Visionary Fragments

‘A life is everywhere, in all the moments that a given living subject goes through'
---Deluze.

'There is nothing really lasting, nothing that will endure, except the sincere expression the actual conditions of life'
---Penelope Fitzgerald.

Outside the law many things happen...

The desire to record everything, jot down the trivial and inessential, to bring fragments of memories to the surface. Grey within grey. Drizzling rain, the first hint of cold air on one's cheeks. Life awakening again. Wind-tousled hair, choppy water slapping brown-freckled walls. I'm a dead man walking, a few moments of reprieve, trying to cram as much in as possible, wide-eyed.: the second-hand books under Embankment, running my forefinger over the well-worn titles with cracked spines. No feverish scanning this time, just a waiting for a name to drop in the slot. Today, I'm not looking for anything..the only need is to slow things down.

The American girl with the frizzy hair and husky voice, the strap of her top slipping off her tanned shoulder as she speaks: " Have you read this?". I look up. She's talking to her friend.

Under Blackfriar's, a guitarist strumming a wonderful, simple tune, almost like a chant. And I think: what is inner, and what is outer.

Walk all the way back to St. Paul's-just to have my usual coffee at the usual place. Crusty roll, Gorgonzola cheese, salad leaves. Hard to say what heaven will be like but can't imagine it being much better than this. Perhaps slightly less milk in the latte.

On the way back past the 'wobbly bridge' : a marriage party! Tourists shout with happiness: Ole!
For once they don't get on my nerves. A man palms his camcorder and in a wide sweep arcs it my way. I'm sure I'm caught in some of his images and wonder to myself how many fragments could be found in other people's discarded photos.

I write all this down before, just for a laugh, I decide to go to Tate. At least one can get a good view of St. Paul's from there. It's good to stand in front of stone sometimes (or under a tree). I'm drawn, however, to a dark room by some lovely music. Sit down and watch Jonas Mekas's 'Walden'. Chopin seems to be following me about these days. Shimmering, flashing lights, deep winter, all rendered in a strangely hypnotic way. The chaos make sense. It makes sense. A life, a world, shared. As if seen by God. The details do not cease from being ordinary details, moments in a whirl of flux and transition. There is no exile. All life is an exile.

Only now, as I collect my thoughts, do these correspondences seem a bit freaky. But it doesn't matter either way.