Camera, Lights, Sound. I'm starring in a movie, and guess what? The director of the movie seems to have complete confidence in my acting, scripting and costume design abilities, and my job is to just invent the script as I go on. He has given me no detailed instruction and I find myself rather overwhelmed with this new kind of freedom. The air is fresh and I am relaxed. The buds are blossoming and so is my imagination. I have a vocabulary of the order of 10,000 and I can speak every single flowery word I have ever wanted to. Imagine how many more sentences I can compose using them.
But I am a human being. I have not grown up without experiencing fear. Limitations of logic prevent the best combinations of words and actions. Aesthetics is traded for likeability and spontaneity is forsaken for wit's sake. Silences are used pointedly in order to stay in control. Human attention spans limit the length of the dialogues, the duration of the riotous fests and the depth of my practice. My patience is at an end very soon because I want results to show the rest of the world. Every little doubt that enters my mind is addressed. Did I say there was no script, that I was free to improvise? There is no way to move forwards without seeing where this is going. There has to be an aim, and my cravings describe for me an unattainable goal which lies just beyond my reach. First I deprive myself of the freedom that I have been given by searching for snapshots in my memory, and develop them. There are negatives and then I try to prevent them, to get past them, and I try to make the images happen. They overshadow my horizon and I have given myself a task that it seems impossible to complete without staggering. A world in black and white, complementary colours, what I want is an imprint of what I do not want. I struggle towards this goal and with every step I take, the farther away it moves. My senses deceive me. I smell sweat and the rotting wood.
Tiredness enters my limbs and I begin to slow down. Cannot I move? Resistance is strenuous. I am afraid of losing, so I do not allow myself to stop.
I do not even have a choice anymore because I have already stopped. The minute I stop, the script ceases to exist. Attached to my shoulders are two arms, and to my hips, two legs. In my field of vision there is a cow. It has spots that seem to have furry edges. I walk towards it, it has very shiny horns. It is sitting in the grass re-chewing its meal while its jaws move slowly, swinging their contents left to right, to and fro. It is not in the least in a hurry and the sun shines on its back, while it lazily flicks its tail toward its hip bones and swishes away a fly or two. Mooo.
I am wearing a straw hat and the sun is shining on my arms and shoulders. I am wearing my favourite pink bell-bottomed trousers with my shirt. I clamber onto the cow's back and pet its neck. The cow runs out of the frame with heavy steps waddling its backside the way only cows can do; it runs out of the camera's perspective, carrying me on its back.
Hey Diddle Diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed
To see such fun
And the dish ran away
With the spoon.
This new script is much more pleasing to me. But who's writing it? I certainly haven't written it before it happens. It is happening and I am a part of it. It is being written down as it happens. And at every turn there is a new surprise.
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