The Thing About Being an Island

On an island there is only the sea and an eye in the midst of it. Things wash up on the eye. They are magical emblems of a distant world. It doesn’t matter what they are, their magic haunts you. Purses….pursereligions…maria

… cheap junk from China.p1330196

It is all the same. By displaying it, you become part of the world, through display. Each piece is an amulet that calls forth the notion of travel, which, because you are an island, you can only achieve by standing still.

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Soon, you dress yourself in these amulets, and the style with which you disguise yourself, just enough so you aren’t completely hidden, becomes your ‘self’. In this way you are revealed, as if you are naked.p1330206

You are. Deep down, you are an island, where the idea of human occupation is just another piece of driftwood washed up on your skin, and everything you do will not erase the foreignness of the world, not even 1100 years of improvisation.

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It becomes your voice, as you drag whatever home you can, thinking, “Ya, I bet I can find a use for that someday…”

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or “Hmmm, I could wear that.” p1030097

One can make combinations, for example. p1050949

Really, anything goes because everything is equal. Everything comes from the world.This is an island. It is not the world. It is a place of finding land, and, slowly, being found by it.

mermaid

And then being the land on which others land.

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Here, every window is the sea.

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