Writing In A Notebook

Articulating the Infinite

I open the notebook at a random empty page, the blank sheet stares back at me. For at this moment, it is a hand reaching out to me, urging me to have a thought, an idea. Allowing me to fill another space in the world. Urging me to create another burnt hole or silhouette. Outline an idea, express a thought. Make what is inside, external. So I’m inside-out once more. I succumb to the urge. I take my pen and write of the grass. I write of Mendieta. The words slip from my mind into the ink then back into my mind. Another sentence, another syllable. They follow one another, a chain of letters.

‘What is the dream? To write something fine, that would be better than I am, and that would justify my trials and indiscretions. To offer proof, through a scramble of words, that God exists.’.

I reflect upon the process of articulation, my writing in a notebook, to find the words. How does one articulate the infinite? If infinite is vast and unknowable, beyond comprehension? Because that is what I am dealing with here. I push this into the pen. Articulating the infinite may be a daunting task. It is intimidating, I am very aware of that. But I am learning that it is essential. It is essential if as an artist or writer, I seek to express the ineffable in the work I create. I simply have to try. And so, I do.

Language is a flawed tool yet I use it to convey. The experience slips between the spacing of each word, it fades like a ghost.

You can see the experience once there, but it is no more than a trace. Frosted glass, the breath of air someone once used is disposed of. It becomes something new, it forms to liquid and drips down the window. Language can hint at the infinite, that is all. But I must continue to phrase it despite that. A chain of new insights, a chain of letters.

I think about sight reading. A musician reads a sheet of music
as though it were being played. There is no sound, but they understand the sounds of the symbols. The markings offer something to comprehend. Perhaps in and of themselves, they are not an experience but the insight, the potential is there.

I listen to the song Le Cygne. Le Cygne or The Swan, written by Camille Saint-Saëns, is supposed to be played on a cello. Two pianos may accompany it. The song is supposed to mimic the nature of a swan. The swan is silent until its final moments of life, or so the myth goes. Le Cygne was written for the play Le Carnaval des animaux as the penultimate song, the swan’s final moments are loud. I think back to Sontag’s ideas on silence. ‘Silence exists as a decision’. If I am to assume that the myth is true, swans have a dying song, in their last moments they break their silence – Why ?

That is the wrong question though...

The real question is what purpose does the myth serve? Why is it important in the myth, for the mute swan to sing? A final song before death.

Perhaps the answer is that noise or ‘speech can silence, too.’. There is noise in silence and silence in noise.

The song has a slow tempo and is for the most part legato (smooth and connected). You can hear the stretch of the swan’s neck, the grace and length of its wings that curl around the body. Her feathers white like Mendieta’s. An orange beak protrudes from the centre of its face. She is a ship upon a smooth floor
of silver water, with webbed paddles. A black pearl studded to each side of her head. The song describes the swan’s beauty. Her beauty, her elegance is important. She sings her last song, her only song, the world listens silently and hears her last breath.

I am silent as I stare into the unknown, as my mind widens and light pours in.

Into the pages of the book, I pour in light, it is important to have solitude, to contemplate. Contemplation is part of the process of understanding. I contemplate upon the paper and hope serendipity might play into inspiring a newfound connection.

Attempting to articulate the infinite might be an impossible task. But seeking to express the inexpressible would be just that, impossible. Instead, perhaps I can see this as a journey of exploration, my words creating an infinite pathway of ideas across a notebook that maybe nobody will read.

I put my notebook and pen back in the bedside drawer and go into the kitchen. I stand by the sink and look out of the window. The grass sits still.