Sunset, Thursday, 5 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

All along the hours guardians are posted who would help me if I would let them, from morning through night they accompany me, in rotation, and on emergency call. All they want is for me to look up and let in light, a space of feeling and remembering – strangely enough they want to help me get grounded. I see them as sentinels posted at intervals, although I suppose any one is available at any time. They move in colors, like illuminated smoke, they walk with me, and they talk with me, I mean to listen. Everything alive and possibly even not alive around me conducts their messages. The cats cleaning themselves so nonchalantly here in our living room – what fakers, they’re antennae. Fakirs. All of us, the things we say to each other, you reading this now, any random person on the street, we’re informing and guiding each other. As difficult as it is to believe in a given situation, no matter what we say or do, we are each other’s guardian angels.