I believe I have (temporarily) lost my spatial/temporal geographic
homeland. The zone between Mexico and the United States (Baja & Norte
California) is the interstitial space of my recent meanderings. I have
driven so many miles and walked and walked and I am tired today. Home in
the past 10 days has been a 29 foot long boat, a rental car, and various
rooms of differing sizes and degrees of hardness/softness. And the
inevitable concrete block. The cosmological systems which I habitually used
to determine my sense of "hereness" are becoming brittle. Bit by bit they
erode.
"The statues of the gods worn down by the kisses of the faithful." (Michel
Serres)
A very strange phenomenon has occurred regarding my somatic perception of
space. I am beginning to sense the earth by degrees. The global positioning
system I use, which triangulates signals from three satelites, gives me a
digital reading of my exact position on the planet at anytime. I am getting
a feeling - a body feeling - for what a degree, minute or second of
latitude and/or longitude actually is. Somehow this is being mapped onto my
body: the space of a breath, a stride, a gaze.
The earth is even smaller than I thought. Much smaller than the insides of
our selves, our cells. We are so close.
A semi-permeable membrane divides ourselves/our cells. The interface of
land and body, the collision of earth and water, the blurring of
boundaries.
What of the interstitial spaces between cells/selves, what is located
there? A part/apart. A paradox. The cell is delineated by the language of
the self. Our cells, our selves slip into the spaces between. Our lives are
a series of slippages and errings. We dance in this domain. Uncertainty,
insecurity prevail in this unstable zone, but errancy also moves us into
realms previously unknown. There are traces left behind. We inevitably
return to our geographic center, the one that owns us, a large rock on the
edge of an arroyo, the ocean, the railroad tracks, home.
Ever onward,
Eve Andree Laramee