Modus Eundi

Control

2008-07-05T12:14:00.001-07:00

In the many days since I last posted, I've been in a desert. Not the flat, variegated expanse of Southern Californian desert. But the vast, monochrome undulating Sahara. Long, deep troughs with the peaks of sand dunes as punctuation.

Everything has paused. Photography. Writing. Running. Reading. Listening. After hours of looking for the stop button, I'm now trying to find the play button.

Reunions

2008-05-22T12:12:00.001-07:00

A week ago, I boarded a plane for the first time since July 2007. As I sat staring down at glaciers on my way north to Seattle, I realised that this may have been the longest time I've ever gone without a flight in my life. Flying felt familiar and comfortable. A reunion of sorts.

Seattle was a literal and figurative breath of fresh air and it reminded me of London.

None of the manicured and fake foliage of Southern California. Instead, natural grass verges with dandelions and impromptu clusters of ivy-clad trees.

Pubs that have big windows, outside drinking and solo customers unashamedly reading a paper with a pint. None of the blacked-out seediness and social stigma of drinking in LA.

Crumpets and the best tea I've tasted in America: big, stewing pots of builders' breakfast tea with free refills. None of the weak, shadowy breakfast blends served up in overpriced LA coffee shops.

I felt nostalgic in all of this. But not in the crippling, longing way of old. The nostalgia wasn't a huge gash that needed skin grafts and stitches; it was a graze that needed a dab of antiseptic and a sticking plaster.

And, needless to say, there are many things about Seattle that don't remind me of London.

Mountains.

Lakes.

Waterfalls.

I returned to LA on Sunday. I appreciated the four-day change but I was pleased to be back.

Psychic Trigonometry

2008-05-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

For me, 30-mile weeks only normally happen in the first third or last third of a marathon training programme.

But I'm not training for a marathon and yet I still managed to clock mileage in the 30s last week.

The distance between the mental peaks and troughs is bigger than it ever has been at the moment.

My mood is a sine wave with a huge amplitude (delirious excitement, crushing worry) and a tiny wavelength (hourly shifts).

All the energy carried along in this wave needs somewhere to go and running feels like the natural outlet.

What Burns Sometimes Returns

2008-05-01T13:36:00.002-07:00

After a year spent posting each day, a week feels like a decade. The break has de-cobwebbed my brain and done it a lot of good. I've noticed that, without the Modus whip lashing at my back, I process the world differently. I'm less active in my thoughts and observations; I change from critic into reader. And, when I run, I don't look up or around and I don't stop. I think it's making me quicker and fitter. This is no bad thing because I'll soon be seeing JP in Seattle for brisk trails and hills. He's fast, he's light and he has the lungs of a machine. I'll need something in the bank to keep up (even if he his carrying an injury at the moment).

Parental Loves

2008-04-23T11:22:00.001-07:00

I found the anniversary of my Dad's death, on St. Patrick's Day, more difficult to manage this year than ever before. And so too with the anniversary of his birth, today, St. George's Day. Previously on these occasions, I've been surrounded by familiarity; things familiar to both of us: London, my school friends, the Times, Arsenal, Vic Reeves, Broadstairs. But this year, I'm surrounded by the unfamiliar. There is nothing and nobody around me that he ever knew or ever will know. There is no fabric connecting the now me to the me when he was alive. I feel like I have drifted away from him. I missed him terribly on St. Patrick's Day and I miss him terribly today.

So my Mum's card, cheesy and sentimental though it was, helped soothe the deep wound. It didn't mention my Dad but it didn't need to.

I have a complicated relationship with my Mum. Distance, disconnection, denial. And all three in abundance since I've moved to Los Angeles. But sometimes I'll see a glimmer of something and remember why, despite all, I love her and always will.

Happy 79th Birthday D(e)ad

2008-04-22T15:48:00.001-07:00

It all began a year ago. It was a premature present for my dead father whose birthday is tomorrow.

An incredible amount has happened to me in that time. I left a job, left England, got divorced, got married, applied for a Green Card and, today, received an Employment Authorization Card.

The sense of completeness after a solid year of posting and the impending reduction in my spare time as I re-enter the full-time paid workforce (crossing over from the sporadic volunteer workforce) mean that my Modus Eundi persona can start to relax. I will no longer be whipping myself into ensuring that a post exists for every day of the year. I won't go out looking for things to photograph or write about. I won't push myself to dredge and analyse the recesses of my memory. Sometimes, things will crop up that will inspire me to take pictures, think and write. And I will think, take pictures and write. Sometimes, nothing will crop up or I won't feel like thinking, taking pictures or writing. So I won't.

I'm going full-time. Modus Eundi is going part-time. Stick around.

