Had lunch with someone today and we discussed compromise. We decided to both put our thoughts into words.

Her view was: there should be no such thing in compromise in a relationship and that 1 + 1 = 2.

My view is the 'or' or 'and' debate. In a relationship with no compromise, its and 'or' relationship. It's either you or me, my way or your way, my dreams or your dreams. 'And' is a compromise, me and you, your dreams and my dreams, your way and my way combining to make to. Infact, what I believe my friend has failed to realise in her description is that her sum is the sum of a compromise that 1 and 1 should make 2. They don't make 11, they are not two individual 1's.

Discuss.

But I'm right.

During the last year, some days have passed me by without incident and others have smacked me full in the face. Today, I felt I had a pretty good day.

However, in the way that always happens, I've been waiting for a text from someone all evening to know that they are safe and well. In my book, there is nothing more upsetting than planning to receive a bit of information and then be powerless to receive it - and that is what is currently happening. For some unknown reason, just at the moment I needed my phone to work - it's died. Completely void of use for the one thing it's for. It's on, and every feature is working it just won't connect.

So I'm without signal. Literally. I don't know how that person is or how they are feeling. Worst of all, I can't send my support and wishes. It's all very strange. I guess that sometimes it's good to be silent. Alone without connection to anyone else. It makes you wonder if we're now all too reliant on connection and whether being permanently connected means that actually you're never truly connected at all.

What does it mean to lose signal with other people. How do you know when you've dropped your connection and can't dial into them anymore. Texting, blogging, instant messaging, phoning, emailing, facebooking.....I'm more connected than I've ever been to my friends and family, yet more of them feel lonely, troubled, misunderstood, misrepresented than every before.

Long ago, the only way I knew had to communicate was through songs. Makes me wonder if I should go back to that and quit communicating without saying anything at all.........

Take 20 seconds and really look at this painting.

The painting above is by Cornish primitive artist, Alfred Wallis (1855-1942). Wallis lived in St Ives and was a fisherman and 'marine stores' dealer. He lived a very simple life, marrying a widow 20 years his senior and inherited a family from her first marriage. When his wife died, he took up painting for company in his 70's using bits of scrap card and board, old boat paint from his scrap merchant days and used the primitive paintings as payment for bread, meals and other essentials.

Living in a tiny fishermans cottage in the fisherman's quarters, Wallis painted every day on anything he could find as he got older until one day he was discovered by Ben Nicolson and Christopher Wood (British Artists) who took his work to London and latterly to James Ede at University of Cambridge. Ede then bought paintings from Wallis by the bundle for many years for a shilling a bundle, preserving over 120 of his paintings at Kettles Yard, University of Cambridge.

Wallis was taken to the Madron Institute (poorhouse) where he died aged 87.

So why have a blogged all this. Well, the answer is simple. Wallis knew nothing about painting. He'd never been taught and hardly schooled. He painted because he wanted to and painted scenes from his own life. The picture above shows four fishing boats in the wake of a large fish (possibly a whale). The men look so weathered, so cold - the water so real. The sea is animated, the waves so true and alive. This was his reality. He saw this scene, felt the wind, tasted the sea - all before the first plane had flown, before the world had first fought its two wars and when sails were only just being replaced by engines.

Wallis died recalling his life on scraps of card, alone in a backstreet with people thinking his paintings were worthless. He would have been buried in a paupers grave had some of Londons most famous artists not rescued him and bought him a plot at St Ives cemetery where he now lays.

Alfred was my great, great, Uncle. His portrait was hung on my childhood stairwell wall and I thought nothing of him until I started looking at my family history a few years ago. At 30, I look back at my life and wish that i could so openly share with people images of the things that I have seen, the things and experiences that have shaped me. I can't draw or paint and I believe that there is a social commentary in Alfred's work that is lost on our time.

With boat paint and card, I've seen into Alfred's life. I've smelt his sea and breathed his air.

I wonder how I will be remembered if I live to 87. What will my legacy be? If I can be remembered by people for simply telling the story of my life for little reward - I will die a happy man.

There’s no one here to answer your God forsaken voice,
I’ll take a vow of celibacy, you don’t leave me much choice,
So take away the things you left me with that are not mine,
So I can forget you,
I can forget you.

There’s no one here to comprehend your changing state of mind,
I’ll take a vow of silence, leave the spoken world behind,
So take away the things you left me with that are not mine,
So I can forget you,
I can forget you.

