Speaking. Not Writing. Begin.
Walking through Prospect Park following the shapes of shadows taking pictures of them, looking through branches at the sunny sky. The air is heavy and hot. It is hottest on the paved paths, and a bit less so in places less defined.
Finding small, intelligent debris, little animals curious about my presence, and remnants of larger creatures, their activity, some human. And what odd remnants they can be.
The question is not even how certain pieces of clothing came to the park. That seems relatively obvious. A person must have brought the oddly folded 34x32 size Wrangler Jeans, a shirt and boots are here too. Placed. Why are the pieces of clothing still here, and what happened to that human being that used to wear them, and brought them here, probably on their body. Or are they they still here too? What remains of them? What is it? The piece of clothing on top of the hill looked as if it had been left after some act of recent violence. But I am also standing on what at some point used to be a battlefield. Not far from here is a monument to the people who were killed right on this hill. And that’s just the recorded history.
The shadows, the leaves in the trees, all appear to be alive. Even the seemingly not living objects seem to have been touched by something or someone, somehow, at some point; more or less gracefully, with more or less purpose. Everything in sight and out of sight contains some tiny, or not so tiny piece of information that is traveling from an invisible past into an unclear future.
Even the very path I’m walking on, touched by the shadows of the trees, is not going to be here forever. And it has not has been here always; also, it has not at all times been a path. I am just an organism passing through a system that seems to be passing towards somewhere itself.
And actually, what am I describing now? Am I describing it, or simply myself describing it? “As the foot hits the ground it doesn’t feel the ground. It feels the foot”, so as I am walking through the park I most likely also am walking through my very complex interpretation of it; one that I assembled for myself based on the impressions and stories of my own and those heard from others. Even calling it a “park”, ha!
As all this happens, I myself am also changing organizing my understanding of myself. It’s all shifting; it is morphing, growing in some ways, as it is dissipating in others.
I myself am a container full of questions, challenges, a certain invisibility.
There are some steps and moments I know I will be experienced by me and by everything here. Some of the steps and moments are not very certain, but some absolutely seem to be.
Everything I see in this park even the idea of it is just a temporary occurrence. Floating through a state of things. And what incredible miracle it is that we can all be in this together right now; at this very moment in time and space.
The shadows on the ground in front of me are moving. I know that they will soon be completely different in shape and strength. No leaf will be left in the branches, and the dark skeletons of trees will probably not actually cast strong shapes on the ground, as the sun will not be traveling high enough, and a grey veil of clouds will diffuse the winter light into a colorless froth.
But then a similar canopy will return, and the cycle will be repeated and reinvented and new and yet the same and this will happen, no matter if I will be here or not. As it has taken place before even the idea of me existed, before there was clothing, or before any foot even experienced itself walking on this ground.
I have collected enough. Time to return.
End dictation.
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