I am writing to focus on something other than the man hunt that is going on around us.
Jesse, Jenny, Opal and I have eaten corn chips, raisins...I have eaten 1/4 of a bag of BBQ kettle chips and we are settling into a sequestered but every day existence.
So let's talk about yesterday. It started out as a gorgeous day. With the sun shining, though it was a bit windy. Irina is the friend that set up a few walks for me. Dirk is her boyfriend and a performance artist. Dirk is taaalllllll man. Where as I am a pretty short woman. I met them at their house and chatted with Dirk while we waited for Irina to get home. Once there we all decided I would walk with Dirk first as Irina had just got home and wanted to rest for a second.
Dirk and I had the greatest meandering route. I even had us go in a circle cause Dirk felt I wanted to go that way...so we did. I liked walking with someone who was really present and open to feeling what happened, hence the shifts that didn't have to mean anything but were just felt. Like point B was not known but felt. With our height differences I felt like sometimes I was rushing....going really fast as Dirk leisurely strolled with his long legs.
A interesting detail is that after around 10 minutes, Dirk changed the position of his hand and rested his thumb on the outside of my hand. It felt like in that moment we both relaxed into the walk. There was something about his thumb in the crook of my finger joint that was really pleasing to me. Possibly it was a place that had never been held that way before and I enjoyed that. It gave me a lot pf pleasure.
The streets of Somerville are obstacle courses for walking and together we sort of danced around trash cans and pilons. At first I was nervous about this having to wiggle around things and then as we walked it became art and I enjoyed it.
Dirk mentioned thinking about how if someone he knew us, what would they think that it wasn't Irina? Which is an interesting question. That here I am walking with someone else's beau in the name of art. Which it is great is that it could happen. That we could have an intimate moment that was art. I don't really have any answers about this but I think it is interesting this sort of middle place where I am walking with Dirk cause I know Irina and she supports my art and because Dirk is an artist. This is muddled up...but I will keep thinking about it. See what becomes clearer as i walk with more people who are in relationships. I guess I think of myself as sort of genderless or sexless or something when I do these walks...though in LA I definitely flirted on one walk and after another walk I am attracted to a walker. This is a complicated area.
We started a conversation about art at the end, and I got a little nervous/agitated cause I don't like to disagree on art. I am glad that I got to walk with an artist that seemed to inately understand what I was doing but then I was worried we wouldn't agree on it all. Which I ended up thinking after writing about "How do we talk about art without words? theories?" If as artist we get fed up with theories and find them a waste of time...how do we speak? how do we balance the intuition that gets us to the great moment of creation? How do we stay playing as we validify what we do? Is there a way? What are theories but the reflection of the act of art?
Great great walk!