Defying Damocles

2008-04-21T10:05:00.002-07:00

Last time I found myself running around Echo Lake, I looped it five times and speculated on how many loops would light the fuse of dementia.

Today, I looped the lake six times. Only the need to get home and get on with the day stopped me running more. The first few laps are tough. You're conscious of the repetition. You tell yourself that you need to break away from the lake and search for variation in the streets. Boredom dangles above you in a way that makes you think it might fall, smack you on the head and knock you out. But then you settle into the routine. You forget where you are. Or, more accurately, you disappear into your lungs, heart and head. It no longer matters whether you're circling a lake, bouncing on the rubber belt of a treadmill or zigzagging through the city grid of detritus. If I pushed myself to loop the lake as many times as I could, I'm pretty sure my body would give way before my mind .

The Punisher

2008-04-20T09:53:00.001-07:00

I've been asked a few times why I insist on having a Modus Eundi post for every day of the year. It's all down to the pathology of the self-punisher; I will beat myself with any rod I can find. I started out last year with a flurry of posts and, before I knew it, I had a whole week behind me. Conscious of how many blogs start with a bang and end with a fizzle, I became my own taskmaster. (I'm happiest and most miserable when I'm making arbitrary demands of myself.) I resolved not to let a day go by without a post; I could take time off, but I made myself return to the gaps and write retrospectively. No fizzling out allowed. And so it continued for a year.

On Tuesday, I will put the rod down and tell the taskmaster in me to piss off. I'm hoping that a weight will lift.

Hannibalistic Crossings

2008-04-19T07:45:00.003-07:00

There's probably only 10% of Angelino Heights, the historic hilltop enclave where I live, that I haven't covered on foot. I bit a chunk out of that 10% today with a run along Bellevue and Boylston. I connected a couple of previously disconnected points in my mental map.

I wasn't expecting to get spat out onto Sunset but that's what happened. Short of ideas, I just stayed with it. Through its Cesar Chavez reincarnation; all the way to the river. And, instead of turning right and skulking through the railyards between 1st, 4th and 6th, I turned left and ran through the flag-waving windscreen repairmen and car undertakers of Mission.

A mechanical elephant is the perfect metaphor for this automotive zoo of an area.

I crossed back over the river along Main, which was a first. Unlike the many ghostly, asphalt-embedded freight tracks south of Union Station, the railroad crossings here feel live and dangerous.

After the river, I made for the breathing space of Los Angeles State Historic Park (nee The Cornfield).

I finished up by contemplating the logistics of a window chessboard of Chinatown graffiti.

And a solo white stiletto on Sunset that hinted at a sexual crime.

90012 Novelties

2008-04-18T08:28:00.002-07:00

Amtrak trains are the opposite of polite children: they are heard but not seen. You can hear the rumbling when you walk under the platforms at Union Station. You can hear the distant honking and screeching at various places throughout the city. But you rarely see these shy beasts in their shiny steel flesh. Yesterday, though, as I took in a simple circuit of Cesar Chavez, Vignes Street and Spring Street, I glimpsed one. The sight made me hanker for a leisurely rail trip up or down the coast.

And I saw something else novel en route. I'd heard that the area of semi-beautified wasteland hugging the Gold Line just north of Chinatown and going by the old-time soubriquet of "The Cornfield" had been renamed and rebranded. But this was the first hard evidence I'd seen.

The clear postcard view of Downtown, juxtaposed with a hinterland track of weeds, dust and dirt, iced the cake and made an ordinary run slightly less ordinary.

Hollywood Formicary

2008-04-17T13:52:00.001-07:00

Runyon Canyon is a small, busy but pleasant enough oasis of wilderness in Hollywood.

Appropriately for a Hollywood attempt at being rural, it feels fake. It doesn't seem to belong.

Like a conveyor belt of soldier ants marching between resources and nest, the well-trodden circuit is in a constant, peopled flux. Professional dog-walkers trying to hold sway over packs of too many. Shirtless out-of-work actors pounding, sweating and trying to preserve their meticulously tanned torsos for the next casting call. Lunchtime power-walkers trying to quell the executive stress.

The Runyon Canyon bustle meant that I couldn't escape. It left me frowning and itching. I think I'll stick to Griffith Park for future impromptu hikes.

Inertia Versus Guilt

2008-04-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

I took three days in a row off running last week and subjected myself to a slow crescendo of guilt. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. By Thursday, I couldn't handle the shrill scream of self-punishing conscience any more. I finally forced myself to run. This week began in the same way. Nothing on Monday. Nothing on Tuesday. But I knew I couldn't handle another runless Wednesday full of internal squeals and shrieks. So, without even thinking about where or how long, I opened the door and ran. And I found myself subconsciously seeking the comfort of the river.

