I have old or new, I just dont want to change and if they do i hope they can only change for the better because they amaze me and I love them all for their own unique and special contribution. Even the smallest of things, the little facebook comments here, the catch up coffees on a weekly basis, the catch up calls on a yearly basis, the catch-up whatever from 2 years ago! It matters not. Even those who I feel most emotively for, those of whom I have rather (unfortunately for them) subjected them to as much of me as possible, I cannot regard as anything but incredible. The Cp's, Ily's and Dougal's of this world are significant, significant! parts of my life and no matter how hard and how bittersweet it is, I want them in my life and central to it at that. Life is far to short. Cliche, but so SO fucking true. I hate those people who shut people out of their lives (and I have done it and still do and fully accept hypocracy in this), especially when they are close to you. They know you better than anyone else and I know it hurts. It undoubtedly hurts and the emotion and awkwardness can have powerful leverage but the fragility of life and the amazingness to genuinely share it with someone, anyone, to me is second to none. Undoubtedly. Unquestionably.

From this blog I hep you take away three themes ribboned throughout. Firstly the significance and value of those around you, your friends. Next time you are around them or you get a text, get a phone call, consider the fact that they are in your life and how amazing that is and they are. Believe you and me they are!

Secondly for those of whom you have lost contact with. I hope you find somewhere in you to perhaps rekinder something that once was, failing that appreciate what they did for you in your life and how that fact will never change. You may change and circumstance may change, time may go on, but at that time and place they were something to you and they influenced your life at that point in time. For those who unfortunately break up (...and some relationships are simply not meant to be) with people I ask you to consider something which feels counter-defensive and almost counter intuitive- stay friends. Realise through all the bullshit, hurt, anger and frustration that you only feel that way because you have strong feelings for each other and that you were emotnally attached to them. They meant something to you and you only kid yourself if you ingore the fact that they meant something to you. I for one feel strongly that those I have dated have been some of the most profound influences on my life and I am a product of that. I feel stronger and I only have them to thank. These are key tennis balls, ones that have potential to roll away fast, yet I find myself wanting and trying to pull them in the closest.

The third is that I feel that this a game I want to play more. I have found a new fondness for the game of tennis, so to speak. Those of whom I contact, even in its brevity, its because I care and because you are important to me. I know our lives are changing and I for one will be going through a significant change which will affect and involve the game we currently play. But I will do my upmost to play. You mean the world to me and even if you are not in it I will do my best to make your you are...

x9

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot"

Remember, remember the 5Th of November indeed. This well-known traditional English rhyme is one that permeates my life, and my thoughts. We all know the story of the 5th of November 1605 when Guy Fawkes along with his Catholic co-conspirators Robert Catesby, Sir Everard Digby, and Thomas Bates (to name but a few of the rather surprisingly long list) tried to blow up the houses of parliament using barrels of gunpowder, in an attempt to kill King James 1st
We all know how the plan was thwart and a number of the conspirators including the infamous Guy Fawkes were executed for crime of treason against the crown. Well, if you didnt know, you do now.lol

The Preface...
The 5th of November, or its more commonly phrased bonfire or fireworks night is my favourite day of the year. Unquestionably. There are a number of reasons why this is the case. Firstly, up to the age of 17 I had spent every single bonfire night, almost religiously on the Midsummer Common, Cambridge which had a huge firework display. The display used to fascinate me, and the firework display was incredible. Didn't you find, especially as a child that somehow they seemed that even more incredible. As you get older, that sense of ingeniuity, that sense of naivety, and wonderment was something that was entirely overpowering, mesmerising and fascinating, and you would look up to the fireworks, freezing, and often with a sore neck. Yet despite these adverse winter conditions and physiological setbacks, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing would be able to distract you from watching something that just made you feel amazing. Just purely amazing. You didnt know why, or what was so amazing, and you seemingly didn't care for such answers. It just made you feel amazing. I remember fondly years were I was right by the giant bonfire that would feel like it was burning you from over 100 yards away, or standing on the ledge of a bridge, looking down at the reflection of the fireworks in the river creating a distorted firework display. One year I remember sitting on the opposite side of the river, right by the Cambridge University boathouses admiring the whole spectacle in the same way, but in my own little world, over the river. I remember the fair with all the cliche rides, the vans selling the most greasy and unecessary calorific items, and guys going around selling the latest random form of glowsticks, whether a necklace, a yo-yo or even flying disks. I used to go down with family when I was younger, and throughout my teenage adolescence my fruitless pursuit of 'coolness' and social acceptance meant I was accompanied by my closest of friends.

