14. Scotch tape and PVA glue

it is always within half receded moments do we reach the truth.

There are those moments when we walk next to someone, down some city street that we come to make sense. We may say something revealing, deep and honest. Other times it is when we drink our beers in the bar, when we make eye contact at a distance with some stranger do we reveal something true. An exemplar for this moment moment would be when we say things while shrouded in darkness. Imagine lying next to our lover at night. Bodies are naked & yet hidden by the lack of light. We say things to each other that we would not otherwise say.

Only when we are not quite in the moment are we able to access our souls. This is paradoxical. It posits that we are 'true' to ourselves only at the moment that we are not completely within the moment. How can it be that we are true to ourselves when we have distanced our 'self' from 'our self'?

The paradox is only resolved through the realisation that truth finds its counterbalance in history. Truth is in our memories. The truth has always receded into the past prior its welcome into the present. The truth is never quite present, but also never quite past.

We find the fragments of the past scattered on the floor. In order to receive the past in the present our task is to pick up these pieces and put them together to make some picture. With strips of scotch tape and PVA glue we stick together our memories. Things without connection become firmly pressed into each other. We mould random events and small little gifts into something more. What we are left with is something between an artists master piece & a child's finger painting. It is the image of our past. Framed and mounted on a fridge in the house of our minds. It has all the romance of Michelangelo's David and all the smudges of an art school sketch.

For Jonas, as us all, history is always written in the present. But the present is a condition of history. Thus history is always in contest. What the past meant is always merely a tenuous allegiance of circumstance & event. Whether we hold our art sacred & kept to precious, or whether we tear it up & start over again is a direct reflection of the allegiance. Jonas withdrew from that kiss. There was a smudge on the canvas. Something glued to the picture that should not be there. It was as if the lights had turned out while he was at work. Darkness.

He could hear a faint voice whispering in his ear. It whispered all the fear, all the love, all the different interpretations that could be - all whispering because the truth is said in whispers. And they are said in the darkness of night. All voices speaking from the past to rupture the present. Jonas receded into memories - into his heart. It is always within half receded moments do we reach the truth, and so now too would Jonas find his.