Art sat on the edge of the bridge staring out into the reflections of light dancing atop the rivers moving water.
It was a pleasant summers night, full of mystery and warm winds that seemed to lift peoples spirits up amongst the mysterious mass of stars that had always shone above them.
It was one of those special nights when people let themselves connect freely to the wild elements of nature swirling within them.
It was a special night for something special, something that would change the world forever.
Earlier that evening Art had prepared to meet Dolores at the only restaurant/pub in the tiny mountain village in which they lived .
He had showered and shaved, pressed his only suit that was an inheritance from his grandfather, over polished his shoes, and combed his hair two thousand times.
He had looked at himself in the mirror so much that he wasn’t sure if he looked good or not.
Should he act this way or that way and if it was that way he’d look better in the red tie but it didn’t go with his suit so he’d have to act this way which went with the suit perfectly but was it better to wear the suit for such an evening or not?
Being in love with someone was harder than he thought.
When they say “Love is blind” they were talking about Art.
He had no experience in it whatsoever.
He was a dreamer and a storyteller of inspirations.
He was also madly in love with Dolores the barmaid/waitress who worked at the restaurant/pub of the tiny village in which nothing much didn’t know about what was going on as what was going on knew about nothing much?
Dolores had smiled at him one evening as she did to most customers, and a piece of something Art had never felt before had fallen clunk into a place somewhere deep inside him.
For once Art felt he was special and Art believed in things that were special.
It was as heavy and as precious as the very air in his lungs and it filled him with an amazing sense of......something, that he really loved.
This was the sort of non sensical rubbish that blossomed in Arts mind whenever he thought of Dolores and that was just about whenever he wasn’t thinking about her.
Filling him with all sorts of flights of fantasy and wonderful impossibilities.
Art didn’t know it but deep inside him was a most precious gift that shone a path towards horizons of destiny that had come into being from the moment of his birth.
Art had within him the meaning and he was destined to open up that meaning to the world, to the unfold the ideas that flow along the pathways of imagination that spread like wild fire through the creative genius of human beings.
All throughout his life Art had felt the calling but had never known from which direction it had come or where Art was meant to go.
Dreams of heading for far off horizons shone brightly within Art and he knew destiny called to him, somewhere out there in the world.
A knowing started to grow into a certainty which became a reality that faded into a dream...” as we can see, the mind of Art was still befuddled with a nonsense that can only be defined as ‘last seen, somewhere lost in Love’.
Art was a regular at the restaurant/pub, when he wasn’t out in the fields learning how to talk to wild flowers and listen to the whispers of the wind.
He enjoyed catching up with friends and theorizing on the possibility of there being
something else that explained meaning to life.
As usual Art would confound himself and the others with something no one had ever thought of before and weren’t quite sure if it should have been thought of at all.
All Art knew was that something special was going to happen, something that had meaning and he was going to be a part of it.
The odd thing was, that Art had always been special he just wasn’t too sure if he knew he was or not but being able to see beyond the horizon to far off places, of things no one had ever thought of before, was just one of the things that made Art special.
For the world outside of Art’s inner world was a dull, grey place filled with doubtful superstitions causing fear, misery and fascination but like the inquisition it spawned it could go no further than the length of truth within it.
Superstition did not like change or difference, even though it spread fearful beliefs and espoused the values of condescending forgiveness, its oppression always remained the same underneath its many faces. the same, always, in order to survive.
It was like the world was a canvas just waiting to be given life, shaped with colour and form.
It was waiting for Art.
But Art was waiting for Dolores who’d agreed to meet him at the restaurant/pub to watch the grey sunset as they ate and drank a fine grey meal.
Art was a believer in things that were special and things that were meant to be and he believed that meeting Dolores was a special thing meant to be.
He hadn’t talked to her much yet as she was always busy serving customers and was too busy to meet him after work but yesterday afternoon he had gathered his courage and ambushed her with a bunch of flowers and an invitation to have dinner with him this night.
Dolores went blank and was quite suddenly flattered with beautiful feelings that flooded her common sense and switched it off as she agreed behind a teenage blush.
Only as she watched Art skip happily away did she come to her senses and wonder what she was going to tell her husband.
She had known Art all her life, they had grown up together, Art had been at her wedding for gosh sake! Why was he asking her out and why did he seem to be somewhere else whenever he looked at her?
Dolores didn’t know that something had gone clunck inside Art and had made his mind a babbling confusion of bubbling, lovely thoughts and impossible futures, the last thing she thought of was that he was smitten for her.
