Walking around London has been a habitual way of life for me, never been allowed to drive, actually more down to the drugs than the possibility of seizure, ("don’t operate heavy machinery"). Recently though, parading the streets and seeing the sights and visiting the spaces has been far more pleasurable because I could share it with someone. I’ve not been on my own, something taken for granted by the majority, some of whom would want to be on their own perhaps?
If you were to give something up for Lent, would it be company? Could you sacrifice the one component of your life the seems imperative to your survival – personal contact with others, not letters, not telegrams, not phones, not texts, not emails, but one-to-one contact! Could you fast and give up the everyday chit chat, chatter or elaborate conversation. Is silence really golden?
During one of our visits we inspected the floor of the Modern Tate Gallery on the South Bank, which had been cracked the full length of this massive gallery space, as if the converted power station had subsided. An artist had done this to apparently "change our perspective of the building", but it was more of a visual insult, a crack in the conversation I have with this building on a fairly regular basis.
This ‘installation’ had created a silence, not a conversation with the gallery’s content. But this faded as having someone with me to hold my hand or tuck their fingers under my arm meant moving on was far more important than worrying about what artists do. Perhaps silence is ‘golden’ as there is a certainly a point arrived at by two people where they no longer need to talk to communicate?
So am I seeing London a different way perhaps? I have given up silence for Lent and now can converse with someone who ends my sentences for me.
dwk
......over the edge 