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JULIENNE VAN LOON
I am aware of a watery filmic image, as if
observing a dream in those moments before waking.
I am looking at the ocean, distracted by the white froth at the top of each wave, the way it is propelled forwards and back, sometimes dispersed right up to the high water mark along the beach, and sometimes recaptured, before being sent around again, again, again, in those beautiful but insistent cycles. Dispersed. Reclaimed. Dispersed again. Those white flecks, how they carry things, how they pattern our days.
Time passes, my attention shifts, and I become witness to a darker energy, emerging from beneath, as if from the stomach or the heart. It balloons up, taking up all of the oxygen. While this darker, deeper shape is present, it’s hard to focus on anything else. Acknowledging it makes me swallow.
But this is it: this is me. This is where I locate myself now, deep in the undercurrent, the kind that used to bowl me over as a child of five, when I tried to stand sentinel on twiggy legs, up to my chest at the edge of the mighty Pacific. How it frightened me then, with its forceful energy, so much larger than me, as if I was nothing, as if was merely flotsam.
But here I dwell now, away from the spectacular flurry of the surface, away from the distracted, fleeting attention of the casual observer. See how I come to life, take shape, transform, as if from chrysalis to butterfly? This is me.
You know I am here fully for a time. You witness it, too. And besides, it is also how things came about for you. You are ahead of me, as always. Watch. I am morphing. No sooner have I reached fullness, than I begin to recede. The cycle calls me back. There will be new flotsam, new froth, reappearing at the top, patterning new days and nights for others. Meanwhile, I have come into fullness. Perhaps I was only fully present for one breath.
We know each other, don’t we? You have your own pattern. I have mine. There are differences, of course, but we are so similar, aren’t we? Perhaps that is why I love you. But of course, you know all of this already. You are ahead of me, as ever. And, I am telling you nothing new.
I am beneath, and receding, aware only distantly now of a watery, filmic image, as if observing a dream.
I am looking at the ocean, distracted by the white froth at the top of each wave, the way it is propelled forwards and back, sometimes dispersed right up to the high water mark along the beach, and sometimes recaptured, before being sent around again, again, again, in those beautiful but insistent cycles. Dispersed. Reclaimed. Dispersed again. Those white flecks, how they carry things, how they pattern our days.
Time passes, my attention shifts, and I become witness to a darker energy, emerging from beneath, as if from the stomach or the heart. It balloons up, taking up all of the oxygen. While this darker, deeper shape is present, it’s hard to focus on anything else. Acknowledging it makes me swallow.
But this is it: this is me. This is where I locate myself now, deep in the undercurrent, the kind that used to bowl me over as a child of five, when I tried to stand sentinel on twiggy legs, up to my chest at the edge of the mighty Pacific. How it frightened me then, with its forceful energy, so much larger than me, as if I was nothing, as if was merely flotsam.
But here I dwell now, away from the spectacular flurry of the surface, away from the distracted, fleeting attention of the casual observer. See how I come to life, take shape, transform, as if from chrysalis to butterfly? This is me.
You know I am here fully for a time. You witness it, too. And besides, it is also how things came about for you. You are ahead of me, as always. Watch. I am morphing. No sooner have I reached fullness, than I begin to recede. The cycle calls me back. There will be new flotsam, new froth, reappearing at the top, patterning new days and nights for others. Meanwhile, I have come into fullness. Perhaps I was only fully present for one breath.
We know each other, don’t we? You have your own pattern. I have mine. There are differences, of course, but we are so similar, aren’t we? Perhaps that is why I love you. But of course, you know all of this already. You are ahead of me, as ever. And, I am telling you nothing new.
I am beneath, and receding, aware only distantly now of a watery, filmic image, as if observing a dream.