... but I am groping about inside my skull and have had no success in capturing it as of yet. Eventually, if I keep writing, my fingers will get a hold of it. I hope. Or I'll bore myself to tears and scrap this entry. And perhaps use it to wipe my ass, or turn it into a tablecloth to celebrate a meal for one. Heh. And so I try and try, I push my hand inside the currents of my mind and try to capture one of the many writhing beasts in there. I am not sure if they are fish, dragons, nameless monsters or corpses of drowned teenagers. Perfect in their moment of death, preserved in the most glorious period of their lives. But dead nonetheless.
I have a new kitten in the house. She is totally black, sleek and tiny. She loves to be kissed on the tummy. Strange for a cat. Smells like a cat should, her tummy hairs soft and clean and deliciously cat-like in their scent and feel under my nose. (All cats smell differently, did you know that? My orange one smells like cotton candy, she smells like chocolaty cat fluff, my Persian has a stronger smell, a little tangy.) I see her playing about and she is adorable. Many years from now, she'll probably be a fat sick smelly animal on the way out, as I have seen so many of my pets becoming after countless years of being a pet owner. And it mysteriously never ceases to hurt me. It never stops me from wondering how the hell did I miss the in-between years and how come I don't want to touch that sick smelly thing that used to be my cat but don't recognise anymore. I never manage to avoid feeling guilty about it either.
Impermanence. The source of all our sorrows. Is it really? Why should anything last forever? Why should we? We are faulty in our making, so why make this last?
Am I the only one who's so conscious of the passing of time?
Am I paranoid? Obsessive?
I don't want to leave but don't want to stay to watch myself become a fat smelly thing on the way out. If I shy away from touching my own cat, who will want to touch me?
So where does this leave me?
Nowhere.
"Make good art" Mr. Gaiman says. "No matter what's happening, make good art."
Can I do that?
Sometimes when I walk in a gallery and see a heart-stopping painting I know the person that painted it managed to capture one of the things that writhed inside their heads. And suddenly I know what that thing was. No dragon, no fish, no corpse, but a devious, sly monster very few brave people have managed to capture.
It was a moment in time...
[Both gorgeous paintings by John William Waterhouse.]
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