No one is ever just saying.

Once and you’d think I’d learned my lesson. Thought I was being funny, saying “I’m going into the woods, carrying a gun, but I’m not hunting”. Maybe it was only reconnoissance, but it gave me a taste for the quarry and that’s a dangerous thing.

Once is a mistake. Twice, that’s quite another thing. Twice I paid a significant sum. Twice I organised events for a very long shot. Twice I almost pulled the trigger.

Not hunting? Sure. And now what? Now I’m settled — having committed, at least to some extent and I’m no longer hunting. But some history and some oblique references and it all comes back.

How committed am I anyway?

Indianapolis. That’s what triggered it. It came in a wave, unexpected, unwelcome and undeniable.

Indianapolis. I wasn’t there for more than six hours. A bus station, that’s all I saw but it brought it all back. That feeling, that rush, that urge to do something utterly irrational — all for the longest of long shots.

It ended in Portland, OR. Actually, it ended in Vancouver, WA. That was where I gave in, laid down my cards and folded. At one point I thought I had a winning hand, but nerves got the better of me, or was it common sense?

I don’t know now. My head says it was the right choice, but how can I ever know? I was that close to doing something truly courageous. I baulked. Now, 17 months later is apparently the time for second thoughts.