Experiencing the open

Sometimes, philosophy is in the background. But I am set thinking again and would like to take you amongst those thoughts.

Something or nothing?
Something or nothing? What do we think lies between them — as an alternative which is neither of them — when we think of ‘something’ or ‘nothing’. If we think in spatial terms, we think the ‘in-between’; if we think in black and white, we think ‘grey’; if we think of ‘to do’ or ‘not to do’, we think of ‘indecision’. I was thinking of the ‘space’ we talk about and, in a way, to me this does not seem spatial at all. You may seek out quietness – a space; I may seek out noise – a space. How can they both be a space? Surely spatial ‘space’ is an area, a volume, a place that is empty, somewhere with room that can be filled? If I have a box full of toys, with no room for any more, how can I believe there is any space in it? To make space, I would take out one of the toys so that I have room for another. But the true ‘space’ of the box is not like this, it is not even filled ‘space’, true ‘space’ is an opportunity for an occurrence, a place of possibility and this has no truly spatial counterpart. The box is full of space even though it is full. And this is not just filled space, it is the potential for whatever the box does or does not contain, or is, or could be. The ‘box’ in an inadequate analogy.

But now I catch myself. I don’t want to think like this. It gets things nowhere. I leave these first thoughts on the page only to show what I do not want to do. I wish so much to feel convinced by something, and almost, I am. Certainly, I am convinced by the form in which I find my words at present. And this form is incomplete, it does not strive for a conclusion, a win, a wrapped-up-ness. And so I stick with it, and keep the analysis of philosophy out. I am so refreshed by this, and my mind is filled with newness because of it. It is this newness in particular that I wish to share.

Yesterday
Yesterday, I sat with a young woman in a basement café: she was attractive — Russian, wide-eyed, intelligent. Before she arrived, a young mother attached her child to a baby chair in the centre of the café — she was loud spoken, filled with a sense of self-congratulation. The child threw a flashing, brightly coloured ball which needed constant retrieval — retrieval iced with that veneer of pleased and proud apology that attaches itself so readily to the irrepressible hubris of parenthood (as if there was something clever about bringing new life into the world!). I found the child’s ball distracting, and the mother’s loudness annoying. Her self-important air, as she poked between people’s feet for the ball, filled me with isolation and dismay. I wrote a little but it did not block out the clamour. And I wanted to block it out. It was overcoming me. My stomach churned with anxiety. I had lost control of myself, or had no control over myself, I wasn’t sure which. I had no space. I saw my friend. We kissed each other on the cheek — that oblique caress, borrowing the vehicle for passion and utilizing it for formality. She sat by my side. And I became absorbed. I did not need to create space — there was no effort, no striving, no accomplishment. We were simply side by side, talking, engaged.

The conversation
I asked her what she thought of the ‘strange’ email relationship I have with Ran Lahav. ‘Strange’ because we have not met, not seen each other, do not know each other, are only acquainted with each other’s written thoughts. She thought we should meet. I asked her what she thought that would achieve? She did not know, but still thought it worthwhile. She asked me what I thought anything should achieve? I did not know.

I talked to her about my writing, and my brother, and she was very tolerant. I wondered what it was like to feel so tolerant, and wondered if I was ever tolerant. I listened to her. She said she did not need things to be completed. Her eyes asked how it was possible for anyone to wonder why completion was necessary. She suggested I take an impartial response to things I felt should be completed. Act somehow, as if I didn’t care, she thought. How can I reconcile that with the fire I feel, with the need to feel the flames of living, the passion, the heat, the tension, the pain, the pleasure? How can I be impartial to all the things that I want to be with, be part of, love, engage with, be intimate with? Impartiality is good, I know, it does not, like neutrality, need poles, but if I feel it, I know in my heart I have always forced it. I am not naturally impartial to anything.

I said I was exposed by my brother’s death. I told her how I felt: as if a door had opened and I had walked through it, and I had found myself facing an icy waste, a cold wind, an empty landscape. And when I half turned back, the door slammed behind me, and there was no door knob, and I could only turn forward again and face the cold bleakness of the icy wasteland.

We talked about change: the necessity of it, the need for it, the recklessness of denying it, the foolishness of denying it. We talked of how it should be taken, how change should be part of what happened to us, how change was irresistible.

Then there was a sudden moment, a noticeable, stunning moment, a moment behind her eyes, a flashing occupation by me of what lay behind those large wide eyes. It was only a moment, a fleeting moment, but it was true. Her eyes opened to me. What did they do? Nothing you would notice, but they let me in. Let me into her mind, her self, her being. I did not stay long, but I had been there and we both knew it.

We talked a little of Sisyphus. I espoused my belief that the task was the meaning of life, that there was no such a thing as a true end product, that the very thought was ridiculous. And I realised I was philosophising, not describing my own experience.

We stood and kissed on parting. Lovers would have kissed sitting, so that they could clamour for each other with their bodies, their warmth, entwine each other. Again, it was on the cheek, but this time firmer, warmer, more tender, more pressing. And I recollected another café kiss, and the feeling I had then and what I had written about it, ‘My soul was stolen by that kiss, no, that’s not true, it was gift, and yet, I never even felt it go’. And I thought of my soul moving into another, how easy it was. How it disappeared within another like water mixing with water. How it slipped in without knowing, and how it wasn’t a theft, nor a gift, not something or nothing, but it was intimacy, fleeting, momentary, wonderful.

I watched my friend leave the café, walking past where the child and its mother had been. The child! It’s noisy mother! The flashing ball! Where had they all gone? The café was half empty, quiet, still, tidying itself away for the day. The world had changed. ... it was gift, and yet, I never even felt it go ... was it a gift of sorts?

At what point had I been carried away? I did not notice. It did not matter. I did not care. And was I back? Had I returned from somewhere? Had some of me been lost? Or had some of me become another? Was part of me now somehow elsewhere? Not really. Not at all. I was just being, had been just being. The anxiety, the ball, the mother, the kiss, that moment of going in, that moment of intimacy, that second of being with another, and the engagement that surrounded it, made it live, allowed it to be, and that was still with me, and always would be, and I left it, moved away from the place it had occurred, abandoning it in my isolation, and I was not apprehensive. Should I wait for the child and its mother to return? What a strange thought. As if they would. As if had the time. Was I wondering if it would start again if they did? Would the wonderful event be set in motion again? And do I need the world to repeat itself? Is something good to be had again? Is something remarkable the more remarkable for its repetition? Of course not. It is me, that is all. I cannot repeat myself. I simply continue to be me. As long as I am being, as long as I tell my story and listen, as long as I become absorbed, and love, and go behind the eyes of another if the eyes of another open up to me, and I find space in the engagement, and the noise, and the child, and the flashing ball, and the mother, and the kiss, and the moment, and the time of tidying up, and the space found in clutter, and the space found in emptiness, and in abandonment and novelty, and the space found in everything that comes from being: meaning, being free, acting, choosing to act; as long as I am, I am all these things and all these things are to me. If I close myself to these things then the world for me is empty, and vacuous, and sickly.