The building was smooth and constructed of one thousand wooden matchsticks. Imagine pulling a spoon out of thickly whipped icing or the solidified peaks and valleys in meringue. Or a bird's nest twigged under the hollow of a boulder. This is the building. There are no excuses in communication, only happenings - sayings and hearings.
As the world spoke, giant lizards were taking the stars down from the sky like ornament, the moon was lobbed like a softball pitch across the sky; there was a sandstorm that buried the voice thick as a new beach. We dug them out, thickly. We raged. Our claws grew strong out of our eyes and our chests puffed as words enunciated and clung like battle axes to an opponent's fortress.
We step through sopped mud, muddy our pant legs in disgust only to win a battle, blind-sided and bleeding. Yet we are whispers in a theater as the movie plays on, we are on the sidewalk with houses and cars zipping by us, we are treating the moon as a destination rather than what it is - something we can see but never stand on. All the places a human can get to, a human can get to - we wake up edged and cutting or we wake up having left the light on all night. We wake up to see another person sleeping, or we sleep while they wake up.
Wake up Together - In Detroit!
There will be collaboration - there will be sleeping in a pile if sleeping in a pile means solidarity in art. There will be a fortress of unshakable creativity. We will spin our new architecture skyward whether or not the sun persists.
One time, months ago, I left the theater of Where the Wild Things Are. The film evokes grandeur and majesty and unshakable loneliness. It explores the epic feeling of being a monstrous force at the center of the universe. It takes us back to that first moment when we consider, from fort-building to mud fighting, the center needs more than one to hold.
Communicate.
(**Image from Southern Accents magazine's May/June issue, via www.ashley-spencer.com)
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