THE NAKED APE

Friday 12 March

I can’t help but feel at home in old grey wintry Reading, cycling down to town covered in heavy clothes, feeling the cold wet wind on my face, smiling: I have everything I want from life, and yet some.
I notice the small changes, here and there, shops gone and new ones sprouted in their stead but I make my way like an old horse to smelly alley and have a flap-jack with a cup of crappy English coffee in a Ken Loach set.

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Monday 15 March

Down to London for the week-end to hang out with Danny Boy and his Irish girlfriend, drinking a million pints of ale in pubs all over town, and then Sunday roast with young Ben the filmmaker. Memory lane brings me to Soho to have a cappuccino at Bar Italia with its old picture of Rocky Marciano, sitting out in a surprisingly sunny sunshine, across the street from Ronnie Scott’s and his neon sax.

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Friday 19 March

Heathrow again. I leave bleary England with a warm feeling in my heart, fueled by good friends and a welcome splash of university life. Intelligent people thinking (and bickering) together. Acid Chris and bright and fragile Paola, and an invisible tear shared in silence with Daniela, Goyo standing there between us.
A week of transition. A few days of winter before the hot Mexican spring. Two pages of a diary that mark the end of a trip; the monkey dressed in silk undoes his robes and drops them to the ground: he waves good-bye. He is standing in front of you, perfectly naked.