Distance splits meanings. The gestures and the eye-contact of face-to-face contact is lost. Things wrongly implied perhaps – hidden meanings erringly revealed, true feelings let slip.
Calling from one side of the street to the other garbles words in the volumes of others and machines and the weather. Arms waving to imply feelings.
You can hear a hum up there. Voices and vehicles, the sounds of people and machines moving across the city – all communicating. With gestures and words or with horns and lights.
Cars and buses and trains zoom and hush between cities, dropping off and picking up people and their possessions. They reach destinations, and either through signification or the imparting of actual spoken message; stories, histories and confidences are shared.
Smaller, immobile machines communicate long distance – words travel along cables, from receiver to transmitter to receiver. Words are hurriedly typed, words are hurriedly sent. They buzz around us, codes and symbols hidden temporarily amongst the ether, the fog and the chatter.
(Rhetoric is shared this way too. Partly formed / informed opinions and thoughts clog our atmospheres, unrealised).
The solitude has ceased for now, it seems. Yesterday was a stream of social appointments, some easy and some difficult. The weekend was full of people and conversation and far too much drinking. Many explanations had to be given, repeatedly, for my strange behaviour.
“How’s the No Parking exhibition going?”
“I’m not actually involved anymore”
“Really?? Why not?”
[Depending on how well I know / trust the person I am speaking to, I say either…]
“I didn’t have the time to do what I wanted to do properly”
[or]
“I suffered from loads of anxiety attacks, went a bit mad and hid away from the world and from all human communication for a week. The idea of involving myself in the exhibition was a no go”
The reality being I got scared of the exhibition. Fearful and unsure of my own inability to present the work that I wanted to as well as it should be. Especially in comparison to the quality of work already on show in that building. I was there yesterday, my mental state having improved to the point that I can now speak to people there, and even get involved to a small extent again. Ultimately, I’m glad I dropped out; the work that has taken my place is of a much higher quality than I could ever come to.
After the exhibition opening this evening I think I should get back on track with the lonely approach. Too much conversation will get me into trouble again. I need to think over Jerry and his imminent passing. I’ve been in contact with the girl again these past few days, and will probably hurt myself again by seeing things that may not actually be there and imagining things that are not actually happening. I’ve also got some writing that I should be doing. This graphic novel with Jim should starting rolling, his drawing are too good to sit unseen in his bedroom in Dartmoor.
