Johnson Tsang’s Under the Skin from his Lucid Dream series (2018) captures my feelings in this very moment right now on the 4th of June 2023, a full moon this morning. Its called a Strawberry Moon but my walk took me down into the wooded cemetery on the shores of the sea and not past the supermarket as it usually does, where, I hear, strawberries are going for just 1.99.
When I felt the urge to sit down and listen for the music of my keyboard after a comparatively longish break of two weeks, I thought I’d look for a Gramsci quote because this full moon felt like it might be a time of monsters as new worlds struggled to be born inside my head. The pivot or the threshold moment occurred on June 1st, in the early evening. I received news that should have had me downcast but instead – suddenly – I felt a spurt of liberation and release. My year was now my own even though only half of it remains and we’re here, almost at MidSummer’s Day, a time for bonfires at the seaside at sunset.
By some strange chance or circumstance, I sat back to feel my way through this unusual sensation and went to close my eyes and let it sink in so that I could taste it. It felt deep. Some unclicked gear had at last fallen into place, softly, silently, with a muted thud of a padded piano key rather than a thump.
Then, within my mind’s eye, I looked up and out and around me. My vision was back.
I could see time stretch into the vanishing point at the horizon – it was the rest of this year and months beyond. I could “see” again, as I’ve always called this inner eye of mine, not even realizing it had been missing from my perception for the past few years. I call it my ‘long term’ vision or perspective, hence the reason for naming this blog back in 2005.
I can see complex project plans stretch out in time and space and discern how every moving part fits within each other – all in harmonious motion towards the end point goal.
I can see patterns and weak signals and trace their threads weaving together into tangible manifestations or outcomes.
I can zoom in and out and pan from what a client of mine called “the 80,000 foot point of view” – all within my mind’s eye, watching data points coalesce together and come apart, as though they were blips in some metaphorical Game of Life.
I think it shut down somewhere in the pandemic year of 2020 after the excitement of the first wave had passed and the days turned to sameness within the confines of our little rooms and closed spaces.
Time shrank down into the singular moments of the 24 hour days and life began to take on a Groundhog day kind of routine. The clicking gear falling, finally, into place was one that had been held in stasis for the past three years – the pandemic era as I call it.
In October 2020, I remember writing it out somewhere that I forecast things would remain volatile and uncertain for the next 3 to 4 years. I do not know if the wider world is emerging from the complexities of this era – that is a post I’m fermenting for another day. What I do know is that the pandemic era is over for me and I have emerged, out on the other side.
Yet, Tsang’s sculpture feels just right in this very moment because the words are not yet there for me to write.
All I’ll say is that I’m now back in business, and available for work and projects.
I transferred to part-time studies this year. Given I cleared my midterm review a year ago, I can easily work fulltime again and complete the remaining requirements within the allotted timespan.
It feels very right to publish on my blog today. So here it is – an unpolished draft taht I’m sure could do with a few revisions but this summer’s not for study.
