Feeling low happens to everyone. In all the years that I have been on this earth I've had my fair share of low points in my life. Especially in the last 4 years of course. Having had to give up my jobs to be a carer, the financial implications of not being able to work, the lack of contact with friends due to my inability to socialize as often as I would like, are just some of the main frustrations that I have had the misfortune to experience. The recent death of my father just adds to the mix, I suppose. It doesn't help.
Yesterday, I believe that I suffered real depression for the first time in my life. I have always been reluctant to use the word 'depression' in the past because for one thing I thought that I was immune to it because of my optimistic disposition, and secondly, I think the word has been used so flippantly by people, in some cases to describe a disappointment they are experiencing, rather than a condition that prevents normal everyday functioning. I always thought I was low, not depressed; there are always other people far worse off than me who truly are depressed and are going through their own personal hell. Well, I have always being able to lift myself soon after a low period, so that's not depression. However, I felt utter despair yesterday, of which I have never experienced before. I could not shake it off and felt that I was not in control of my thinking. It was almost as if my thought processes were fixed on one path, like a train on a single track unable to change direction. As soon as I woke up my head was pounding and I felt that nothing mattered, which lasted all day. I didn't know what to do with myself, uninterested in anything, prefering to stare into the distance for long periods, in any direction, and just do nothing, paralised in such a way that I was unable to think clearly. If I had received the letter I am expecting about my passing my exams yesterday, it could not have lifted me from my doldrums. I would have tossed it aside, not even being upset if I had not passed. Nothing mattered. It was scary, and the world that I knew was not the same anymore. It was almost as if the depression was everything, perpetuating itself in a neverending loop. I just didn't know where to start to get out of it. Scary as hell.
I could feel emotional pain welling up as the day wore on, and it was after visiting my mum late morning that the banks finally burst. I couldn't control the tears in the car at that point and when I got home I decided I needed a distraction so I watched something on my laptop. I surmise that this emotion I was feeling was linked to my recent berevement, and the thought that he would not be here for christmas. My dad always made us laugh at christmas, his inner child and inhibition ran wild. It won't be the same without him. So, this year will be a testing one for us all.
Eventually, last night, I managed to get the opportunity to talk about how I felt to my wife, and I'm inclined to believe that it must have helped, though earlier in the day I could not see talking as any help to me, and today I have felt a bit better and not so zombiefied. Yesterday I got a little insight to what many truly depressed people must be going through. The most appalling feeling is the concrete realisation that there is no escape from feeling like this; nothing that you or anyone else can do to help you get out of how you're feeling, and that you are trapped as if in a cage and there is no key to let you out.
In my experience, feelings of hopelessness and abandonment are key features of depression. They are biggies, really. We all need people to show that they care for us, in our hours of need, and if we don't it leads to a deteriorating self-esteem, and believe me that's a slippery slope. When you feel worthless and insignificant it's a sorry state of affairs. Hopelessness sets in and I believe this is when you feel you're locked up in that cell with no key. It's important that you find someone with the particular key that will help you get out. Last night, by talking to my wife I found a key, so the power of talk should never be underestimated. Hope. What a wonderful thing that is! Where would we be without it? It gives us the reason to carry on and do the things we need to do, and should never be abandoned. The question is, where do we find hope when things appear hopeless? Luckily, given good guidance, hope can be found in a multitude of places, people's hearts being one. To be kind, honest and supportive restores faith in humanity and perhaps the lack of these qualities creates the hoplessness in the first place.