“Men were confusing creatures for women”, she thought .
She knew she wasn’t going to tell her husband who was the VERY jealous type and she certainly wasn’t going to meet Art at the restaurant/pub for dinner tomorrow night.
The whole town knew everyones business through what happened at the restaurant/pub.
So instead she’d go and visit her sister and tell her the gossip.
It was as the restaurant/pub began throwing people out, that Art finally admitted he had gone through all the excuses a person could have for being late. She wasn’t coming.
Art grabbed the half a bottle of very nice wine he was drinking to add to the collection already sloshing around inside him and left the restaurant.
He somehow seemed to walk sideways up the street without falling over and sat down on the side of the bridge that crossed the old river Wise that had always flowed past the village.
Hearing within its ripples the sad song within him, a tide of pent up emotions crashed through the barriers of his fortress of denial.
He felt himself thrashed, bashed, washed, cleansed and smashed and as he reached the moment of clarity that exists within the turmoil of stormy emotional seas, he finally heard
the direction his calling was coming from.
For Art, meaning was a special thing that was meant to be and now that he could see meaning within himself, he could see further than ever and knew at last where his direction lay.
A page was turned and he saw things he knew, differently.
He knew it was time to go and see beyond the horizon of himself.
It was time to start the fire.
He had mistaken the meaning when felt his clunk for Dolores.
He had become distracted by looking at the limited horizons of others and forgetting how much further he could see within himself”..... Yes well, as we can see Art is still thinking rubbish is meant to be recycled even if he is no longer stupidly in love..
The next morning he awoke in a field he had no memory of making a bed out of and watched a bee doing its breakfast dance amongst the singing wild mountain flowers and he smiled all the way from the inside out, because he knew that this day was the first day of his meaningful life.
He left that grey little village and walked out into the grey world, exploring more and more the far off horizons he could see.
He had no idea where he was going or that there would be so many new and diverse places to discover.
As he explored these far off horizons, the world became less grey, beginning to fill with exploding colours of new ideas and innovation in all forms of creativity as others took up the example and began to explore their own horizons.
It was as though the world had begun to blossom again.
It was a rennaissance.
Falling stupidly in love with Dolores was something that Art believed was meant to be.
Her rejection had placed Art at the most important place of his journey - the starting point.
It had helped him to embrace himself and by embracing himself he now had someone to explore those far off horizons with.
Someone he knew and could trust and between he and himself they gave the life they had, meaning, and that was the meaning of Art.
After I wrote this I went to my letter box and inside was a pamphlet and written on one side it said, “The Meaning of Art Is” and on the other side it said “There is No Meaning To Art”.
That is so stupid it actually makes sense” I thought as I filed it, screwed it up and put it into the recycling bag.
After that, I sat down to wash some dishes and thought about the need for Art to have the freedom from boundries and restrictions so it could do its thing.
I usually think best when I’m sitting at my kitchen window, washing dishes.
In its pure form Art is a living thing passed on down from generation to generation, individual to individual who add their own unique interpretation into the swirl of its evolution and in amongst all that beautiful chaos, it somehow makes sense.
Art is a meaning of different things for different people and because of this it is constantly changing, evolving and forever will as long as there are different people to think of it and make it.
Art is like a book of actual events throughout history and a witness to revolutions of the mind, Art is but nothing without a sense of humour.........”
As I drifted on my profound carpet of magical words, I left my body and flew out of myself, high above the earth, where the colours of perception are so more vibrant and the fragility of the planets existence so much more pronounced.
I turned around and looked out into the vastness of space and remembered again how big, vast and alone it all is.
Then I turned around again and looked at the big beautiful planet I call home and felt glad that wherever we were spinning off into space to, through the mathematically beautiful revolutions of our solar system, I was glad I would be going there on such a beautiful, life giving planet like the Earth.
After I had finished washing and rinsing the plates, I started on the cups and glasses and marveled at how the solar system fits in with spin of the galaxy, which fits into its place amongst the moving of the universe and where its going.......where the hell was it going?
I hoped it had the directions right.
I was still speaking this rubbish the next morning as I woke up to find myself still at the sink, dishes sparking clean, birds singing outside, clouds drifting past and butterflies at the window laughing at me.
I marveled at the beauty of form and shape and colour of the flowers of the Ladies Slipper vine I have growing outside my kitchen window and thought, no matter how much mankind tries to interpret the world around them, they will never surpass the art of nature.
In that, it holds meaning for me.