5 years ago, I sat down and decided to write without a reason.
That was June 4 in 2016.
Today I return to that text that began with “I continue to deal in broad brushstrokes as well as details best handled by either a 2 H pencil or a finely tipped ink type thing.”
The broad-brush strokes are partial to charcoal, 4B pencils and silence. I added this sentence today. And continued to edit and introduce new lines. I also leave some of the original text unaltered. I guess this is a metaphor for my life.
Needs and wishes arrive and the task I choose is to translate them into a myriad of appearances.
There is a factor wrapped in figures, numbers that translate into costs for the receiver and for the provider. Important for both is the balance between investment and return on the said investment – they call that ROI. Perhaps this can be extended to an ROE – a return on existence.
Much is reduced to shortened forms, by necessity of time and the ability to concentrate and not.
I returned to this text with the idea of an ‘audit’ – checking what I could still identify with. When I wrote it I was at a different stage in my life – in this current stage I find myself and myself finds me in a process of shaping time and activity differently than I used to. Differently than it shaped me.
I embarked on this short text (5 years ago) as a spring-board into words and written expression. A flippant wish to do a bit of writing gave rise to an equally superficial consideration of how I should begin.
Beginnings suggest endings and to end this foray into the landscape of the alphabet I shall take my slightly aching left hand’s index finger as a chance to seek out the final full-stop.
Having had the finger scratched by a beautiful cat a few days back – the scratch is the source of some pain. A healing process that is reluctant to heal. It’s a right bugger of a minor irritation. It is.
I cannot, today, recall that specific pain but the beautiful cat has since moved on. I continue to miss him and sometimes to the point of wetness finding a place within and around my eyes.
We refer to what we do, where we live and what our passions are – seeking to create a multi-dimensional snap-shot of who we are. In the text I wrote 5 years ago I began with my job, allowing myself the liberty of extrapolation, of a feisty thrust into divergence – I both undermined a cohesion as well as attempting a trajectory of sense.
The sense of the original text was me the key account manager coupling that job title with activities and pursuits that bled outside and beyond the employment definition.
I work therefore I am is not where my raison d’etre resides. It is also not covered by I think therefore I am. The universe of emotion is also not a catchall place I would define myself by.
“It is getting late“, is what I wrote 5 years ago. Right now, it is late morning, the hum of the computer mixes with an ambient sound from outside, of passing cars, distant footsteps and the soft clicking of the keyboard as I type.
I reflected back then on the burning issues of the day – the state of the climate. The uncertainty of all nation states. The pull and push of the uncertain nation states to forge unions, embrace and seek a togetherness – or not. Today, five years later those issues remain relevant and have been joined by the pandemic. A pandemic that is, over one year after it impacted the world, abating in many parts of the world. But not everywhere and not to the same extent universally. Covid-19 will continue to define 202. But I diverge.
I like being with people and I also like being alone. Between those two likes is a multiverse of likeness and difference – and I love that. It’s never boring.
I decide to delete a few sentences of the original text. It wasn’t of any significance. As if what I have not deleted is.
I close my eyes, let my shoulders relax and sink a little. I hear the birds singing and feel a very gentle breeze creep across my left forearm.
I accept all this the way dust invades the tops of wardrobes – without anyone noticing.
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