If anything, this little episode has revealed to me the importance of my time at Aberconwy MIND, a place where I always encounter the results of depression. I meet people there who live with depression every day of their lives. To experience it for only one day is only a short glimpse of what it must be like for them, and I hope I don't get many days like yesterday again.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Porcupine Tree: Rock Lessons at the Academy
Going back to the Manchester Academy to see Porcupine Tree live was like visiting a friend that I hadn't seen for a long time. Four and half years in fact. When I got to that part of Oxford Road I even discovered that that friend had moved house! It seems that finding locations where PT performs is as problematic as trying to find their CD's in local shops! The first time I saw them was back in 2002 at Academy 3 and when I recognised the familiar steps leading up to the main doors I thought I'd find them in there again. Getting our tickets out I heard a voice saying that there was a queue, and so there was. A queue going back so far I didn't know whether to feel pleased for PT for attracting such support or trepidation for the prospect of being squashed into aphyxiation when we got in. Luckily my son Simon's bladder intervened so we nipped into a MacDonalds over the road. Going back I noticed another building which had an 'Academy' look to it, and what appeared to be an A4 sheet on the glass covered entrance with Porcupine Tree and North Atlantic Oscillation start times on it. Oh joy! No queue. This is more like it, but a part of me was wondering why there weren't more people. Most of the venues on this current tour promoting the album 'The Incident' have been sell outs, which had prompted me to think that the big queue down the street was for PT. Anyhow, as I was walking in I remembered that this was just the same feeling I had when I first saw them in 2002. Plenty of personal space around, a bar in the foyer and music filtering through from the auditorium. The support act, North Atlantic Oscillation, had already started their set and I then realised how late we were. We had a bit of a struggle getting to Manchester that day. Missed the direct train from Colwyn Bay by minutes, luckily got a train not long after to Chester, changed for Crewe, then got a connection to Manchester. In the end we were 20 minutes later than we had planned, not too bad considering, but there was no stop for the Oxford Road station. Therefore we had to hike it from Picadilly. The other dampener to our evening was the fact that the last train from Manchester to North Wales was at 10:35, so we knew before we left home that we would not see the entire show. Another throwback to my first PT show. What was so annoying is that the timetable has been changed since the summer, which had the last train leaving at 11:15, which me and Simon got home from a trip to Old Trafford. If this had still be running we would have probably seen the whole show. Never mind, seeing half of PT live is better than not seeing them at all. Or for that matter some other bands in full.
Of what I heard of the support act, which must have been a good half hour, I was impressed. North Atlantic Oscillation have a good sound, catchy melodies and not predictable. I like to be surprised by bands, to make me wonder where the music is going to go. They did that. There are too many bands who tend to follow a familiar path with their music, especially with progressive music, and veer towards areas already covered by bands they are trying to be like. N A O are, I believe, ploughing their own furrow, and planting the seeds to some promising music in the future.
Porcupine Tree planted their seeds way back in the early 90's, and it has taken a long time to bear fruit but they have finally broken through the barrier of musical prejudice that once gripped the progessive rock genre. They broke through for many of their fans years ago because their albums have been consistently good since 'Up The Downstair' in 1993. Since then the Porcupine Tree sound has matured into a category that cannot be defined. File it under Porcupine Tree music!
By now the venue was pretty full, with a few hundred having joined the rest of us to see the main act. A voice spoke to the audience about the group policy of asking fans to refrain from using any type of recording devices or they would be escorted out of the auditorium. Throughout the time I was there I could see the odd jackass trying his luck to record snapshots for his posterity (one in front of me even had the nerve to stick his SLR above his head to take a shot of the band playing!) How he didn't get chucked out I'll never know. The band came on to a tremendous applause amidst a foggy stage and unleashed 'Occam's Razor', the first track of 'The Incident', whose power almost took me by surprise, even though I knew what was coming having listened to the CD often enough. The band have been playing the album in its entirety throughout the tour, which started at Seattle on September 15th. Colin Edwin's bass guitar sound was like a wave which makes your chest and stomach areas tremble! Simon was concerned of the dreaded 'brown note'! Porcupine Tree progressed through 'The Incident' flawlessly. I have to also mention the images of Lasse Hoile which were displayed in perfect synch throughout. Both disturbing and beautiful the images tend to distract you from the band, so your eyes are constantly in motion. I love the images that accompany the track 'Time Flies'. I can definately identify with my past, growing up, and experiencing the effects of the advancement of time. Personally, it has a poignant significance for me after the passing of my father last August. My first hearing of it coincided with that sad event. Back to the concert and the tracks 'Drawing the Line', 'The Incident' and 'Octane Twisted' absolutely rocked and sound even better live. Simon, being his first rock concert, was a bit taken aback with the noise and the sheer power of the band, Colin Edwin's bass rippling into us like a shock wave, and Gavin Harrison's drums booming with every beat. Steven Wilson's mastery on the guitar always amazes me. His fingers dance along the frets so effortlessly I swear he could be as good asleep! The closer 'I Drive the Hearse' is a beautiful ballad reminicent to me of something the Goo Goo Dolls were doing some years back. I knew that this song would be the last full song we would hear tonight, and I wondered where the time had flown, but it truly does go quicker when you are enjoying yourself. Reluctantly our time was up and a train had to be caught in order to prevent us from wandering Chester station all night waiting for the mail train! The 10 minute countdown of the band's re-emergence on stage was displaying on the screen and we left the auditorium with the strains of 'The Start of Something Beautiful' in the air. In fact as we were walking away from the building and with an ambulance rushing past us in full siren we could still hear the band. We managed to catch the train home at Oxford station in plenty of time in the end and practically devoid of other passengers. Overall, despite only seeing half of the show, the trip was worthwhile and anyway I needed a T-shirt!
