Journal

Antarctica
 

Today, for reasons I can’t quite name, I found myself wanting to explain Antarctica to you. That presumes, of course, that you have never been. If you have, then you already know why I cannot explain it at all.
 

How does one describe the unimaginable.
 

It is a place where I can shout until my lungs burn and the sound will never return to me. No echo. No answer. Just disappearance.

But that is not the real reason.
 

I remember now. I wanted to tell you about the sunset. It happens half an inch above the ice. A sun without the colours of a rainbow. No red, no gold, nothing familiar. Yet it sinks with a beauty so complete it feels invented. The ice catches fire, briefly, as if the world is remembering something ancient, and then the Atlantic extinguishes it.
 

Everything stops.
 

Gone.
 

And all that remains is me.

 

 

Cooking
 

I bought mince, red peppers, onions, and tomatoes. I set myself the adventure of cooking.
 

I reasoned that a man who has eaten raw fish while lost on ice should be equal to pasta. Pasta is not hostile terrain. Pasta does not move.

I made something. The something was good. The pasta, however, bonded permanently to the base of the pan. A failure of modern science, clearly. Teflon, my arse.
 

There was bread. Four days old. Bread forgives much.
 

I sent the pan back to the manufacturer, who had claimed nothing would stick to it, with a note asking what they thought the problem might be.

 

Romance
 

It’s not as though I’ve been in love enough times to speak with authority.
 

I’ve read the stories. According to Mr Mills and Mr Boon, you kiss on the shore, walk into the sunset, and are never seen again.

I suspect this is poor reporting.

 

Religion
 

Dear God,
 

I’ve never been good at prayers. I was always in trouble at school for praying with my eyes open. I wanted to see who I was talking to.

I want to recommend someone to you for safekeeping. Her name is Lara Lincoln.
 

I cannot tell you she isn’t trouble. I cannot tell you she isn’t, at times, a monumental pain in the arse. But she has touched people. She has given joy.

She is my true friend.
 

Please look after her.
 

Yours sincerely,

Harry Hogg

 

Writing
 

The stories I write belong to no one but me. They are not borrowed. They are not borrowed feelings either.
 

They are my cries, my despairs, my jubilation, my brief triumphs.
 

I don’t understand why I was chosen to do this, but for God’s sake I’ve tried to bring beauty into the world. I’ve been blessed in a way that isolates me. I don’t relate easily anymore. I am confused most of the time.
 

My body wants to reach out to people, to say hello, to ask what’s happening, to know everything. Only the love of my children has been worth holding onto without question.

 

Children
 

I spent years telling myself my children don’t belong to me. That I was merely charged with raising them, loving them, preparing them for the day they would leave.
 

I tried to set examples. Integrity. Humility. Direction.
 

Sometimes I was lazy. You think you have years. You don’t. One day the world takes them and doesn’t ask permission.
 

I never met all of my children’s expectations. They have met all of mine.
 

I am very proud of my children.

​

Polly put the kettle on.
 

We'll all have tea,

​​

Cancer
 

Through biofeedback I learned that the body can be spoken to. Quietly. Firmly.
 

Heart rate. Blood pressure. Breath.
 

Visual imagery became a tool. I relax. I picture the cancer. I picture it being dismantled. I picture my body recognising the enemy and doing what it was built to do.
 

I want to be well.

I do not want to die.

I really do not.
 

This is a mindset.
 

I am winning.

I will not be beaten.

 

On Being Lost
 

I want to say so much to you, but what’s the rush.
 

I’ll come to you. I’ll be with you. I’ll share myself. I’ll be your friend. I’ll love you as best I can.
 

In return, I ask that you care for me. Care for our friendship. Care for my privacy.
 

We know each other well enough not to be afraid. I will look after your emotions. I will be fair with them.
 

Let’s start there.

 

Nature
 

“Would anybody call you beautiful now?” I asked a dead jellyfish washed up on the beach this morning.
 

I knelt beside it. The colours were muted, colours a colour-blind man might see. Mauves, perhaps. Violets. Domed patterns.
 

It was quite dead.

It was quite beautiful.
 

Later, I saw children poking it with a stick.
 

Sometimes the way we learn things feels unnecessarily cruel.

 

Success Before Growing Up
 

Did I understand silence before I understood the shore. Before sand. Before two people in love who did not need to speak.
 

I think I did.
 

A life lived in fear of rejection. An unnamed hurt. A feeling that refuses translation.
 

I was a boy on the shore. The wind, the waves, the tide took me in and made me whole. I hid in words. Petticoat words. Invented seas.

Writing in my room. Afraid to show anyone.
 

Just a boy with the unreasonable dream of being something to everyone.

 

Success After Growing Up
 

Do you know what remains?
 

Fear.
 

After everything. After the journeys. After moments that felt like perfection. After the moving and the arriving.
 

I have arrived at a place where fear lives quietly and waits.
 

And that, too, must be written down.