I walked whilst the light was at its
highest.
The wind was blowing in my face.
Every step demanded more
of my body.
It swept through my ears, through my
hair, through my breath.
I pressed on.
Everything became harder and more precise.
I could feel the direction of the air on my face,
the ground beneath my feet, the weight of my
legs. My breathing changed with the effort.
The outdoors never ceased to tell me things.
I met no one, only the
wind, the sky, the earth and this body that kept going.
I could have stayed indoors.
The air would have been still. The temperature
consistent. The light less direct. Some of
what reached my body would have been
dampened.
A shelter protects by shielding.
The wind, the cold, excessive light, noise.
But what it shields also contains
information.
The wind gives direction.
The ground responds to weight.
Light forces the gaze to shift.
What disturbs provides information.
I spend a great deal of time protecting my
attention. I narrow down what is happening at the same time.
I set aside what might scatter it.
I create boundaries.
I need them.
But every safeguard also alters what
can reach me.
In drawing, I rediscover this movement.
I frame. I bring things closer. I push them away. I decide
that one colour will remain and another
will disappear.
Then something escapes this
organisation.
A colour comes through too strongly. A shape
spills over. A gap appears where I was seeking
a balance.
I could remove it.
Sometimes I leave it long enough for it to have an effect.
Then what I had initially perceived as a
disruption shifts the rest. My gaze
takes a different path. A relationship emerges between
two shapes. A colour I thought I knew becomes different.
What I would have corrected reveals something to me.
I then realise that protecting my attention does not simply mean removing
what disturbs it.
Every filter alters the reality that reaches it.
Why leave the shelter?
To cross that boundary from time to time.
I do not give up what protects me.
I momentarily open a passage.
And I look at what comes in.
