Yes, you’ve heard this line from a Maya Angelou poem… I was thinking about time, and how it doesn’t apply to dreams And if you know me, then you know by now that at some point my thoughts will always turn toward God . . . in this instance, the inventor of time. It’s awkward to think of life outside and apart from time, but to think about it, our dreams are like glimpses into this world. I look at my dog who is growling and barking in his sleep, his whole body is moving… so even animals can dream, or maybe just dogs. One time his leg twitched, so maybe he was chasing a cat in his dream. Since man’s infancy we have wondered about this thing, why we have it, or where it comes from, and if it has a deeper purpose and meaning. I could tell you that it’s a remnant of our forsaken spirituality, as we plunged into this moment of time called life. That it’s a fragrance or a hint of something more than the physical, of a place beyond the natural, a place without time. But we’re free to choose or imagine for ourselves, to attach our own meanings. I realise though, that this taste of a timeless place, is an entity often taken for granted, left unexplored or forgotten, relegated to superstition and fantasy… a playground for your subconscious imaginative power, nut nothing more. But contemplating our existence and the concept of an immortal soul and awakened spirit, the dream becomes more relevant, makes more sense if we are actually spiritual beings living in these temporary skins. But just like the dreams themselves, which waft in and out of our lives, so too do these deep thoughts, pushed aside by the natural world, by the reality we make before us. This world of endless distraction. Perhaps this is the duty of those like myself, as we’re given license to tentatively reach out to these realms outside of time, because we’re naturally seeking more than what we see, recognising that there appears to be something behind or above this natural world… We chose to turn from the eternal and embrace the temporal, because the immediacy of the things around us placed a great power within our fleshly hands; ruled by our senses, we mould our future with our own works. We chose to rule our lives, instead of submitting to something spiritual. But in turning to our own devices, forsaking the spiritual, we bowed to time, and with that, we too would become like dreams – the very thing that haunts us now, as we lowered ourselves, our lives, to slip in And eventually out Of time. For without the spiritual eternal, we placed our heads in the jaws of time, of age and decay And in our passing, if we continue to place highest value in the pursuit of things governed and hunted by the clock, then our destiny is tied to the forgotten dream, Forever lost. * We only occupy a space in time. --- Photo: [Václav Chochola: 'Night Walker' - self-portrait standing in the night city. He put his camera on a tripod and left quite a long exposure and he stood near this street lamp. Eventually he went back and closed the shutter.. "Every picture may show more than I want to say.."] [Image credits: Nadya Lukic photography, Vaclav Chochola self portrait, meetville.com]
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* “The foods I’ve eaten, and the beds I’ve slept in”… it was a working title of a book my father never wrote. It was one in a moderate sized list of things he never got around to doing, or goals that remained in the realm of dreams. But, if he were here today, now… he probably wouldn’t list it under regrets. He wasn’t the type to carry them, barring maybe one or two from his youth that he probably mentioned in passing once or twice, in the time I was a part of his life. But even then, the word ‘regret’ was never used. [Contentment] Sometimes I feel like I’m on the brink of something big, forever questioning whether or not I’m prepared for it, whilst other times I feel like I’m paddling upriver. I’m doing some real work but if I look at the shore, I’m actually going nowhere. I'm aware that in time I'll look back on this piece or period, and what concerns me… Well, I think what will concern me then, is what concerns me now. It’s strange when you find yourself on a road you kind of never chose. I know there’s always a choice, but writing was never in the running in terms of my career choices. I’ve never met anyone who said that when they were young they always dreamed of becoming a writer. Now that I am one, I understand why. There’s a saying, I don’t know by whom but it says ‘people don’t choose to be a writer, Writing chooses people’. I believe there is some truth to that. I think that many folks seem to have an idea where they want to go and affix their sights on that and move toward it. For me that never happened with Writing. It’s like God took me along the road, showing me various inviting avenues, that I would ultimately not take… and one day he brought me to this point {a ballpoint, hehe} where, in hindsight, many things began to make sense. It’s a diversion I never thought of. It elicits many mixed feelings, because its like I was going one way (a way that looked right and seemed to fit, but just didn’t feel 100%), and God tapped me on the shoulder and said, “No, you’re going this way”. So I feel honoured to have been “selected” for this road, but the struggles I face brings me to realize why it must and can only be a chosen few to travel it, who have the stomach for it, otherwise anyone would do it. And with that in mind, getting selected to travel down this particular road, although there are exits and options to divert from this course, or so it seems to the “outside world”, from my perspective, there really isn’t. Otherwise it’s like descending down a mineshaft, and the only way you’ll emerge in public again, is if you keep on digging, keep on mining until you hit something of value to take up to be scrutinized. And the thing is that we all feel like we’ve found gold, but the public doesn’t seem to think so, or some folk acknowledge that what we have does hold some value, just not to their pockets. So you’ve found (created) something, now the job is to decipher if what you have is real gold (of whatever purity), or just some shiny metal, or just some plain metal… Although any writer will argue that the market needs all kinds of metals, we just need to ensure that we’re peddling our wares to the right crowd. