Could I book an appointment with you to go to MOMA and see some great American art while I sit and read Irving Sandler's 'Truimph of American Painting'?
cathy x
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cathy,
Could we possibly do it say 8 your time? If not 9 is fine . .
When would you like to speak? Perhaps before our love time, sometime tomorrow morning for me? let me know, I will be on my cell or at home all day.
I am going to go to Mass MOCA ... it's a new modern art museum up this way, really fabulous I hear and I have not had the opportunity to go yet, people rave a bout it.
I'm sorry about MOMA but my trip in got pushed to next week and I want to get the site up.
I hope you're not too disappointed.
love, as always, kathe
PS I think we are already having a bit of a love affair.
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friday
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hi kathe,
sorry late getting back to you, hope you get this
It's a shame about MOMA but it's fine, it can still be interesting.
I will be reading the Sandler book from 8pm and thinking of you.
Whilst you were there I read the Robert Motherwell chapter in Irving Sandler's classic book on Abstract Expressionism. The last time I read it was 15 years when I first went to art college.
Last night I read about the iconic Elegy to the Spanish Republic paintings and about Motherwell's romantic obsession with the Spanish Civil War and what Sandler calls his 'nostalgic yearning'.
My love affair with you, kathe, is also my love affair with New York and my romantic yearning for a place I haven't been. In a way I'm glad that you couldn't make it to the Museum of Modern Art as I requested .
I 've never been to New York although nothing has stopped me.
There is so much I want to say.
"The sun shines into my room so beautiful and bright; in the next room the window is open. In the street everything is quiet; it is Sunday afternoon. I hear clearly a lark, warbling outside a window in one of the neighbouring buildings outside the window where the pretty girl lives. Far away, from a distant street, I hear a man crying shrimps. The air is so warm , yet the whole city seems dead. - then I am reminded of my youth and my first love - I longed then, now I longed for my first longing. What is youth? A dream. What is love? The dream's content."
Soren Kierkegaard - 'Either /Or'
cathy xxx
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cathy,
I loved you well at the Museum and a little bit before too, as we were late leaving the house. At the appointed hour, although I was smack in the middle of a conversation with Steve and sitting in the car in the middle of some cornfields, I began an hour of silence which I did not break (really difficult for me!), deep in love with you.
I wanted so to make you happy. The museum was very experimental and conceptual, full of installation and text and film and video, more my style maybe than what you were thinking, but perhaps I can give something of myself to you here, something unexpected and in that way I can love you. Oh well, it will have to do . . . I did walk with a whole still heart and that is a gift so precious.
There are three pictures, one of me looking away from the art out to you. The other is of a piece by an artist called Dario Robleto who takes objects with some real history to them, like bones, clothing, flowers, and paper (letters, handwritten poems) from other eras and he pulverizes them into dust by hand, combining their energy and re-forming them into new objects (that often look old), it is like poetry from actual alchemy, making poetry with molecules from history . . . I don't remember the story behind these boots, I was more fascinated by his other pieces but the boots look like they may have come from the Spanish Civil War so I am sending them to you.
They feel so full of loss and as full of love as I am for you, I cannot help but feel a little sadness the absence of your physical presence.
The last photo is of a piece I loved, Man is the New Woman, where he pulverized a female rib bone and cast the dust in the form of a male rib bone. It seemed prophetic and hopeful and I loved the way the rib bone floated in the space of the seemingly pristine & scientific vitrine.
Lastly, I am including a poem, an excerpt of a John Ashberry poem that I found in a room at the museum that was dedicated to artist's books. I do not know the name of the poem.
It's one of those days I guess - All of my talking is like a novel that has to be opened
Then and only then, angels appear In old clothes, speaking the roar We were all taught long ago
Yet a whisper circumvents this One just walks away The season is stalled
And no one really knows where the next one will be
I love you, kathe
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monday
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hi kathe,
Thank you for loving me at Mass MOCA, it sounded great and the photo of you was lovely.
I don't quite know how to write to you now, which of my roles to adopt: curator? lover? fellow artist?
The poem you sent was so perfect as I'm struggling at the moment to find the time and the mental space to start making my own art again. For me your love is such pure and concentrated art because it is about thought. It has been so creative for me because it has given me the space for thought which is what I really need at the moment.
Our date wasn't perfect, just before 8 o'clock I was talking to my partner excitedly about how deeply profound and inspiring this project was and my voice woke up our little girl. So at 8 o clock I was comforting my baby, eating my dinner, watching a crazy entertainment show about young hopefuls competing to star as Maria in a new West End version of The Sound Music, thinking of you, thinking about art, thinking about obsession, and eventually, Abstract Expressionism.
good love affairs like good pieces of art never turn out the way you'd planned.
