Dear Friends,
I am away from home this week, spending some time near the sea.
And you? Where do you find yourself? On land? On sea? Heading off towards adventure? Stranded on an island (metaphorical or otherwise)? Dwelling or abiding? Turning back home?
— Sal
“I don’t want to go home,” says the small boy. “Home is boring.” How well this child understands the future. He is one brother of two, alike and distinct as two words. Child and chill. Home and hope. Oh, to be unruly and unruled. Become ungovernable, they say. Could this bring about change, could we be the change? Change and chance. Chance and dance.
Je pense que c’est mieux de rentrer says a visitor. We leave home and we return, in whatever language. Myself, I’m traveling onwards. My name is synonymous with adventure. All my ways are beloved and my deeds are renowned. My hair astonishes, as do my eyes. Every garment that flutters around me is glad. My bright weapons are made of pleasure. Each time I speak it is a new dawn. Just think of her fingers! Those rosy tips, those promises. In between every story is a sea—dark, salty, fish-laden.
What possible sequel could there be to time? After the year comes another year, so they say. Do you find me impatient? I’m pushing forward into the opacity and the mystery. Everything new must be accompanied by something old, which it is why it is a mistake to remove all the habitual language. There is a purpose to the old garment, like the habit of nuns, which establishes our place in the order of things. I am inspired to seek my inner cheat and my inner liar, to seek with admiration with the lamp I raise.
The illustration above is from the surreal children’s book Weird Islands by Jean de Bosschère, published in 1921.
More about Weird Islands, including a version of the book which you can read yourself, from the inimitable Public Domain Review.
Friend, this letter is a letter to you. Write back! Where are you voyaging and how will you return home? Have you discovered any weird islands?
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
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