Dreamstate: Boarding School Reminiscences Part I of MCXVIII

(Previously inscribed in my diary):

Seeming like a dream became in itself an extremely familiar state for me in my entire childhood.

When I was going to boarding school we got four-day breaks at half term. All the boys would go home, and most of the time we did too. When we were living in Zaire it became surreal: Geoff and I would board the plane from London to Brussels and then from Brussels to Kinshasa. I think it might have been overnight; in fact yes, I do remember always arriving early in the morning. So one day we woke up in our beds at school, and the next we were in Kinshasa, driving home for breakfast (which neither of us ate) which usually meant that I smoked much more and then hung out with Chris all day.

I have no idea what Geoff did.

We would fuck around for that day and the next, and then that afternoon—the one of the third day—we would drive to the airport and board the plane for Brussels.

We arrived the morning of the 4th day and got to school (by train, I believe, although I no longer remember how—Geoff was conducting) by early afternoon. The rest of the boys were not due back until the evening, so we would be alone in the house.

I remember one time we returned with pot, and I with the album Obscured By Clouds, which had just come out. So if it had just come out that means this must have been Autumn Term . . .

I remember smoking most of a joint—Geoff didn't smoke pot, for his own reasons; probably because it made him feel bad. It made me feel bad too, but I smoked it anyway, because of course it was cool to smoke pot—and listening to Obscured on headphones.


But yes . . . I remember anticipating the dream-feeling when getting back to school, and always being amazed when it occurred. The voices of my family actually echoed in my brain, and sometimes, awful times, I would actually hear snatches of my mother's voice, emanating from some random sound—a floorboard creaking or a door slamming. It sounded so much like my mother yelling Nicholas! but of course it never was.

But the physical transition from being in Chris's bedroom to sitting on my dormitory bed was so profound that "dream" is too light a word for it.

At least the Japan trip is long enough that a monstrous gap is created in which you can decompress and also pre-compress for what is about to hit you.

But the Africa-England and even England-New York transitions were tough . . .