I am at an art event watching a film made by an artist of a cresta-run (the winter sport where people propel themselves at very fast speeds down a tunnel of ice in a bullet shaped vehicle) - she has mounted a camera on the front of the vehicle.
She sets off at a steady pace, but quickly builds up, faster and faster...
We now see her from overhead (and I realize it is ME) and the containing tunnel of ice has disappeared, she is careering out of control on open mountainside with little control of her direction.
She approaches a sheer scree face (one might say a cliff!) coming at it horizontally from the snow field above. The momentum of her speed takes her perilously across the scree face and it seems miraculous that she does not just fly off into the air.
Just as she arrives at the other side of the scree onto safer ground, we see an avalanche behind her and as she looks back, she knows that she crossed just in time to avoid the crushing ice, rocks and snow.
I look at her / me and think "wow, how spectacular, what a brave feat!" but in the back of my mind a voice also nags "but is it really? Is it not just foolhardy? She seems a brave adventurer, but I am not so sure about the core motivation of her activity, whether it is really sound...?"
Later on I am looking at a photo of her on a living room wall; next to it is the photo of a handsome man. The pictures are both kept in beautiful silver frames and each has a swirling motif rather like a shell.
I understand that he/me/she/they are married and very happy, they radiate contentment and bliss beyond the silver frames and there is something deeply beautiful about this.
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2007
Brett and Scarlet
I see a couple sitting on a very stylish sofa. They are handsome, sophisticated, both have beautiful coal black hair and are well groomed. I think they are called Brett and Scarlet; they give the impression of having finally married after a long and tempestuous affair.
They are at the house of some friends, another married couple. This couple are well groomed also - she is blonde and him a brunette: they are handsome too but somehow a little more bland than Brett and Scarlett.
The evening is polite, the couples sit and chit chat. The women are mute though, lacking in animation, as if something essential might be missing from their character. And the two men, they engage in shallow banter, yet there is an undercurrent of something else, something paranoid and violent - Brett suspects that this husband might be after his wife.
The evening relaxes a little as Brett and Scarlett lie out together on the settee, reveling in one anothers presence. They leave, it is dark and they are driving on an unlit road across a harsh desert like landscape.
Suddenly a car swerves round them and the couple are cut up in flashing headlights and veer off the road. Brett is enraged. He swings the car round on the desert sand looking for the man who cut him up. He is driving wildly in circles, farther and farther from the road in search of this 'other' that is clearly now nowhere to be seen.
I watch him drawing circles in the sand from a distance above (before now I have been inside the car with them) - in a cinematic scene the camera pans back and I see that they are now circling near the edge of a long peninsula overhanging a chasm. I want to shout to save them, but watch helpless as a few seconds later, the car plunges off the edge into the abyss.
They are at the house of some friends, another married couple. This couple are well groomed also - she is blonde and him a brunette: they are handsome too but somehow a little more bland than Brett and Scarlett.
The evening is polite, the couples sit and chit chat. The women are mute though, lacking in animation, as if something essential might be missing from their character. And the two men, they engage in shallow banter, yet there is an undercurrent of something else, something paranoid and violent - Brett suspects that this husband might be after his wife.
The evening relaxes a little as Brett and Scarlett lie out together on the settee, reveling in one anothers presence. They leave, it is dark and they are driving on an unlit road across a harsh desert like landscape.
Suddenly a car swerves round them and the couple are cut up in flashing headlights and veer off the road. Brett is enraged. He swings the car round on the desert sand looking for the man who cut him up. He is driving wildly in circles, farther and farther from the road in search of this 'other' that is clearly now nowhere to be seen.
I watch him drawing circles in the sand from a distance above (before now I have been inside the car with them) - in a cinematic scene the camera pans back and I see that they are now circling near the edge of a long peninsula overhanging a chasm. I want to shout to save them, but watch helpless as a few seconds later, the car plunges off the edge into the abyss.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Love and Fear
a fragmented dream memory:
I have a book in my hand: its cover is matt, ochre; it is quite small and thin, maybe A5 size. As I open the book its pages seem to glow, they radiate white light.
The book is beautiful. But I am also gripped with terror: I know David (an ex lover) has written it and that it will reveal to me the ‘truth’ that I am afraid to see.
I open it with trepidation and hardly dare read what is written within. My eyes flicker erratically across the first sentence, which goes something like this:
“This is a document detailing the earthly paradise, the paradise here on earth, created by myself and my wife Amanda. We will go on to discuss…”
I break down and can hardly continue.
“…The tale of our supreme happiness…”
I feel gutted and close the book unable to bear any more. My vision has been stolen: someone else hijacked it. I am betrayed and more than that, I am terrified.
I have a book in my hand: its cover is matt, ochre; it is quite small and thin, maybe A5 size. As I open the book its pages seem to glow, they radiate white light.
The book is beautiful. But I am also gripped with terror: I know David (an ex lover) has written it and that it will reveal to me the ‘truth’ that I am afraid to see.
I open it with trepidation and hardly dare read what is written within. My eyes flicker erratically across the first sentence, which goes something like this:
“This is a document detailing the earthly paradise, the paradise here on earth, created by myself and my wife Amanda. We will go on to discuss…”
I break down and can hardly continue.
“…The tale of our supreme happiness…”
I feel gutted and close the book unable to bear any more. My vision has been stolen: someone else hijacked it. I am betrayed and more than that, I am terrified.
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