Afternoon Light, Caught in the Trees (Audio)
Dear Friends,
Some paragraphs for the first breaths of summer, read aloud for you — again with the sounds of my street and my parakeet chirping insistently from the other room.
Sending love,
— Sal
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And nowhere could she begin. Afternoon light, caught in the trees, illuminating and shading, put in motion by the wind. The way people love talking to each other, all the people you are not. For instance, a dramatic outfit on an ordinary day—what does it tell you? Or the way a smile transforms a face, making it beautiful. Oh, the feelings that are coursing through us. At the same time, noticing the mechanics behind it all, by which I mean the conscious effort. Can we ever be relieved of the dissatisfaction of life?
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I used to think every poem was a love poem. Do we choose longing, or do we choose praise? The way Dogen said: consider this moment — is there anything that has been left out? Water pours down from the sky. Tell me about something you read. Tell me about something that you noticed this morning. By existing as a spectrum of display, public and private. Spending our time overnight watching a lightning storm over the river. Like the buildings, we, also, have love. How many hours ago? The night extends timelessly into the present. Nothing can stop it flowing.
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It is the duty of the sun to radiate; it is the duty of the cloud to obscure. Above us, there is a golden pavilion, oh la la. Some people prefer to see it as a gold watch. I know it seems like I am not saying anything, but secretly I am turning away from my sorrow. All around me are things I can use like game-pieces, by which I don’t mean ruthlessly. The moves can just as easily be tender. Nostalgia, for instance, or a little spark of eros. We survive as fragments of memory in the bodies of others, blurring into atmospheres. We survive in the act of forgetting.
I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what you think of these or what they feel like.
Further adventures and new ways of seeing can be found in my book, The Uses of Art.
Artist Sal Randolph’s THE USES OF ART is a memoir of transformative encounters with works of art, inviting readers into new methods of looking that are both liberating and emboldening.
Dazzlingly original, ferociously intelligent.
— Michael Cunningham
A joyful, dazzling treasure-box of a book.
— Bonnie Friedman
Here’s a guide, to waking up, over and over again.
— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara
I love your writing Sal. What is difficult for me is to slow down and make space in my mind for it to enter fully. Yours is restful writing, and I'm restive. Substack is so full and also crowded. I'm realizing that to appreciate pieces like yours I'm going to have to add many minutes around the edges of reading it, white space you might say. Before and after time. It will be worth the time and conscious effort.
Hearing this was the most restful part of my day. Thank you.