Comfortably numb

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Today was one of those days where felt very divorced from reality. Sort of far away or deep down in a cocoon of apathy ...bathed in the light of indifference. I was still functioning and able to talk and respond but my mind was a million miles away... odd how it feels so much easier to say 'miles' than 'kilometres'. Kilometre is such a clumsy word.

All around me people seem to be having quite a hard time. Friends breaking up, getting into entanglements with unscrupuous characters or suffering from illness. I know so many people who are struggling against cancer at the moment I feel almost overwhelmed by it. Is the world passing through a celestial cloud of ill omen or is it just because I'm getting to the age where death amongst one's fellows is more common? So far 2007 has not shaped up to be much of a year, but its not reached the horror of 2001 yet (probably the worst year of my life thus far).

There is good news too though. Babies being born and yet more babies on the way. I had another test done and it was negative. I at least am not dying of cancer though I sometimes feel that way. I recently read that men of my age suffer more angst than teenagers and I can well believe it, though I think I'd be happier in my mind if I were not always falling prey to illness.

When I was a teenager in the late 80's I'd serenade my angst (I liked to nurture my depressions back then) with some glorious Pink Floyd. This was in the days before 'The Delicate Sound of Thunder' destroyed my rapture. The days when I lived in hope eternal that the band would survive and create another masterpiece the likes of 'Shine on you Crazy Diamond' or 'Comfortably Numb'. Alas it was not to be. Like all good things must come to pass, so to did the genius of Waters and Gilmore. Gone now forever.

The wonderful thing about music in our golden age though is that we can remember it for as long as we can produce electricity. If only we could remember our friends in the same way. Sometimes, a song or a passage of radio play reminds me of something ephemeral. A drawing or painting I was working on when I first heard it, or in the case of Pink Floyd or the Cure, I remember the emotions I felt regarding my friend Anette Føns Andersen. To this day the music serves as a catalyst for the emotional return of that angst ridden teenage love and the sweet feeling it gives is almost as potent now as it was then. But am I mourning myself or her memory?