By Kristof Gregor
Recreation
‘the fact of people doing things for pleasure, when they are not working’
‘late Middle English (also in the sense ‘mental or spiritual consolation’): via Old French from Latin recreatio(n- ), from recreare ‘create again, renew’.’
That's all it really meant, isn't it? To create anew the joy mundanity takes away a minute, an hour, a day at a time like the wave is taken by an ebb back to the sea. Destroyed in shape, distorted amidst the old ocean's lethargy to allow the sea reflect possibility, a promise of the flow written in lakes on the moon.
I sat in the sand, relished my escape for a while prolonged by a book and port. I smelled the salty air so full as it traversed my nose all the way through and back. I rubbed my back quite sloppily with cream I bought to protect me from the sun I worshipped that morning when I woke up acknowledging its rays having decided to bathe in its shine.
From that too I would need an escape, it took the sunrise three days and four lonely dreams I mourned to end, one (sea)bed to the next.
“The purpose of your stay?”
“Leisure”
‘time when you are not working or studying; free time’
‘Middle English: from Old French leisir, based on Latin licere ‘be allowed’.’
Yes, I suppose that's what I was allowed to spend - some free time to recreate the shrine lit up every morning and never closed on time where life is the only body I receive (at times through wine) and if there is a soul the smoke from a cigarette buys it time until I blow it out. Time end time again the old must falter before the new too becomes an order of business and from its pieces I can peer into the past to make it attractive as a future for the temple always stood within the pillars of my chest.
And recreation is such a wonderful word.
The sun's reflection on a body's surface, rock's, water's, or yours so much deadlier to my skin sets soothingly into my pupils. Never forceful and never slow enough to seem fast I see you flying past on a motorbike in a dream from east to west so you never cast a shadow at my feet. I dare not close my eyes lest you might burn away just as I blink, I'd rather have them blinded with the image inscribed as sacred scripture to the back of my mind.
Reflection.
‘an image in a mirror, on a shiny surface, on water, etc.’
‘late Middle English: from Old French reflexion or late Latin reflexio(n-), from Latin reflex- ‘bent back’, from the verb reflectere.’
I have yet to be introduced to a reality even close in beauty to the myriad incarnations manifest in words of art and pictures of such depth I can get lost with the perfect map but still feel found for they are bent back to look at me not unlike the abyss of unposed questions I came to love. When I hear the sound of waves, booming as they crash into the cliff-fallen rocks that made their home in an eternal clash they will undoubtedly lose unless we drain the sea and sell it to the highest bidder with skinned shoes, I can't help but see it too as but a reflection of the strife. In my last dream I heard them cry about a crab they're exploited by at the ebb when they're dry he chips away slowly but surely at their hardened flesh and then, imagine, he leaves them low and wet and hides under, where the sea loses its violence and becomes a demure pet bringing seaweed to the beggar. He does it just for pleasure, recreation at his leisure on which he's too lucky to reflect, but don't underestimate him for under the stone-cold shell he has the heart of a philosopher and thus must be full of love for change.
No, he is no stranger to etymology and destroys to create anew from the crumbs a window for his hiding place so he too can worship at the sun's coming and he too can dream. He knows all too well that only with a window can the wall be melt and a door built to venture where the mind doesn't fear and his life rebuilt again and again under the same sun, yet trust me, on his shell it's warmer every time for all the windows reflect its light but let through images of that which he’s moved on from and he can hear the watch his grandpa gave him, see the trousers his friends hated, and the flowers his past love left hang above the bed and be filled with joy to recollect even as he takes a step forward and he has always been me.
By Kristof Gregor
Comments