I don’t believe I’ve seen you anywhere before,
Sorry if I have but I don’t know you anymore.
Such a pretty face, but such an ugly whore,
Once upon a time I loved you, now I close the door.

There’s no one here to exorcise the demon in your soul,
The excommunication of compassion is now whole
So take away the love you left me with that is not mine,
So I can forget you,
I can forget you.

There’s nothing left to recognise of you who once was crowned,
Shadows of your conscience scattered on this sacred ground,
I’ll make myself a part of the eternal monastery of sound
Once upon a time I loved you but now that love has drowned.

my taken breath,
held in trust by lungs akin to wheezing
rather than the fulfilling of my blood,
sharply removes itself through my mouth.

it cuts and grazes,
over a barrelled tongue and whisping
through a cavern of broken words
to exhume itself from the dark.

the rushing of air,
rattles the vessels and details of my chest
to leave nothing but a space,
an empty tree of that cannot leaf until desperate winds return.

then nothing.
nothing but a gasping and motion to my jaw
that achieves a further nothing in itself.

I am emptied.

eyes widen,
letting in a desperate light that dances around
the labyrinth where inhalation once was heard,
muffled by skull but constant from birth.

with panic
sweeping through my nervous strings limb by limb,
swelling like a chorus of gulls
burning my blue veins.

I begin to ripen,
as marbled lines rise to the surface,
freezing my body with fear
like mummies in the choking ash.

the tension drops
And the drip of remembrance creates a vacuum
as anticipation beats a rhythm against it’s cage.
the mist lifting to reveal a wave moving with the tide.

and I am drowned
in air and hope that loss will not incur a wrath
as life returns to where the word
once committed its crime.

(by me 18/11/07)

Just a very quick blog tonight.

I had two unusual experiences today. The first was losing my voice through talking after 2 hours in meetings with a staff member in my team. It's rather strange to go from confident speech to chipmunk over the course of a long conversation. The second was spending the evening with a friend in the most comforting and relaxed fashion I ever have with them.

We sat watching tv, chatting, listening to music and I felt very close to them in their company tonight. Considering there have been several moment of trauma for both of us in the last year and no doubt there are some to come, it was great to get to a point of relaxation mid week which really left me with a sense of happiness and fulfillment.

It's a rare treat to be able to blog something positive, although having let my guard down slightly by paying my friend a direct complement that maybe was a bit out of order, I think we had a pretty good night.

Huzzah.

I was talking today with a chum about blogging and how I'm really not very good at it yet. As you all know, I'm really keen on photography and it dawned on me that really, photographing is blogging to a degree - capturing how you see the world and trying to share it with others. The photo above is how I see a friend of mine who normally does anything she can to avoid photos full stop. She either does her 'facebook face' as a friend of mine puts it or avoids the whole sequence of camera, shutter, capture.

Take a moment to look at the photo. The woman in it has been close to the centre of my life for 12 years. I've lived with her, loved her dearly, studied with her, grown up with her, cried with her, laughed with her and seen her transform into a mother all before she reaches 30 later this month.

One of the best things about photography (and blogging to a degree) is the capacity to reflect on a truth. My truth. The way I see things and want things to be seen by others. All this is well and good, but I never appear in photos because I'm behind the camera. Today, I talked in length with someone about how I perform for people and since 4 years old have put on a show to everyone I come in to contact with. There are two people I know who in their own way also put on a show and look deeply fragile at times when the curtain falls and they can't cope.

From my vantage point, behind the viewfinder, it's often hard to persuade people that I'm as fragile as everyone else. How wonderful it would be to take a photo of myself that was as I wanted others to see me. Maybe I'll try - but truth is eventually inescapable and I hope I can capture in music, photo or words the truth of who I am as soon as I know for myself because sharing it will be the best way of coming to terms with who I truly am.

What a week. It's only 7 weeks in to my new job and last week I was deputising for the boss. Director no less! I've found it hard to blog this week because it's been a very strange week for almost everyone i know in one way or another. Some have been happy as Larry, some have been at the absolute end of what they can handle.

A friend of mine who lives in London, who has made a huge impression on me in 2007, has been the calm at the eye of the storm this week and has been quiet as a mouse. It's times like these when hell is breaking loose that you look to the people who can control themselves and you just enough to bring you through the other side.

There's nothing more comforting than someone being honest with you when you feel others are hiding something. I can't yet decide whether the fireworks tonight were the last I'd see in the week ahead. I think the fireworks I've left behind could be a prelude to the fireworks coming.