Of what I heard of the support act, which must have been a good half hour, I was impressed. North Atlantic Oscillation have a good sound, catchy melodies and not predictable. I like to be surprised by bands, to make me wonder where the music is going to go. They did that. There are too many bands who tend to follow a familiar path with their music, especially with progressive music, and veer towards areas already covered by bands they are trying to be like. N A O are, I believe, ploughing their own furrow, and planting the seeds to some promising music in the future.
Porcupine Tree planted their seeds way back in the early 90's, and it has taken a long time to bear fruit but they have finally broken through the barrier of musical prejudice that once gripped the progessive rock genre. They broke through for many of their fans years ago because their albums have been consistently good since 'Up The Downstair' in 1993. Since then the Porcupine Tree sound has matured into a category that cannot be defined. File it under Porcupine Tree music!
By now the venue was pretty full, with a few hundred having joined the rest of us to see the main act. A voice spoke to the audience about the group policy of asking fans to refrain from using any type of recording devices or they would be escorted out of the auditorium. Throughout the time I was there I could see the odd jackass trying his luck to record snapshots for his posterity (one in front of me even had the nerve to stick his SLR above his head to take a shot of the band playing!) How he didn't get chucked out I'll never know. The band came on to a tremendous applause amidst a foggy stage and unleashed 'Occam's Razor', the first track of 'The Incident', whose power almost took me by surprise, even though I knew what was coming having listened to the CD often enough. The band have been playing the album in its entirety throughout the tour, which started at Seattle on September 15th. Colin Edwin's bass guitar sound was like a wave which makes your chest and stomach areas tremble! Simon was concerned of the dreaded 'brown note'! Porcupine Tree progressed through 'The Incident' flawlessly. I have to also mention the images of Lasse Hoile which were displayed in perfect synch throughout. Both disturbing and beautiful the images tend to distract you from the band, so your eyes are constantly in motion. I love the images that accompany the track 'Time Flies'. I can definately identify with my past, growing up, and experiencing the effects of the advancement of time. Personally, it has a poignant significance for me after the passing of my father last August. My first hearing of it coincided with that sad event. Back to the concert and the tracks 'Drawing the Line', 'The Incident' and 'Octane Twisted' absolutely rocked and sound even better live. Simon, being his first rock concert, was a bit taken aback with the noise and the sheer power of the band, Colin Edwin's bass rippling into us like a shock wave, and Gavin Harrison's drums booming with every beat. Steven Wilson's mastery on the guitar always amazes me. His fingers dance along the frets so effortlessly I swear he could be as good asleep! The closer 'I Drive the Hearse' is a beautiful ballad reminicent to me of something the Goo Goo Dolls were doing some years back. I knew that this song would be the last full song we would hear tonight, and I wondered where the time had flown, but it truly does go quicker when you are enjoying yourself. Reluctantly our time was up and a train had to be caught in order to prevent us from wandering Chester station all night waiting for the mail train! The 10 minute countdown of the band's re-emergence on stage was displaying on the screen and we left the auditorium with the strains of 'The Start of Something Beautiful' in the air. In fact as we were walking away from the building and with an ambulance rushing past us in full siren we could still hear the band. We managed to catch the train home at Oxford station in plenty of time in the end and practically devoid of other passengers. Overall, despite only seeing half of the show, the trip was worthwhile and anyway I needed a T-shirt!
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Anticipating Porcupine Tree
At last the wait is over! Tickets were bought months ago and now Simon and I can exchange them for a performance of the great Porcupine Tree tonight. We are going to the Academy in Manchester to witness the band playing 'The Incident' in its entirety, plus hopefully we will have time to see some of the second part of the show before we have to head off back down Oxford Road to catch the train home. Going to the venue will bring back happy memories for me. My first experience of seeing Porcupine Tree live was at the Academy but I believe that tonight's show will be in a different auditorium. The following for the band has dramatically increased in the last few years and this is reflected by the size of the audiences they have been drawing into venues on this current tour. It's good to see their popularity increasing and is continuing to increase as the years go on. Soon, gone will be the days when when people will say "who?" when Porcupine Tree is mentioned.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Dave Smith R.I.P.
