Power cut.

As usual it is late on the last night of the month and I am writing this blog post. I don't know what the purpose of this blog is, at the moment, and for the last several years. To show I'm still here, still going? Still putting something of myself out into the world? Hardly anyone, perhaps no-one, reads this blog. I see from the viewing stats that some posts have 0 views; a high number would be 4. Of course these figures don't count some people who are reading it, perhaps in RSS feeds, or in incognito mode, or in a private browser, or many other ways they might not be counted, but still, it's very few. I continue to write, but what does it mean to try and communicate if no-one is reading or listening? And when I don't know how to be myself, or how to be someone else, on this blog? I want to talk about my life, and more than that, about the truth, but it is hard to do that when simultaneously I am not comfortable revealing much personal detail about myself, and when what is happening to me, and what I think about things, is so bound up in my personal experience. I'm even less happy to reveal things about the people close to me, and much of the importance of my life consists in my relationships with others, especially those people I love and care about, so that cuts off another large dimension of my truth from being a topic for this blog. I'm not sure where this leaves me, or this blog, which I think I've been writing on for 15 years now. I also don't have the time to work out what I want this blog to function as, and many other things take priority over working that out, so it drifts along. I write something each month, and occasionally something meaningful, and I generally don't get to think further about what I want the blog to be, just get through it until the next month. There was a power cut last week in my neighbourhood, and I walked around, seeing familiar streets rendered strange. Things look different in the dark. Maybe that's an apt analogy for this blog - wandering around in the dark, trying to see what is revealed when the usual sources of light are taken away.

The urban trees look eerie. And above them in the city, the stars are now visible.

The familiar outlines of the streets are made unfamiliar and the trees take on greater power.

The stars are clearer. Here, the Plough over Portobello.

The electricity exchange, in darkness.

I feel safer in the dark.