In hindsight, it was so easy. I just wish I could transfer some of that easiness into foresight.

New Purpose

2008-04-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

A week to go. Then it will have been a year. Modus Eundi has been handrail, friend and taskmaster. I am two-thirds grateful and one-third burdened.

I still don't know what Modus Eundi will become after its 366th day. All I know is that the daily interlaced dish of words, pictures, more words and more pictures is starting to smell musty and old. I need to do some spring cleaning.

I still need a handrail and a friend. But I don't want a taskmaster any more.

Water = Wadder = Worter

2008-04-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

I think my accent has changed slightly in the nine months I've lived in LA. It started out as a London turd and it was then polished, not completely successfully, by years of private education. I know exactly what I'd sound like if that polishing hadn't occurred: like my brothers (who were subjected to the ravages of a state education system in a 1970s Britain that didn't give a shit). Modern-day Cockney diluted in its shift from East to North West.

Compared to a suit, my accent would be a smart three-piece with shiny, worn elbows and a ripped pocket or two. I don't drop many consonants and only some of my Ts become Ds.

But the slovenly, lazy London roots of my voice are exactly why I've had such trouble being understood. To shop staff, I sound neither American nor like the Brits they might have seen in films. Even after a repeat or too, I still get met with quizzical, embarrassed looks. "I can't ask him again. I'll just have to assume he meant Earl Grey."

Over the last few months, though, things have changed. I'm misunderstood less often and I feel less like I'm speaking in a foreign language. And it's all because I've started to enunciate more slowly and more precisely. When I first moved here, I always wondered if I'd adapt to my new environment by developing a transatlantic twang. By lengthening my vowels. By saying things like "wadder" instead of "worter". But I haven't done any of that. I've actually become more stereotypically, cinematically British. And all of it subconsciously; I only became aware of it when I spoke to a London friend on the phone last week and he pointed out the slight difference in how I sounded.

I wonder how much this directional accent shift says about my attitude to immigrating and assimilating. I thought I'd relinquished my firm grip on my British identity by replacing home comforts with new comforts. I thought I was becoming more American. But perhaps I'm not after all.

Burn & Return

2008-04-13T15:28:00.002-07:00

Today was a spring sheep in a summer wolf's clothing. A day of relentless 90-degree blaze. I could have waited until dusk to run but I was in the mood for self-punishment. J had to make an impromptu trip to USC to pick up a book or two. I joined her and ran home.

The main dish was skin-drenching, salt-sucking heat. The side was the shimmering boredom of the long Figueroa straight.

By the end I had melted. But I felt punished and purged.

Time-Lapse Loops

2008-04-12T08:42:00.002-07:00

It was an Echo Lake day. A day where I feel I can only muster a mile or two. A day where I con myself into a quick jaunt around the lake in the knowledge that I might be able to add loops once I'm there and bump my distance up to something worthwhile. I ended up running round the lake five times. And, to make the repetition easier to swallow, I marked each loop with a photograph.

Loop one.

Loop two.

Loop three.

Loop four.

Loop five.

All the looping got me thinking about mental endurance. How many times could I run this 0.9 mile circuit in a row before stopping or going out of my mind? And then I started fantasising about my own personal Echo Lake Marathon (27 miles, 30 loops). One day, perhaps.

Don't Worry. Be Happy.

2008-04-11T10:21:00.001-07:00

I've begun meditating. I've flirted with it before but I've never given it a proper chance, assuming that my inner turmoil is too much of a turmoil to be stilled by sitting and being mindful. Maybe the layman language and chatty tone of the book I picked up from the library helped. I now have three tricks up my sleeve for when I run, walk and sit: I follow my breaths, I count my breaths and I repeat a phrase over and over again (it's a helpful phrase but it's a cliché and I'm too embarrassed to reveal it here). Whenever the worries and memories invade, I try my hardest to push them aside and return to the following, counting or repeating.

Today, I ran 12 miles, a deliberately detoured point-to-point between Pasadena and home. I didn't have my iPod or my camera. Instead, I spent the whole time subvocalising my chosen cliché over and over again and gently prodding my mind when it got bored of the words and fell off the rails. The run flew past and I felt more relaxed at the end than I usually do. I surprised myself. But I know better than to think that I've found the holy grail. Like a cunning virus adapting to a new drug, my anxiety-hungry brain will undoubtedly find a way of mutating and immunising itself.

Starting A Cold Engine

2008-04-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

After a three-day running lay-off, I find it nearly impossible to run a decent distance. It's all I can do to get changed and get out.