So, here I am writing about another friend who has met an unfortunate end by his own hand. Whilst my friend Brian from Aberconwy MIND was probably self inflected (no one has told me exactly what happened but he did tell me that things were not ok with him just before his death), Dave Smith's death appears to be sucide according to friends' comments on Facebook. To us his friends who were in school with him, this is hard to come to terms with. My last e-mail contact with him in July of this year talked very positively about the up and coming school reunion and coming to Rhos-on-sea. What happened in the short time since to have changed so much in his life I haven't the foggiest. I remember Dave being one of the most laid back of individuals, appearing to have not a care in the world but also intelligent enough to secure a 'golden ticket' apprenticeship with the Post Office, now British Telecom of course, when he left school, which is more than I did! A lot od us went for the apptitude tests during the last few weeks of our schooldays at Ysgol-y-Moelwyn (I went to a church in Colwyn Bay I recall, maybe Dave did as well) and he was one of the minority who managed to get in. He moved to Chester and as far as I know that was where he had been living.
I knew Dave from way back. We were together at Maenofferen primary school and I remember an incident with him near the end of the final year there. He threatened to beat me up over something (no idea what the reason was) and it wasn't a pleasant experience for me. Going into the new school at the end of that summer of 1974 I thought he would cause me more trouble. He didn't. Dave did not mention it or used it to make life uncomfortable for me, proving to me it was just one of those thngs which happen in a million schoolyards all over the world but has no real meaning nor nasty intent. I had no trouble from Dave in all the years whilst at Ysgol-y-Moelwyn, in fact he became a good person to know and a very funny guy. I was friends with Gwyn Williams Jones in the early years of Moelwyn and Dave was good friends with him so I would see him about, playing cricket and football behind the old forum. I also remember receiving from Dave a souvenir from the 1974 World Cup, which Dave's Dad had gone to, which he gave to a lot of his friends. Do any other friends remember these souvenirs?
After my family moved to Llandudno in 1982 I lost touch with most of my friends from Blaenau, including Dave, though I remember bumbing into him in ASDA Llandudno just after we moved. I believe Dave's family also moved to this area around this time. In recent years he would e-mail me through Friends Reunited, interested in any news of a possible reunion of his old schoolmates, an event that had been talked about for some years and ironically has been echeduled for April 2010. In fact, according to one of his friends I ws talking to recently from Blaenau Ffestiniog, he was so looking forward to going to it next year. He had been asking me since 2007 about this reunion, so proving that he couldn't wait to see his friends again. I for one was not only looking forward to seeing him at the reunion, but also here at Rhos where his dad lives.
Going through his page on Friends Reunited reveals a man who thought a lot of his days back in Blaenau. His photos are a reminder for all of us who knew him of the halcyon times that were our schooldays. Despite the angst of adolescence they really were halcyon days weren't they.
Let's hope that this coming reunion will kick start a continuance of contact between the friends we once knew and to remember those who we have lost, and to support those that need us in times of despair.
I knew Dave from way back. We were together at Maenofferen primary school and I remember an incident with him near the end of the final year there. He threatened to beat me up over something (no idea what the reason was) and it wasn't a pleasant experience for me. Going into the new school at the end of that summer of 1974 I thought he would cause me more trouble. He didn't. Dave did not mention it or used it to make life uncomfortable for me, proving to me it was just one of those thngs which happen in a million schoolyards all over the world but has no real meaning nor nasty intent. I had no trouble from Dave in all the years whilst at Ysgol-y-Moelwyn, in fact he became a good person to know and a very funny guy. I was friends with Gwyn Williams Jones in the early years of Moelwyn and Dave was good friends with him so I would see him about, playing cricket and football behind the old forum. I also remember receiving from Dave a souvenir from the 1974 World Cup, which Dave's Dad had gone to, which he gave to a lot of his friends. Do any other friends remember these souvenirs?
After my family moved to Llandudno in 1982 I lost touch with most of my friends from Blaenau, including Dave, though I remember bumbing into him in ASDA Llandudno just after we moved. I believe Dave's family also moved to this area around this time. In recent years he would e-mail me through Friends Reunited, interested in any news of a possible reunion of his old schoolmates, an event that had been talked about for some years and ironically has been echeduled for April 2010. In fact, according to one of his friends I ws talking to recently from Blaenau Ffestiniog, he was so looking forward to going to it next year. He had been asking me since 2007 about this reunion, so proving that he couldn't wait to see his friends again. I for one was not only looking forward to seeing him at the reunion, but also here at Rhos where his dad lives.
Going through his page on Friends Reunited reveals a man who thought a lot of his days back in Blaenau. His photos are a reminder for all of us who knew him of the halcyon times that were our schooldays. Despite the angst of adolescence they really were halcyon days weren't they.
Let's hope that this coming reunion will kick start a continuance of contact between the friends we once knew and to remember those who we have lost, and to support those that need us in times of despair.
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