I have thought about something I'd like you to project love to. I lived in nyc when I was 19 and I have massive affection for the place. I always loved the parts of the city that were becoming and transforming like the community gardens in between blocks.
Would you find one that could do with a little love at the end of the day?
This quote by Mac Griswold, an American Garden Historian, expresses much of my feelings:
" Sanctuary has lost the power of repeated common ritual and shared community memory. Instead, what establishes a sacred public landscape in contemporary times is our often individual and nearly unconcious response to it's peace and safety and beauty. Actions dictated by the design of the place itself, such as sitting, staring off between the trees, moving through space on a path, listening to the sound of water, or watching the slow patterns of shadow, are what restore power, hope and psychological stability."
Let me know when you want to do this and I'll be here!
Love Aly.
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Aly,
I think that is a great idea . . . to garden for an hour for love, in love, it makes my heart burst already.
I want to do this immediately, mostly for art's sake, as I am working on my website for experimentica and want to get it up before your opening (we should talk about how to use each piece -- tactile bosch, morefront & experimentica -- to advertise and draw interest to the other) . . and I will not be in the city til friday or saturday, so would you mind if I worked in a very sad and lonely little community garden in the little city where I live,Hudson, NY . . it would be very special for me, as it is in my own neighborhood and it is a very, very poor one, filled with the long time ignored and poverty stricken, much like the level of poverty revealed in the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.
I don't know who started this garden, someone hopeful, it wasn't too long ago, it appears . . but it is a little lost and a lot untended and it would be so lovely to love you there.
I will photograph it for you.
love, kathe
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friday
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Hi Aly,
I'm so tired today and, as usual, I wish I had made myself write right away, I was so inspired then. But you know, one thing leads to another, leads us out of the moment and then we are days down the road. Even still, I need to remember to not despair, the chaos does not cheapen the love.
After all I can only love you as I can, not as I could be in a perfect world or in a world when I was so together and clear, when my desk was clean so that I didn't have to write cross-legged on my couch as I am doing right now. I wouldn't have to make little threats to myself, that if I will start writing at 11:30 NO MATTER WHAT . . I will get off ebay or myspace or endlessly googling whatever while I chug my coffee, I will NOT answer the phone, etc.
I will love myself and always promise more clarity.
I started on time yesterday, and that is something auspicious. I walked down to where I remembered this funny vacant lot, one that I had glimpsed while driving . . . thinking, oh someone tried something here, someone had a vision . .
I never walk that way in my neighborhood. It is ridiculous, I do not wander here. I have a car and when I walk, I drive to the woods or the river.
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My town is coming up and going down simultaneously, people getting lost and people revitalizing . . . it is so hard to love equally sometimes. I want to love my neighbors and I have that good intention but the neighborhood is rough and sometimes there is a sinking feeling and I fight to keep myself away from the vortex, sometimes I do judge and make barriers. I don't know if that is not love, the need to cushion the self.
That is something I have learned here.
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I didn't find the garden I remembered, I got confused. I found some men building a house and I asked them if they knew about the garden. They didn't but they were blasting this pop radio and I liked it. Next to them was another vacant lot, not the one I had remembered. Later on, someone told me a house had burnt down there. There was gravel everywhere and through it grew weeds. The earth was hard under the stones.
Don't hide away You are like an ocean That I can't see, but I can smell and the sound Of your waves coming down I am no superman, that's for sure I have no answers for you I am no hero, oh not at all I do know one thing, where you are is where I belong Where you are is where I want to be.
Where are you going? Dave Matthews
I found a place in the sun and I began to dig. At first I lamented, again I wasn't prepared. Aly, I only brought a spoon with me . . what was I thinking. But I remembered that I was enough to love you, and I didn't even need seeds or flowers . . . I could make a garden with what was there: the gravel, the dirt, the weeds and me . . and I kept digging, moving the rocks and pulling the weeds and I was quiet.
The radio kept playing.
At one point a Bangladeshi couple walked by. They were an older couple. The woman walked behind the man, a few steps and was traditionally dressed and in all white. He looked at me and was stern or maybe he was just afraid of a white woman wearing a skirt and digging in the gravel. She saw me, really saw me, met my eye, bold, and smiled.
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I don't know why I am so solemn today.
I love you, Kathe
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monday
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Hi Kathe,
Thank you for the love.