But four miles is better than no miles. It's enough to remind me I'm a runner.

And it sowed a seed of enthusiasm for the days ahead.

Up Helps Me Up From Down

2008-04-09T15:29:00.002-07:00

Upwards is the only direction in which you can escape the world. Which is why I hiked for 8 miles around the southeastern quadrant of Griffith Park today.

Walking a couple of thousand feet above the urban carpet of LA quelled the worry the last time I did it and it quelled the worry again today.

I don't know why it works. Does contemplating the size and scope of the world free you from the prison of detail and make you feel more privileged to be alive? Perhaps.

Does the removal of the anxiety-inducing stimuli of city life (people you envy; products you want) clear out the lungs and allow for deeper breaths? Perhaps.

I'm A Passenger

2008-04-08T12:47:00.005-07:00

I spend a lot of time on public transport shuttling between Echo Park (home) and Pasadena (shrink). There is no easy route. The journey involves one of the following: a 20-minute bus ride followed by a 30-minute bus ride; a 10-minute bus ride followed by a 30-minute metro ride; or a 30-minute walk followed by a 30-minute metro ride. I choose depending on my mood. Can I fight the inertia and make myself enjoy the extra exercise of the dull walk through to Chinatown? Or, instead, do I lazily subject my buttocks for that much longer to the deadening effect of badly designed seats? Today I mustered the enthusiasm for the Chinatown walk and, narrowly missing a train, had plenty of platform time in which to contemplate what might be going on in the lives and minds of my fellow passengers.

Sleep Tight

2008-04-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

The most disturbing kind of outdoor mattress is the battered outdoor mattress that once belonged to a child. The combination of frolicking storybook characters and taped-up rips suggests fear, loss of innocence, sadness and abduction.

But maybe I'm projecting.

Flies & Rides

2008-04-06T10:16:00.001-07:00

The good thing about today's run was the mileage. Nearly 13. One of my longest runs of 2008.

The bad thing about today's run was the riverside infestation. Cloud after cloud of flies. My sweat-drenched face acted like flypaper and every few seconds I had to wipe it clean, only to see my palm full of black and bloody dots. But, when I got home and wondered why J was staring open-mouthed at me, I realised I had forgotten about my neck.

The run was hot, flat and hard. I followed the river for the longest uninterrupted stretch I ever have: from the spaghetti junction of 110 and 5 all the way to the sandy tunnel into Griffith Park.

I came back through the park and took the dull, shabby nothing of Riverside Drive to Stadium Way.

I finished by cutting through Elysian Park and gawping at all the customised cars being corralled by frightening tattooees in preparation for the Sunday morning lowrider convention.

This almost-half-marathon was comfortable enough. It should get me thinking about marathons to come. But it probably won't.

The Future Of The Present And The Past

2008-04-05T13:24:00.001-07:00

The one-year anniversary of Modus Eundi is approaching and I don't know whether I'll be celebrating it with a birthday party or a wake. At times like this I feel I've said all I want to say or can say. I don't have the energy or inclination to do what lots of bloggers do and scour the web for links and the world for wild experiences. I talk about running, cities, my mind and the past. From where I'm standing, they are four corners of a finite space. And I've ploughed, sown and harvested in that space for a year. I'm running out of unbroken ground. I'm writing more for the sake of writing more. I beat myself with the rod of daily routine and it hurts.

So perhaps a wake. And then, after the last celebrant has left the house, perhaps a reincarnation. But this might all be the diseased mind talking. With a shift in neurochemistry and outlook, perhaps the perhapses will become definitely nots.

House Of Meetings

2008-04-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

"Then came the flinch: the two inverted chevrons in the middle of the brow, the pleading rictus. It couldn't not be there: fear of failure. Fear of failure, which was perhaps supposed to keep men honest, but turned out to make them mad."

Not Inclined

2008-04-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

Whenever I find myself in the caged walkway alongside the 110 freeway, I'm heading south and putting the finishing touches to a run home from Pasadena. Today, I ran the walkway in the other direction to connect up with the beginning of the LA River footpath.

At the hub of road, river and rail that marks the end of the walkway, I descended the spiral staircase. Descending felt more appropriate than ascending. The staircase is filthy and full of freeway flotsam and jetsam. It looks like it should lead to hell.

Remembering back to when I last ran alongside the river, I noticed that little had changed.

Just the constant, low-intensity, birth-death flux of gang graffiti.

And some minor reconfigurations of homeless home comforts.

I got off the river at Fletcher and, as my calves felt the pinch of the undulating no man's land of Riverside Drive and Alessandro Street, I reflected that the flat few miles of river footpath made a welcome change in a world full of hills.