We glimpse one another between the lines, and in the gaps amidst the words. A faint impression of a joyful eye, a downy cheek, a face half shadowed.
Why does anybody write? To search one for the other — into the past, the now, the future. Billions of shimmering intertwining threads, incorporeal forms that sometimes, miraculously, connect. A flash of understanding; a moment of knowing. To reach one another; to reach inside ourselves for a hopeful offering.
A constant craving, as the lady sang; a hesitant hand, reaching.
We yearn towards one another through a haze of static, mumbling midnight incoherencies, babbling in half understood frequencies. From one mind to another, an inconceivable leap.
But we try. On rock, on walls, on bark, on papyrus, on slate, on paper. On a screen.
Such longing. A frail and peculiar eagerness to partake in the oldest wonder — teller of tales, weaver of worlds.
As our ancestors once told tales in other voices, under constellations long drifted from their Babylonian paths.
To see, to be seen. For a moment as fleeting and abiding as a thought. Through the mysteries of the destinies that birthed us, we write in the hope of finding and being found. In the yearning for unison, to be less fragmented in our humanity.
We bicker and bumble and sing the song of the stars and the shadows and the eternal journey, each to the other, extending questing hands into the dark; lingering together a moment in companionship and consolation.
We write to weave our part into the pattern spun by the great loom. We write for solace, to chase the empty echoes, to dispel the isolation of the endless.
We write to see and to be seen. To know and be known. And for the comfort of being alone, together.
***
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This is wonderfully put, Alison, and your audio makes it even more enjoyable. I suggest everyone should experience both. Read first, then listen, or vice Versailles. Double the pleasure.
I will have to be content with imagining how you sound reading this, because the audio for me is unlistenable.
About half of the Substack audio that is available contains so many audio dropouts that it is unrecognizable as a human voice.
I've been fortunate to hear many of yours, but this one did not come through.