It's Monday afternoon and I empathize with the exhaustion. I just fell of the roller coaster of highs and lows in the build up to the weekends events and I'm feeling a little hollow.
Friday brought a tempest of frustrations as we worked towards opening the exhibition, literaly having to stand and watch paint dry as the clock ticked. As the day rushed on chaos turned to calm and experience brings a sense of inevitability. " It will all be fine.....", was the mantra for the day and of course it was.
During Friday afternoon in the midst of the chaos I remembered our appointment. There was a real sense of comfort in knowing that you were there and when the chaos and the sea of bodies got to much I stood in the garden to breath and clear my head and was calmed by the thought of the solitary task you were undertaking.
The circle of earth and stones reminds me of Derek Jarman's garden, Prospect Cottage, on a desolate expanse of shingle that faces the nuclear power station in Dungeness, Kent.
He says, "Paradise haunts gardens and it haunts mine."
These lines inspired a project last year to see if it was possible to create paradise on a derelict site in the city. With some help I cleared the site and wrote paradise in wild grass and flower seeds. It has grown for a year and in October I will return to cut back the over grown grass which should have given the seeds a chance to spread and we will see if paradise exists in the Spring.
He tells of another garden he found that was haunted by paradise.
"The most amazing and suprising garden I ever saw, the sister of Prospect Cottage, is in Baku, Azerbaijan. The landscape there is pretty much like Dungeness but it is black with oil from the polluting oilfields; In the middle of the grim housing blocks is a little circular walled garden which an old power worker, avuncular, smiling, looking much like Picasso, built as a memorial to his daughter who had died in a swimming accident. He built maybe one hundred concrete animals, exquisite leaping deer, leopards and lions, as well as leafy bowers and a ziggurat with a spiral staircase. This tower had a room with windows in animal shapes, it's floor strewn with fine local carpets. Around the tower, in every corner, is a practical vegetable garden, of which he is very proud. Before I left he said; "You know the people in Moscow are mad. I sent them a blueprint for an engine that worked without all this black oil and they never replied."
Every small stone circle is closer to paradise.
Love you,
Aly,
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paradise Old persian - pairidaeza, meaning enclosure, park, orchard or pleasure ground.
French - pairi around and diz to mould, form.
Hebrew - from the Old Testement - Neh. ii. 8 the park of the Persian King.
I noticed that the expression of devotion can be through making something, and if it isn't too trite, I thought it would be a nice idea to bake a cake? If you'd like me to do something in return please bear in mind I'm in a rather unexciting office!
Thanks,
Adam Workman
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Dear Adam,
I would love to bake you a cake in love. Is there something special and evocative that you are thinking of, or would you like me to bake some kind of devotional pastry of my own choosing?
Please remember that you do not need to do anything to return the love to me. It is often preferred, however, to have some kind of quiet intent or focus, even if it is just inside your head.
Tomorrow is fairly free for me, but remember the time difference. I will probably not be able to shop before morning, so sometime after 11 (4 your time) . .
Let me know, with love, Kathe
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Hi Kathe,
I'll leave the kind of cake up to you - surprises are all part of love, right?!
We're only in the office here on Fridays usually until about 4.30pm UK time, but if around 4pm isn't too early for you then that would be great.
Thanks!
Adam
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friday
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dear adam,
I just tasted the cake. It was sweet.
I hope I didn't sound as if I was complaining when I commented on the phone about the appointments being more time consuming than if I was in Cardiff. It is just that love is so simple (perhaps), I mean I can just be myself and be loving you, isn't that what the whole premise of the True Love Project is about? -- but then it is often hard to extricate the precise act of love from the rest of life, from all that has come before and all that will grow after the act of loving. I am still loving you now, even though your time is up and in a few moments my sweetheart will arrive to eat some of the sweet love cake and drink some coffee with me.
It is raining out today and I really wanted to stay in bed. We were having one of those mornings that your couldn't plan for on, on a vacation or a weekend, when you might have all the time you want but you might be fighting or distracted. . . this morning was perfect . . . but you, and the baking, the love cake, were on the agenda and I had to leave and come back to the love studio for you.
It was dark here in the rain. I lit candles.
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I hope you don't mind that I speak of other loves while I am loving you, I have to be honest, I am in love with someone else, quite seriously, but . . me being loved well this morning only intensified my resources for you. I was full and happy when I got to the studio. I felt beautiful.
"On your day of true love I will find you. I will find you without finding you. I will love you by being myself.
