A part-continuation from my last read: A Eye which features a visual narrative titled ‘in the silent channel’ (page-spread no.10).
On (an)other salt path
…And for too long I’ve felt the carefulness of truth. The ways that the things I can’t-not-say become timid and jumbled, trapping my vocal chords deeper into a washed-out silence,
disrupted by
the way that Manal reminds me of the strange exhaustion of calibrating truth for it to be palatable
the ways that truth subverts expectations, uttering its non-sense during the most mundane moments at the kitchen sink
the ways truth lives in formless edges, waking me at dawn from what I can’t quite remember, but what the body doesn’t forget.
Like the fine blade
between dreaming and waking
moving like water
dissolving into skies
that blurry horizon
hard to catch.
Silence vs silencing
Silence and silencing.
Same and different. It is and it isn’t?
You know what I mean?
The way silence is a mode of survival too.
The way silence is held captive by what we can’t face, suppressing what needs to be released.
The way we excitedly demand silence to un-silence itself (!?!)
The ways silence howls for protection too.
And all the the ways that silence can bind itself without any help at all. The forgotten moments when silence can just
be
drifting in the wind felt from waves crashing on the shoreline
soaring and landing with birdsong as we breathe in the grassiness of grass
returning with ancient gifts when we finally catch the breath we didn’t realise we needed
(in)significance
Silence and the expansiveness of time.
Me/We in silence. Silence in Me/We.
The ways we’re all significant and insignificant, everyw(here) and nowhere, all at once.
Time : both significant and insignificant.
You can’t claim it, catch it, take it, save it, reduce it, make it, waste it. Time is just time (“you fool”, says time).
Like art, time doesn’t care for our opinions about it.
Why do we often still struggle to find the words and rituals to mark the significance of us and our time together in this slow-fleeting-speck of history?
RESisTing history repeating itself again and again..
When did rest become a luxury?
Especially in times when we can afford it, and yet we cannot grant ourselves the right to claim it?
A plea to our heavy heads and fragile bodies : might we be busy surviving, to even consider this question?
Thinking time, liminality, s p a c e : it’s expensive stuff.
Truth
Truth [tro͞oTH]. Or 真 [zan1].
Once upon a time, at the stroke of midnight, lightning came. And I noticed how this ancient Chinese character for what’s true looks like a path to a gravestone.
So I drew it out…
…And then I gave the hollowed form some body and landscape. (aka colouring-in with some expensive stationery).
With/in the quieter spaces
Some wise pictures that met me in silence:
And some words:
Dear Tommy
Some writing that paddled out from my retreat away from the hateful loudness in the UK September 2025 ❤️🩹 We seem to be getting a bit too used to this volume now.
2026: dialling up the volume amp to 11 is now the new 1 it seems.
?? Question
Is there such a thing as the city of eternal spring?
Kunming 昆明 has that honourable reputation. But does that make it true?
It’s not spring without autumn seducing us with its fiery burnt orange and wilted soggy mulch. (And I do love winter when I can earthworm without explanation).
Things need to dis-integrate before they can be re-formed into something we cannot yet imagine?
Is how we ‘get there’ more important than the ‘there’?
Honouring silence: some thinking-notes is a continuation from my last read: A Eye – which features a visual narrative titled ‘in the silent channel’ (page-spread no.10).
Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to water them roots.
Bye-for-now,
