contrast

both/and

“I’m speaking in a bit of a hushed tone as I’m tucked away in my seat on a very slow moving train into London. We’re crawling along. There’s been low cloud for days. It’s funny how the half-light can act as an invitation to the shadow in me.

I just caught a glimpse of my face in the train window, my reflection, and I noticed my eyebrows were raised in an arc of surprise, as I was remembering the loneliness that shaped so many of the terrible decisions I’ve made. Now we’ve come to a stop, on a bridge over Brixton. The green of a traffic light is pooling onto Atlantic Road, below. I can’t see the actual technology, just it’s reflection on the rain-slick road, and now it’s turned red and the light is picking out the edge of the street.

A bus just went by, wrapped in an ad for a fashion designer I haven’t heard of. At some point we’ll all decline what we’re being sold. There was an old man running for the bus, and he raised his folded umbrella in an attempt to be noticed—but he wasn’t and it pulled away. I see you Sir, not the outcome you were after I know, but I witnessed your toil and send you my best wishes in this moment of disappointment.

We share a need to be seen, perhaps it’s the parts of ourselves that we keep hidden that need attention the most. We have all suffered neglect and we have all been neglectful, and those who neglected us were themselves not always seen, amongst the eddies and whirlpools of existence.

The following reading might sound contrasting in tone from what you’re hearing in my words now but I see the shift as part of a continuum, an uplift in the waveform, part of the thrill of the rise and fall.”

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By all metrics, we are made of extraordinary stuff: cosmic matter, vibrating lightning-electrons, elements organised into cell and substance—but to what purpose am I dedicating my own improbable collection of interconnected molecules? 

We can make an art form of everyday life, choreographing our movement through time and space as we feel into the pull of gravity, distilling the senses: light and sound, scent, taste and touch, into the spirit of meaning. 

This alchemy is helped along by the Muses, if we are willing to lay ourselves open to them. 

I have faith in my own brilliance and at the same time, cannot locate it. I just know it’s out there somewhere, like an extraterrestrial that’s been waiting for me to evolve enough to be worthy of contact. 

In the meantime, I write a couple of paragraphs a day, each one a transmission, an invitation to connect, guided along by the Muses as I search for meaning.

My expressions emerge in part, from the light of inspiration, and partly from the light of my own imagination. 

Within this pool of light sits all that I know, and beyond its edge—all that I don’t. 

I try to balance on the threshold line where they meet, where the fear of loneliness transforms into a love of solitude.

Perhaps you’ll join me, we can perch together on the horizontal axis between animals and gods, and from there, if we remain open, we might be gifted the chance to touch into the realms of both — meaning all. 

Music by Yoav