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Meditations

The physicality of writing

11/30/2017

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Picture
Writing is a thing of the mind. It is in essence the arrangement and placement of words, a very virtual reality. Unlike visual art, which is made out of paint and paper and ink and wood and clay and suchlike, writing seems to be pretty much distanced from any physical reality. Or so you might think.
 
But it is not so. Why, in the dead of night, when I should have been off to bed, have I suddenly come to this black-on-white conclusion? Because of a pen.
 
Ours is a household well-populated with writing instruments. There is one on top of the fridge, one on the veranda, one or more at each computer, one on each bedside table, a few for every car, some extras in a drawer, and one in just about every bag, computer bag, handbag or backpack – you get the idea. The slightest rumour of pen drought has me scurrying off to buy some more.
 
One can never have too many pens or notebooks.
 
In general pens in their physicality are either unobtrusive or annoying. A few months ago, through some inane contribution to the pages of Reader’s Digest, I was awarded a fancy fountain pen. Valued at forty dollars, I was told. I did not like it. Its tip felt scratchy on the page. It jarred my senses and sensitivities. I was glad when its ink finally ran out.
 
Most of the time I don’t even notice the character of pens. Seldom do they give me any pleasure. When writing, I much prefer a pencil. It might be some association with drawing or maybe a childhood memory of learning to write – soft on the upward stroke and harder on the down. But then, I was taught to write with a paintbrush on the back of my mother’s paintings, so that can’t be right either.
 
However that may be, the pen that is keeping me up tonight is a cheap three dollar one* I picked up from the local news agent. I love the feeling of the marks it makes on paper.
 
It slips and slides and wriggles
it whips out words
it waltzes
across the white expanse
ready to churn out a poem a story a novel a dance
 
(I cannot put it away yet.
I will let it play yet.
Give it free reign, why not?)
 
Let me tell you a story, any story, my life story. Or give me a list to jot down or a letter to write. Just don’t let the words dry up tonight.
 
Oh, for the physicality of writing!
 
Oh, for the love of a pen!
 
* If you needed to know, this one is called Papermate FlexiGrip Ultra 0.8F.
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Words get in the way

11/16/2017

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I love words; there’s no denying my addiction. Words in and for themselves: languorous, confabulation, gossamer, ethereal… Even more so in my native Afrikaans: koekemakranka, bollemakiesie, abjater, pypkan, verkneukel, ietermagog. I could go on for hours. And don’t get me started on word etymologies, tracing a word back to its first blooming hundreds of years ago.
 
But. Sometimes, words get in the way.
 
A current trend on Facebook made me realise to what extent we have become drowned in mediocre words. The aim is to post a black and white photo every day for seven days, a snippet of your life, but with no explanation. You have to ignore the impulse to “say something about this”. Just post the photos. Sans words.
 
How refreshing and intriguing to see the images and wonder about the what, where and why. Their meanings slip away or become manifold. They remain a mystery, an enigma. We have become so used to adding a tag to everything, to explain exactly what it means, laying bare its anatomy to the very sun-bleached bones.
 
In the same way, we often explain away the mystery of art and poetry. It is not enough that a painting or poem touches us to the core. We are not satisfied with being left breathless and in awe. We always have to add our two cents’ worth, to “go and spoil it all by saying something stupid”.
 
I do not deny the fact that analysis and explanation can enhance an artwork. Knowing the backstory, the intertextuality of a work – the references, the artist’s life story, the myths and archetypes – can indeed give us a deeper understanding thereof. Digging up the makings of a poem or spelunking for the buried bones of a painting can be just as satisfying as following the trail of a word back to its origin in a long lost language.
 
But there is a time and a place for silence as well.
 
Sometimes we just have to shut up and listen. We have to see the butterfly’s iridescence without having to spike it on a pin. We have to remain breathless. Speechless.
 
Aquiver with the tintinnabulation of stars. Ineffable.

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Thoughts like scattered leaves

11/2/2017

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Picture
​The air has taken water, sucked it up through spindled roots cobwebbing into clouds and through them. It breathes.
 
Blue dragonflies alight on hair roots, catching the sun, merging, melting into a midsummer sky. They are here. Here they are. Not forsaken nor forbidden, but finding their flight tentatively through the humid skin of language.
 
It is no barrier. It is translucent and veined like a leaf that has spent the summer in shadow, hidden away with beetles and bugs. A wind settles like dew drops on the air, condenses on its branches, the branching tentacles of tongues.
 
So this is what air tastes like, this is cloud and earth and leaf litter scattered with inflorescence. This is essence. As if you didn’t know.
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