I have sat all week at my computer.

I have made a couple of telephone calls to meet up with friends and have chased the sunbeams beyond Canterbury, danced my way to hydrotherapy and horseriding, danced because the gold autumn glints bright, air crisp, invigorating sad child that I too often am.

The air is thick with hefty swishing noise.

I haven't had a bad week. I had a very nice session with my clinical psychologist on Saturday and felt my troubles shared and therefore lessened. I have had some interesting mail come in: No Can Do's for my mag from Archbishop Tutu and The Princess Royal (ie their p.a.'s), a request for a feature from Sky television, an e from a guy in New Zealand who's featuring me on his web selected sites, a request for an interview from Disability Now, and an article from a House of Commons Clerk.

The traffic impinges noisily still.

I also have an outstanding commitment to write a article about myself for a German teenage magazine.

It's the lack of music that sometimes hurts.

It's not the lonely life because I am not lonely. I am bored and frustrated and depressed. I would be equally bored and lonely and depressed if I were cooped up in a classroom. In fact I cannot imagine a worse fate. I am not a sociable person. I just don't feel I have any inclination to waste my time. I cannot conceive of flouncing about shops and discos, sitting around in friends' rooms passing the time together. I itch to be writing or organising something. I itch to be organising things bigger than I have yet done. I nearly got an art exhibition this year. I was offered space for it at the local college art department but then they changed their minds. I need to organise rooms full of proportion. I need to organise space. Space and light. The individual alone with his soul. Naked. Threatened. Wary. Uneager. Dramatic Dreamworlds for Barefoot Novices. Addressing the fears of modern art. Confronting emptiness and denying vacuousness. Oh it's such fun planning it out, but I want to build the actuality too.

Ballet.

Exquisite wonderful ballet. To combine such control of self twirled into body with music and self-expression. O joy, what joy! The figures dance in my head. I know their every step. I am there alongside them. The dance is my dance, the music is my music, already scored and waiting. Film, languid, lingering, lovely black and white stuff, recording the making of a ballet, the passion the enthusiasm of the committed performer, the backdrop to the musical score, the lyrical landscape of Hebridean haunts, the friends the herons the shoreline the singing the seals the silver grey sealochs, my very very wildly grinning mother delightedly oot under a drizzled sky. The music, soft blown trumpets breezing choral melodies gently at the ocean's edge, songs sent down from yesteryear, songs from beyond beyond, turbulent braying symphonies when storm thrusts skiftering snows upon lichened rocks and rainbows run relays down the savage sealochs, blue blue blue bouyant blue days sparkling deeps at me limp beside the limpets crawl, paddling my own my very own creaky canoe without a paddle

peddling peddling I must peddle my wares I must turn my back on closeted classrooms, shielded silly schoolkids, I must re-build what I lost when the Academy chucked me out, I must re-build what I had when I worked for three days a week with my amanuensis, patiently outing note by note the music of my imagination.

I hate the sound of traffic swirling by.

I just don't like the noise. I like the quiet. I like the quiet air of the Hebrides. I like the places where there are not folk gadding about, rushing always rushing. I want to take a long and quiet journey through life. If I rush along I fit more in? There is a rhythm, there is a pace that suits the soul, of steady work enough sleep and responsible social time. I do not feel a child of my times, despite internet, despite video, despite my reliance on motorised transport. I have not enough time to just listen to the hums and write them down.

hustle bustle, hawking hawking.

I actually enjoy that sort of being sociable. I'd be quite happy hosting a dinner for prospective players or some such, I'd be quite happy organising for exhibitions, publications, quite happy being interviewed, quite happy (well almost) with being let down or disappointed, ploughing on, setting targets, managing things, balancing books. How to conquer the huge burden of my disability? Overcome the scepticism I almost daily encounter, greet life stoically, live sufficiently comfortably but without extravagance because every available fund must be spent on the salaries of those round the clock carers upon whom my life depends. 2 threads, 2 threads - break through scepticism, be accepted as my own true self, and earn enough to rid myself of dependence on the state that has so conspicuously let me down and exposed me to the scepticism. The scepticism leads to fear and seesawing fury and depression. Who of you have not known days slide by when preoccupation stresses one into inaction? No way forward seems to exist. Logic dictates several routes, emotions hem one in. A gruelling battle within rages such that one feels tired beyond speaking, turned in, separated from the outside realities which after all were the source of the misery. I should have sympathy for those that do drugs who want to blot out the today and trip into elsewhere but I have none. I know where I want to go. I resent being thwarted. I resent my depressions now. I want to do battle with them. I want to win through. I want to be an optimist always.

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