So where does a new beginning start? How does it face up to the end of the old, the realisation that the path has ended, the way is shut, there’s nothing there for us?
I think it does so in the usual way. Quietly. Slowly. Tentatively at first, treading with grace and care, not quite sure of the footing, or the exact depth and dimensions of the footprint it will leave behind.
Let’s start there, with that, and see what’s left.
This is not a blog post. I don’t write those any more.
I used to write them though. But then I got caught up in looking for things – finding patterns, seeing meanings, chasing connections, forcing them at times.
And so I stopped.
In the beginning, it was different. In the beginning, it was about play – playing with words, throwing a bunch of them out there like drops into the ocean, to see which would be washed away and lost, and which would float to the surface, even just for a minute. And playing with images, too, with the same principle – what would catch my eye, what would engage me in lingering, pausing, freezing. But then I found myself just counting the tide, trying to make some float. And they don’t all want to float. They aren’t all meant to float. Not all connections lead me somewhere I need to do. Others, which bubbled up of their own accord, I didn’t even notice. They bobbed for a while, took their last blinking view of the world, and then let go, sinking to the bottom. I stopped seeing, because I was too busy looking. And I can’t do that any more.
Let’s try to do it differently this time. How about this time I focus on the seeing, and you do the looking?
So, this is not a blog post.
Instead, perhaps, it’s a new beginning…
Or maybe it’s not – let’s not spoil it by trying to make it float. Let’s see if it rises to the top of its own accord…
Timothy Moss 