But how can there be a next when we haven’t even established a starting-point ?
I suggest that to be afraid of the world ending is pointless now. There is a sense in which the world has ended already. Certainly, the solid orb our parents knew has disappeared, along with the truisms and structures they could turn to as foundation and reference point. All that remains is rush and blur, scarred light and infected wind. Anxiety, doubt. Astonishing invention. And everywhere just me, me, me, howling…
Nothing is solid. Nothing stands. Everything is over and past even before it has established itself.
So there is no footing we can take for granted. We all have to keep establishing our footfalls all the time.We have to build them. Until we’ve built something to stand upon, there is only space, and weightlessness in space, and being alone in infinite space.
In the middle of blur and franticness, in the middle of nowhere, before we can proceed to next, we have to construct a sufficient starting-point ; before leaving our starting-point to reach next, we have to make sure our starting-point will support the weight of our moving off ; before we can go forward we have to create and nurture the ground along which we may advance.
And none of that is easy. Even starting-points have more than one dimension. You create them by coming at them from unexpected angles. Starting-points are meeting-points, where lines and venturings from various lonely places come together and create some sort of fragile solidity, full of tension and possibility, a point of departure.
So don’t disturb me this Autumn. Like a spider in the mist, I’m busy. I’m threading together my point of departure, from out of nowhere.