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure (though I’m not saying what you have is junk, but rather that in someone’s eyes - someone reputable, other than yourself – what you have could be a treasure). And so it goes. We forge on, in solitary self doubt, and often darkness, to find a glimmer of light… And it’s not easy, especially when dealing with that ever present companion I just referred to, called doubt. And he’s not alone either. Not only is there the personal doubt, but the often silent doubt (hand-in-hand with waning confidence) of your fiercest fans and loved ones - your virtuous "true believers", if you're fortunate enough to have some. You might say you’re mining (in a way), but perhaps they think you’re sailing, and that your boat is sinking, and there’s no wind to guide your sails. You might think a great many things, that so what if you’re on an allegorical boat, and that you’re fanning the flames of your own budding career, using what looks suspiciously like wood from your own, very same, sinking boat… - what if someone sees those flames? What if someone wades out to ‘rescue’ you… Because maybe they believe, as you always have, that you have a story worth telling. Maybe your chunk of metal isn’t meant for a necklace or ring… maybe it’s meant for a gun barrel, or silverware or a key To unlock other worlds... and if that sounds like a cliche, then you know the kind of plywood we're dealing with to keep the boat afloat. We scratch, mine, sail, sink and/or swim by our hopes... and NOT our fears. . [Image credits: pixshark.com, Radka Malbeck photography, "boy writing"- Ernest Cole photography, thedirtlife.blogspot.com]
Image from snorttumblr A short piece on drugs, hallucinations, hazy dreams, being swallowed by the barrel of a gun, and a man thinking he's a dragon. This story was not inspired by my life events, just so you know, though felt it is quite relevant to Cape Town right now (and much of the world for that matter. I grew up pretty insulated from the bad and the ugly, however there are those quite close to me who came in for more than just a bit of a scrape. Although I must add, the reoccurring dream - that's mine. The White Line Short fiction by Steven Benjamin The man: His stare wasn’t empty; instead it was filled with years and years of what was best left forgotten... Every red vein in the former milky whites of his eyes though, which over those years of abuse had turned a faded yellow, told of a more material ruin, like glazed windows that would never again reveal what lay in the shadows on the inside. His dried crusty lips quivered. His gaze fell down, catching sight of his own trembling hands. And then the deep familiar hurt welled up in his chest. His mind drifting to the thought of a woman he once knew – who once called herself his friend – and how she’d hung on in those final minutes. He wondered about that; what hanging on to life must feel like. From where he sat, it was all a little sad… a sad quiet; no more talking, no more pleading, because a life had been terminated, swept aside, and there was little fan fair, little commemoration. So anticlimactic... As if someone had asked him “… may I live?”, and he’d looked down and answered: “No.” But instead of that word, he’d used his hands. The stare, the coffee table and the R381, ‘Oh yes, that road…’ he remembered it all now – was it the right one? Just like the hurt brimming inside, so came that old guilty feeling, settling like foam. He knew; he saw and he knew what would make it all go away. It came to him like a dream; ‘oh yes, that dream’ he remembered that too now… it sometimes happens that way; you’re thinking of something else and then suddenly fumes of recollection of a different world wafts in… My Dream: It was about time running out, and of course, just running away… I suppose it’s always something like that, isn’t it? A gravel, dead stretch of road, somewhere in the Karoo, wait, no, there was grass, so it had to have been further north, closer to where the flowers grow and bloom in spring… or was it south, the R353 maybe, from Leeu Gamka. Only, this time there was no flowers, and it was in the dark, at night. Sometimes I’d pass by a windmill – just the silhouette mind you – funny that, since there was no moonlight. In some of them there’d be two lights heading directly toward me, growing brighter in the darkness. In those ones I’d always wake up just before the light engulfed me; just before impact. Mm, there were never any stars or moon in the sky… that’s how I knew I was dreaming, even in the clearest night sky: nothing, just blank, every single time. I knew what it was all about… The getaway: One of his greatest fears arising from the unseen depths within him, percolated to the surface every so often. This was all he was good at, and, it was the worst part of him. It was a way of getting in and getting away at the same time – his only escape. It committed those around him to believe they knew him, “his kind” – whatever that means. But the few he trusted believed it was a necessary evil. Once he’d even tried liberating himself with Muti – he didn’t believe in it mind you, but when you scrape bottom, you’ll be willing to try anything once, sometimes, just to get a leg up. When you’re down, you’re really down. Sometimes when your brain is on a ‘go slow’ it can convince you of the strangest things. He knew the lie he was living had matured over years and taken root within a hidden truth – one he kept very secret. A small confession he betrayed only to himself, and only in the darkest, lowest moments – the truth that he actually liked it. Was it really a revelation? No, it’s not like he was alone in this struggle. Be it lines, holes, rocks, pipes, money, smoke; everyone has their fix, governed only by the tick of the everyday clock. He looked down at his watch… the hands of time ticking away as always. Time. He was beginning to make sense of it again, slowly, the same issues, the same old habits. Time. He’d lost quite a lot of that. read more... |
[Banner illustration by Joel Kanar]
WRITING
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