Look for me another day.
I feel that I could change,
I feel that I could change.
There’s a sudden joy that’s like
a fish, a moving light;
I thought I saw it
rowing on the lakes of Canada
I was once told that the universe is bigger than my mind could hold. This is not true, the universe can’t hold all that my mind is. There is an edge to the universe, there isn’t an edge to me. And I love to stand on edges. The edge of the Iberian peninsula, looking across a boundless ocean and a limitless sky, the edge of the Fens, gazing north into nothing and everything, the edge of Western Europe, bounded in by a grey horizon. I love standing on the edges.
I was never told that I was anything, but as an angel once told me, I am everything to someone. I can’t quite get rid of my need for material things, as material things cover our heads and keep us warm. A trap of our own making, all the same. Sharper edges.
And the more I consider culture, context and edges, the more I can see. I love the idea of cultures being contemporary, in everything but time. I love the idea that upsets the arrogance of the late 19th century mindset (for that is still what we have), that we are some sort of pinnacle. We aren’t. Our science and our philosophy is just that, ours. Standing on the shoulders of giants? Sure, but don’t tell me it is more than any other culture, nor tell me it is better. You explain to me why there wasn’t the same depth perspective in pre-Enlightment painting. (Or even earlier, I guess.)
Oh laughing man, what have you won?
Don’t tell me what cannot be done.
My little mouth, my winter lungs,
don’t tell me what can’t be done.
Walking in the circle of a flashlight
someone starts to sing, to join in.
I used to write, in this place and others, of what was happening to me, around me, as seen by me. I don’t any more, probably one of the reasons my posting is sporadic. It all has to mean something, but not in the sense you imagine. εκ του κοσμου ουκ εισιν καθως εγω εκ του κοσμου ουκ ειμι if I was going to quote anything. Who are they? They that are with me, in body or spirit, they who are also not of this world. They who will be seven, but I have passed only five.
Yes, the more I think of context and culture, all I see are the edges. But not an edge to fall from, an edge to fall into. And edges are all space, time has nothing to do with. How is there anything other than space? For I loved you in a place, and I love you in this place. It is only space that separates us.
How can your mind not range, freed of life, escaping in the noise of nature, the silence enveloped by the noise, the edge cutting through the silent noise. It is all you can do not to stretch your arms out, arch your back, and salute.
Talk of loneliness in quiet voices.
I am shy but you can reach me.
Rowing on the lakes of Canada,
rowing on the lakes of Canada.
Everything is context, and I am tending to talk more in the abstract, to think more in abstracted connections, and make my speech, thinking and dealings even more rambling and convoluted than ever. This comes crashing down when my connections, my edges, range against others, who don’t like language, and what language means. Language and space. Our two edges.
