DirectionsQuiet down, quiet down - we will simply skip right over that, and drop back into it later when the momentum drowses and the lights dim. Quiet, please.
It is true that you cannot see you as I can, and that I cannot see me as you can. And it is true that this windowpane separating us is quite similar to a no-way mirror, reflecting and seethrough all at once. You, faced with your image, blow a chestful of smoke into the mirror and your reflection (blurred but there) is both obscured from that actual smoke in front of you, and the doubled image which is shown back by the mirror (a two-fold obscurence). Me, standing on the other side, faced with both your image and the reflection of it, can see the smoke (actual and double) and you (as you are and as you imagine). The versa is viced, and in the opposite we have some completion: Identity, all smoke and mirror.
And the body's secret tricks: touch, and the other common senses which, at times, get closer and closer to the essence of things, help solidify this form. The systems (all of which are nervous) of the body carry food, blood, oxygen, pain, though miles and miles and miles of weaving fibres elongated and folded between air and tissue. Impulses are sent in flashes, messages for movement, pleasure or otherwise. This small feat, performed involuntarily, happens in a space of time which is incapable of being calculated for it relates to Zero. You, all of you, good children, must remember that concept. You are all zero, and filled with a denseness of nothing - and trying to explain, approach, or grasp this emptiness only proves how inexplicable, inapproachable, and ungraspable it really is.
Skin has itch. Receptor sends note to node. Flash reaches processing, is processed, and action is decided upon. Body, in part, must move. More deliberation needed to plot the best course: First lift arm 8 inches positively on X axis, 10 inches on Y axis, and 4.5 inches negatively on Z axis. Proximity pinpointed, finger finds itch. Texture choice: soft, sharp, dull or precise? Nails begin to bite at the topmost layers of epidermus, releasing flakes of deadskin and flecks of relief into the greater atmosphere that surrounds the body and, almost, is the body.
Incalculable on a stopwatch! What does that mean for scale? Even a clunky and clumsy human, with deafened senses, can land his finger on an itch without hesitation, without sight, without time - it just does. It simply does. Children, you needn't look to tuxedo'ed gentlemen with rabbits-in-hats and all that sleight of hand for magic, our Mother Nature has provided for us a wonderful routine right here in our own dumb bones and gooey innards.
Perform this on another. Lover asks for a shoulder to be rubbed, and she is even precise about announcing the location in quite specific terms: not just the blade of the shoulder, but ever so slightly to the left, and just under the little wing as it is when arm is raised like so; there, tucked just beneath the musculature, and a mili-milimeter away from that freckle. He examines his hand and wonders just how to rub. The heels of the palms make for a good tool, and leverage can be applied as heavily or as lightly as possible. Their surface area is broad, which is good for nagging tenseness but not quite proper for a specific pinprick of pain. The fingers, all ten or the main eight, can perform magic - each popping and moving over the skin individually, like so many little voices that make up some polyphonic glee; or tapping and plucking in unison to create an even different effect. Knuckles, oh dear sweet plunging knuckles - their precision is unmatched, though their pressure can be a bit much. He frets, he squirms, he is racked with indecision. Stupidly, he places a palm to the shoulder as though imitating what he thinks a proper opening move - best to start out with a gentle, non-massaging touch to get her skin used to my skin, better to blend this slowly starting with carress and ending with a bit more rigor. He moves, circularily at first for lack of imagination, and misses the spot entirely. She, being a darling, politely points him in the right direction. Like this, even between two lovers as familiar with one another's body as they are with their own, the scope and scale and distance makes for some befuddlement when it comes to location. Yes, she likes to be kissed there - and there - and there - but here? Eventually, his own hands cramp and sweat, and the thing is ruined.
But, but --- but, mine is yours and yours is mine, and we are so in tune. A stray cry from an older audience member.
Itches and massages, as intimate as they might seem, are too external. Penetration is (interrupted)
But, but --- but I cannot tickle myself. Another troublemaker in the rear of the amphitheater.
I concede that fact. But I also urge you to note the time it takes to find your itch when you have one. Note the way the body employs a route that contains the least amount of movement, least amount of resistance, and uses the least amount of energy - note the way the body works for itself, and note the way (always, especially) it would all crumble and dissolve if but a single molecule were to shift out of its rigid allignment. Yes, someone else can inspire an overwhelming feeling of joy in me just by tickling a pit - but this illusion pales when compared to the other self-contained mysteries of our corporeal being.
And time! And time. It relates to scale, and it relates to directions. The time it takes to itch an itch, the time it takes to soothe a crying friend by way of a light but firm hand on the concave back, the time it takes to contemplate another footfall. To describe a day, we need a sentence. To describe an hour, perhaps a paragraph. The minute can be stuffed even deeper with detail, and we can elongate that into pages upon pages. A second, the strung chapters of a novel. But - the split second, the moment of 0, the exact duration of an impulse --- it spreads so infinitely, it is so everything all at once. Nothing takes forever to circumscribe when it comes to the clock.
What, though, if that finger that is my own gets hung up on an elbow, or makes a wrong turn at the left knee, or if it were to stutter or stall before reaching the destination? What, oh what, darling children, can we do with a mixed signal in our own banal brains? This, and only this, is how we can and should be treating the other. She asks for her shoulder to be massaged, head for the inner thigh. She begs for her right cheek to be kissed, aim for the ear. Blame a misfiring synapse, blame the faulty directions.
