I wanted to paint freedom. I painted grids, edges and hard lines. Ik painted wings, stuck in a net. I quoted Goya, The dream of reason produces monsters’ and I understood it was necessary. I discovered what, almost invisibly, clings to freedom: hope. Those who died in captivity in the name of freedom did so hoping that one day… Those who persevered in captivity could do so by not letting hope slip away. They continued the fight for freedom hidden deep down in themselves. Hope was the saviour, hope was small enough to be smuggled in to any form of confinement. Hoop was too small to be crushed.
I have wondered if I know freedom. I doubted my freedom and I made dark paintings.
I have found hope.
Now I painted about hope.
First I hoped. I hoped for masterpieces and I hoped for infinite succes. I hoped for a gorgeous spring and lustrous moods.
Much has been granted, spring beyond doubt. Yet the closer I get to the hope, the stronger becomes the pull of the dark. I suppose it is only in darkness that we can see hope shine in its own light.
Two souls live, oh, in my chest.
The mirror laughed at me. It has seen through my vain intentions and cut off my stride. Time and again I he cracks up about my futile attempts to approach myself with kindness. You are a child of the earth, made of sulfer vapour and volcanic rock. You are porous, you reflect no light. You are not fit to build on. Nothing covers you but darkness and fire, what you approach, you will scorch. It is better to let people pass you by, you are not one of them.
I have turned around and walked into the garden. The red tulips bloom since this morning, the yellow ones preceded, glowing with their victory. Together with Mary Oliver I watch the sprouting leafs of the fig tree. Infinitely slow but almost visible they unfold. Each morning grants me a new concerto. I drink my coffee and think softly about the mirror.
Two souls live, oh, in my chest.
Before I dissolve, the solution.
Opening the newspaper spreads me like an oil-stain over the surface of the earth. I stick all that has happened in only that murky way. I seep into the earth and pervert biotopes that still remained unmolested. Likewise the world passes through me. I feel myself become diaphanous, become Covid-19, civil-war, mass-hysteria, extinction, rising sea-levels, a shoot-out. How I become the world and the world me, and together we grow darker.
Just before I dissolve, before I become the news, the sprouting blossom catches my eyes and I know:
A child is born.
A child is born and it has been told nothing yet.
What outlines me?
I locked myself up. Now that we have become the God no one needed, we can save the world by locking up or selves.
By withdrawing ourselves from it.
I press my nose up against the glass, try to escape through my eyes. As hard as I can I run and smash myself into my confinement. I do not break, I only return onto myself.
What is this substance? It is hard nor soft. It is warm nor cold. It is other nor own. The symbols I carved with every noteworthy moment are still there, but softer now. It is a question:
Wat outlines me?
The brink
Someone drew a line. Drew it here. Look, that is where the crayon broke. Now I am here, and you are standing there. We are divided now, until the line. I see you differently, now you’re there. Am I different, now I’m here?
At the brink of here, so closely, I can see far out. See there and further.
Someone drew a line and has struck us with it too.
We, poor souls. What do we know about the power of lines?
