CONNECT AND DISEMBARK

semester fieldwork gone abstract: hold my hand, please

Somewhere, between the more or less tangible connections between I, and you, or perhaps them, I have come to the conclusion that sparks do not fly. At least, not in the literal sense.

I mean, maybe sometimes they do, like tonight, where stars ignite, a burst charge, timed fuse: fireworks! The most literal spark of celebration, lighting up the void of this evening… Igniting the less lonesome glory of the night, smilingly saying, hello!

But, the sky is too vast, and though the stars may wink in reply, how can you define the relationship between the two? When these explosions are fleeting and the night lasts, well, forever.

Perhaps even in its momentary nature, these ignitions scar and fester their mark into the eternity of the night, just to smile scalding, knowingly. As it is no secret that the darkness will be quick in swallowing them whole.

But some connections are not so short. And while I suppose the universe, multiverse, whatever–would be better metaphors, I am just a human, and currently there seems to be no greater a love shared than the two women sprawled out in the grass in front of their retirement home. Lovers, friends, sisters, what a lovely thing to have absolutely zero clue. I suppose they would know, but I am not sure it makes a difference. For they are hand in hand, blinking up at the blue, and at this time they are the sky, the universe, multiverse, metaverse–whatever. They too are connected in eternality, love and life itself, and there are no arbitrary labels I would dare put upon that…

But, I suppose that is what you call it, connection. Cosmic fragments aligning to weave these women together, and bring them home to the sky: where at long last humans breach forever, clasping hand in hand to wave hello.

Perhaps, the time of such is irrelevant, fleeting or otherwise, as I see it here, too, where water rushes up onto sand. And clouds wander in leisure over the horizon. On this morning, it is all gray, the sun a conceivable spot in the air. At once, everything begins to flow seamlessly into one another, and suddenly interconnection has blinded you. Then, suddenly, as if enveloped in fog, you too become a shadow. Just another crease in the painting, some display of chiaroscuro; call that connection, or just shitty weather.

Or,

Clouds washing over a peak, a tsunami falling short into a bowl, the belly of the beast. Not quite a storm and not quite a landmark. Just sun glittering over cloud, mist over mountain. Playing in the remnants of the sun. Before, perhaps, a storm too will swallow each detail whole. But, for lack of better word, they seem to be flirting, I hope you can forgive my anthromorphisms.

Or,

Where, perhaps fireworks explode, or in the same way clouds fold between jagged rock, I let someone hold me until the concept heat and cold is below me, and there is nothing more human than his or her hand in mine. And there is no better display of connection than the invisible strings that draw you, to me.

Or, rewind.

That moment where I looked at you, and didn’t ask: what you call the extended second/centimeter before our fingertips touch? For, we know no distance anywhere else. And yet, I smile, feel you shiver as we touch, here, lit only by the brightness of your cheek, and glimmering eye.

Do you call that romance? Is that connection? Or is this just the moment before the fall? By which I mean, I fracture, melt, Anything short of a supernova (or any extraordinary event), and you laugh at my modernisms and my violent way of loving, and move on with your life. For one of us must. And it might as well be you.

Or,

Sparing you the poetics, I’ll ask… Can I define that connection by the moment it begins to crumble? Can I trust the connection was there at all? When only now, in the more intellectual recollections of my brain, I frame it as a explosion. Then the silence I sit with after. Evidently, something broke in the process. Surely, there must have been something to be broken.

There then, the break, fizzling of sparks fading and, since I am committed to these, strange ways of saying, I suppose, suddenly I become a ghost. And I can only hope you will learn to walk right through me.

My point stands then, does that mean that we cannot know true connection? That, only in transcendence of these man made fascinations, or simply human desires, we are capable of finding connection?

Or,

Is it both eternal, and fleeting? Tangible, and otherwise? Because, despite that it may come with the gruesome, inevitable promise of heartbreak(and funerals). We connect in spite of it all. For we must continue. I mean, what else is there? What else beyond connection? To be human, then. Is it to experience connection? To feel in the more tangible touch, teeth and tongue. To feel in the less tangible; Heart Wrench, or Reverency, or Grieving. To connect, explode into seafoam and later rainbows, to love, learn, mourn. And begin anew in the promise of eternal dark, and fleeting, glorious light.