My hand went unconscious. I lost feeling under the table, as a cold freeze set in. I can only describe it as a kind of vertigo experienced in the palm of my hand. And then a kind of stiffing occurred. Borderline panic, white lights, and a gripping of the nearest physical surface. I have been here before. It was during early 2008 that my hand first became the site of an internal dispute, the nature of which I have yet to discern. Indeed, the reprisal of this oceanic movement in my hand confirms my belief that the body’s anxieties unfold temporally in such a way that cognitive apprehension falls to the background.
Back then, however, I had a good reason for this partial lapse in consciousness. Forced—against my nature—to inhabit the social world, I found myself in a series of melancholy meetings with strangers. There was London Zoo, Gordon’s Wine Bar, the National Gallery, Holland Park, a flower market, Brick Lane, and a few more. Of those meetings, though, my hand reached a precise crippling point one night in Covent Garden with an artist. We sat in a large bar. Her face was attentive, her eyes keen, and she expressed interest in phenomenology. I liked her description of it as “slowing time down” and found the rocking motion of her head appealing, as I reported on Bachelard’s notion of oneirism. But the lights were harsh in this region of London, and the cluster of human beings around me was causing my hand to dispatch itself from the rest of my body, as though it was making a leap for the exit before I was. Nevertheless, I seized the legs of the oak table while feeling motion sickness tear through me. She retained her smile, the strawberry beers remained in place. But although holding ground, I had soon resigned myself to the existential dis-ease murmuring in my left hand. Despite giving her a copy of Alfred Kubin’s The Other Side, I knew I’d never see her again, and worse still the book. Soon after, I left and was instantly eased by the low light of the street lamps and the anonymity of the world.
Those where eerie days. Inhabiting someone else’s house, I also inhabited these other pockets of alien worlds, with their fluorescent lightening and breezy climates. One afternoon, I arranged to meet an actress in the atrium of a hotel. We both looked out onto the rain and the sea. I gripped a faux marble pillar next to me, and asked to take her picture. She sat uncomfortably, aware that my motive was less a celebration of a cherished moment and more an attempt at seizing a moment of dysfunction. I arranged things clinically and took the shot. Sometime later, when my hand had re-inserted itself into my body, I returned to the spot and relived the moment from the mirroring perspective.
Back then, however, I had a good reason for this partial lapse in consciousness. Forced—against my nature—to inhabit the social world, I found myself in a series of melancholy meetings with strangers. There was London Zoo, Gordon’s Wine Bar, the National Gallery, Holland Park, a flower market, Brick Lane, and a few more. Of those meetings, though, my hand reached a precise crippling point one night in Covent Garden with an artist. We sat in a large bar. Her face was attentive, her eyes keen, and she expressed interest in phenomenology. I liked her description of it as “slowing time down” and found the rocking motion of her head appealing, as I reported on Bachelard’s notion of oneirism. But the lights were harsh in this region of London, and the cluster of human beings around me was causing my hand to dispatch itself from the rest of my body, as though it was making a leap for the exit before I was. Nevertheless, I seized the legs of the oak table while feeling motion sickness tear through me. She retained her smile, the strawberry beers remained in place. But although holding ground, I had soon resigned myself to the existential dis-ease murmuring in my left hand. Despite giving her a copy of Alfred Kubin’s The Other Side, I knew I’d never see her again, and worse still the book. Soon after, I left and was instantly eased by the low light of the street lamps and the anonymity of the world.
Those where eerie days. Inhabiting someone else’s house, I also inhabited these other pockets of alien worlds, with their fluorescent lightening and breezy climates. One afternoon, I arranged to meet an actress in the atrium of a hotel. We both looked out onto the rain and the sea. I gripped a faux marble pillar next to me, and asked to take her picture. She sat uncomfortably, aware that my motive was less a celebration of a cherished moment and more an attempt at seizing a moment of dysfunction. I arranged things clinically and took the shot. Sometime later, when my hand had re-inserted itself into my body, I returned to the spot and relived the moment from the mirroring perspective.
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