A Place With No Roof

Sitting at my white table last week, I was moved to look again at these pictures of my first days in that North London house. There was no roof on my attic room, just bare rafters at the top of the stairs. That place and time was so loaded with impossible hopes - somehow this sad but delicious light drawing us in sums it up... and I wasn't sure then whether I should be looking up or down.



This third photograph shows me sitting in what was to become the white table position, and I remember being perched up there on the bare rafters wondering how life might feel with a roof on it again, heck, even a front door would have been simply beautiful. But despite the sadness, these images hold for me a calm quietness that I still carry today through the anarchy of all life's build projects.

It's a curious thing, to realise even when you think you're at your weakest you're building strong muscles for later on.


{Today's soundtrack: news headlines about Tony Blair standing down}