Dog-gone

I never think I’m one for the grand dramatic gesture.

In my mind, yes, I’m the older guy at the end of Independence Day, seeking to find peace and redemption through the sacrifice of his human bullet into the under-belly of the invading mother ship; or maybe I’m Superman, dashing and Bryl-creamed and saving the world one cape full at a time. But in real life, you’ll much more likely find me right there on the railway station in Brief Encounter, eyes brim full of unspoken passion and unrequited yearning as the train trundles forever away into the distance in a whoosh of steam.

I’m very far from being a superhero cartoon character or a silver space-suited cowboy in a sci-fi western. I’m really not all that poutingly unobtainably glamorous in black and white either, truth be told. My not-very-grand-at-all gestures are human-sized even if my horizons are broad; I’ve never been inclined towards door-slamming or crockery hurling, after-hours brawling or running street battles.

Which is why I kind of surprised myself today by slinging my bags (and the dog) into the back of the car and moving out of the barn.

There are a couple of old and well-used phrases that are often called upon to describe this moment: reaching the end of one’s tether and the straw that broke the camel’s back are two that have bubbled up. I hadn’t even been aware that the thought of moving out was so close to the surface of my consciousness. Quite the opposite – I’d come back from Egypt a couple of weeks ago determined to make sharing the site with my ex work, even if that was likely to take some getting used to and be tough going in the interim. But it seems that it didn’t after all take much scratching of the surface to let the moving out decision erupt like a geyser and be activated in a few moments. Just one falling-out too many. Perhaps the concepts captured recently in Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent books, Tipping Point and Blink, more closely approach the truth?

I was back at my little house by the seaside with a couple of bags full of clothes, books and food before my brain had time to blink twice. The dog clambered down the steps and flopped onto the carpet behind my swivel chair as if he’d never been on anything more than a walk chasing waves along the beach. I envy the dog his gift to live completely in the here and now, his joy in the fiendishly simple and almost impossible ability to just ‘be’. I wish I could capture it in a butterfly net and swallow it whole.

I spent a welcome couple of hours this evening enjoying spaghetti Bolognese and home made bread with my three year old niece, my sister and her husband. We watched cartoons on the television and ate chocolate bars, drank tea and Diet Coke, and talked of this and that. I am relieved I’ve acted on my misgivings whilst there was still time not to finish tying up the moving threads.

I thought that we could make sharing the space work. It turns out I was wrong. At least I tried.