So as you can clearly see, its something I hold fondly as a memory in my life, and i'm sure you could reel off a number of similar examples in your life that give you a similar effect. This is why, as of last year I started a Dowling tradition, that I wish to keep and continue for many a year to come.Every 5th of November, I dedicate to two things. The first is me. I know it sounds rather self-indulgent, but we don't spend enough time thinking about what makes us happy, (despite my recent flurry of blogs over the subject matter), we dont. We sadly dont. I dont think it is too much to ask, to say that atleast one day, just one day out of 365 a year is yours. Scratch it off the calander, what difference does a day make? (I would argue conversly, and say quite a lot, but thats beyond the scope of this particular blog). The second dedication is to fun (common themes, emerging in blogging?). I have said it before, and I say it again, we should have more fun in our lives. A lot of things in my life in the past two years have taught me that, and given me an entirely new perspective on what life is really about. A good friend of mine once described my character within our teenage years as 'you were quite...intense', and it took me a long time to realise how very right he was. I hope this illustrates a step in the opposite direction.

Just as Guy Fawkes et al had an intention to make a difference to the country, I intend to take a similar approach in a mircoscopic level, that is my own life (we really are an insigificant part of a massively infinite greater world arent we?). So lets go into the tavern of curiousity and light the fuse of interest and talk about the plot itself....

The Plot...
Last year, I composed I list of 9 items. Nine being the greatest number in the world (not 1,2 or three, although 2 is better than 3 darragh...im sorry it just is!) Of those who perhaps don't know me that well, atleast on a physical level, I have a tattoo on my upper, central back depicting the numnber 9 in roman numerals, it looks like this in fact ---> -IX- <--- . I love it, its one of the best things I have ever done, and I got it done with one if the greatest guys I have ever met, my best friend Scott. *takes cap off and nods with mutual respect*. So that is indeed why there is nine items. The nine items are generic, and are considered more of guidelines that concrete definitions. They are as follows: 1. Something spontaneous 2. Something romantic 3. Something with someone else 4. Something (vaguely) intelligent 5. Something Sporty 6.Something relaxing 7.Something you wouldn't normally do 8. Something Naughty 9.Something nice for someone else Of which every year I comprise the exact list of what I will do on that day, and on the 5th of November I do them. For example, 2. Something romantic, I wrote a text to to my girlfriend (at the time) in french (of which I studied, but don't speak lol).It was a small gesture, but I suited. It was genius. The something sport last year I also managed to combine with the something with someone else. I raced a coursemate of mine, from one lecture to another by sprinting across campus. It was quite a sight to be seen, and I looked like a complete plebe, but I was so liberating (thank you Mr Branigan, a true scholar and a gentleman). The game also had stipulations. Firstly two of the 9 had to be suggested my friends or family, one of the nine had to be drawn at random from a number of possibilities, and you have to do atleast one of them with someone. Its a game. A pure game, for games sake, and last year it made me feel great. There is no doubt that I do remember the 5th of November indeed, and although many consider it a day to remind us of the terror and tyranny of man, I remember it as a day to have fun, a day to play a game. I invite you to at very minimum, pick a favourite day, and remember that on your favourite day, its your favourite day! There is a nicety in that alone. For those a little more open-minded I invite you to play your own game in a similar fashion. Go on, I dare you, live a little. Its not complicated, and it can become a fun but personal game. Why not? you set the rules, you play the game. Life is often a game, so what is the harm in playing with life. Its a small gesture, I small thing, but I guarantee it will make you question your daily routines, and your view on life. I find it a beautiful thing to do. I leave you with the lines I opened with, in an attempt to open you to an idea, a thought, that remember, remember the 5th of November, the gun powder, treason and plot. I see of no reason why it should ever be forgot" indeed, I could not agree more... x9