Last night I had a dream. I was high in the sky hovering over the turquoise sea and while I had no idea what was holding me up, I knew I had to let go. I had a pen in one hand and an aluminum ladder in the other. I plummeted, calculating whether I should use the ladder to try and break my sure fall to oblivion. Before I knew it, I was bobbing in the water. The ladder stretched out before me and I used it as a raft. My only concern was that I would attract sharks, but my fears were unfounded, my life was intact.
Last night, I went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and saw the exhibit Cuba! Art and History. There was a photograph that struck me- of a man tripping on the edge of a stone wall, falling into the sea. The artist said something about how he hates living in a place surrounded by water, it is a cancer that envelops you. I scratched my head. I feel so differently. Water is life itself. Indeed, we are full of it.
At home in the Caribbean Sea, Oracabessa, Jamaica
chez les Keesan
hello brenda,
i think we have to be cautious about romanticizing water as a notion of life itself. water can be both destructive and life sustaining. especially in Cuba…..how many people have been swallowed up by it in trying to escape the island. i believe that for this artist water may not be “life itself” but rather the very shape of his prison. have you seen the movie Before Night Falls by Julien Schnabel ?
adriana
Comment by adriana — April 3, 2008 @ 10:51 am |
hello brenda,
i think we have to be cautious about romanticizing water as a notion of life itself. water can be both destructive and life sustaining. especially in Cuba…..how many people have been swallowed up by it in trying to escape the island. i believe that for this artist water may not be “life itself” but rather the very shape of his prison. have you seen the movie Before Night Falls by Julien Schnabel ?
adriana
Comment by adriana — April 3, 2008 @ 11:24 am |
i agree with what you say about water, adriana, i have been to cuba, and have seen ‘when night falls.’ i have my own fear of it, having nothing to do with harsh political realities, but with sharks. the water terrifies and fills me. life and death both. it’s true i was lost in a reverie when i wrote the entry (having just been saved by the water in my dream) and was only thinking of myself.
Comment by brendajoy — April 3, 2008 @ 11:48 am |