I taste the Blacklight
This is my way to deal with uncertainty of memory and time.
Through my family’s ageing I realised that there are different versions of life that exist in parallel with one unknown to me. I began searching for “the other” and finding both grief and solace.
“Once upon a time, there lived a young fisherman who saved a turtle tortured by children.
The turtle says he will take him to the Dragon Palace under the sea as a reward.
The fisherman jumps on the back of the turtle, arrives at the palace and is entertained for several days by the princess.
When he decides to return, the princess gives him a treasure box, but warns him never to open it.
Upon arrival at his village, his parents are dead and everyone he once knew is gone. Only a vague memory of a young fisherman who disappeared long ago is known by anyone in the village. In despair over the loss of all he knows, he sits on the beach, opens the treasure box, and his age comes out of the box. He soon aged so much that he became a crane and flew away.
– Japanese folktale
It began with a phone call. “Your mother is not well.”
I knew it was coming. But that should be in the far away future when I am ready.
Not now, not today, not tomorrow.
Everything is still there but they are no longer the way I know.
All I remember sank into a blurred dark spiral. My hands reach them then bring them under the light, one by one.
Now I see that our role is reversed.
The ones leading me to the next wave, holding me up to avoid drowning , are no longer able to hold themselves.
Now I am the one holding their hand and leading to the unknown.
I can’t see the waves to ride.I have no plan for our destination.
Nothing visible to my eyes, my memory says so otherwise.
Seeking to reclaim the invisible, wanting things we can not have.
Hoping to find our way to lead, I search for certain moments,sounds and sensations.
I am left with a longing for the way things were.