Simply by being the best self I can be and dedicating this true love day to you, completely and with the most opulent, expansive, excruciating, honest and truly dense and yummy passion, you will have the opportunity to experience true love for perhaps the first time."
This is not to say that you haven't been loved before. I am sure you have. But because I have reserved this hour for you and no one else and because I have no expectations of how the hour should go and if it will please you, I can really be myself and so can you.
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The cake I chose for you had a lot of exotic ingredients. I wanted to make something special and something really really romantic, so I did the ultimate romantic thing . . . I am kidding . . I googled LOVE CAKE, hoping for the random gift and I got it, this Sri Lankan Love Cake, Download recipes_love_cake_recipe.pdf made with ground raw cashews, rose water, honey, semolina, cardamon and nutmeg . .
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we shopped in the middle of the night at a 24 hour grocery store, I knew I wouldn't want to go in the morning and lately, I have to say, 10 in the morning seems like an ungodly hour, particularly with the romantic rain factor . . so we shopped at midnight and were almost the only ones in this huge American supermarket and we were silly . . . it did test the vocabulary of the Hannaford's, your exotic ingredients but we made it . . the rose water was unavailable but now they have these special organic sections in the big supermarkets and they had some essential oils there and the geranium oil seemed to remind me the most of roses.
It said on the side of the bottle: COMFORT & OPENS THE SPIRIT.
I came across your project a few months ago - you were featured in a throwaway Brighton art magazine. I was leaving Brighton, a place I had hoped to make my home. The only reason I was reading was to keep my mind off love, I have a trashy and predictable habit of spending long train journeys thinking too intensely about love. And there you were with this proposition of loving unselectively and equally which kind of makes the potential of love both endless and limited. You got me thinking Kathe, and now another train journey will bring me to Cardiff where I m taking part in experimentica - a place where we could potentially, if not physically, meet.
I'd like you to love me - but I still don't like the idea of you doing something for me, I'd like you to do something with me. For me love is an act of simultaneous intention. If you can, on Oct 7th at 7pm (my time) I'd like you to join me in the task of making weather. I will be in the midst of my performance trying to create weather systems from body heat, sweat, steam and watering cans. I'd like you to be my companion. As a brief its pretty loose but then so is the job of loving someone.
Hope you can make it,
Almost loving you,
Jo Bannon
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Hi Jo,
Have we met before? Your name sounds so familiar . . .
I would love to love you during your project, and I will try and make weather too, here in Hudson.
I am looking forward and I will be in touch, kathe
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friday
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are we on for tomorrow, making love while making weather?
xx kathe
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saturday
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Jo,
I don't know very much about you and we never really confirmed our love appointment, but I did know that you would be making weather in Cardiff at 7 pm your time on Saturday, so I decided to collaborate whether you were ready for me or not. I hope you were.
As usual, I was late to love you and I had to love you in whatever capacity I could at that moment, as I knew you would need me then. I wasn't sure how long your performance would last but I wanted my energy to be as concentrated as possible during that time. I have been silent for all of my appointments so far. I just need that separation from the rest of my life, although sometimes I have to say that I wonder about that -- making that separation, I mean couldn't it just be fluid, all love all the time?
Right now, it really takes an effort for me to be focused.
I have been all over the place with my energy, overwhelmed with (what appears to me to be) a herculean amount of things to do in the day and the desire to just do nothing. I can't seem to get a handle on those two motivations. Is laying around healing or wasting time, is being that creative a rush or a compulsion . . hard to say. These little love acts kind of bring everything together for me, I am being still and stopping my day and doing something but doing nothing too, and being really really quiet.
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Because I was late, I was driving for part of your time, but I figured with global warming and the ozone layer and everything, car fumes were certainly making weather, maybe not productive but certainly with the intention of love.
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My sweetheart Steve (who has been at least a slight collaborator behind the scenes on all of the sea of love, mostly as a road manager making sure I get there on time) drove me to these platforms that were on this property he's trying to sell. It's just a bunch of beautiful land that has been untouched and they're trying to sell it in large parcels to keep the integrity of the landscape. The builders have cleared some plots and built little platforms so you could envision where a house would be located.
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I walked up to the top of this hill and climbed up on the platform. My quest to both do something & nothing while loving you inspired me to lay two pans of water on a blanket under the sun and then lay there with them and pray, for myself, for you, for the world.
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I have to be honest to everybody out there who has been loved here or who desires to be loved, that I spend a lot of time during the love appointment making the photographs. I'm like a little kid with my timer and tripod, jumping around, pressing the button, fussing with the props, gazing into the lens and projecting love.
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It is so much pretend, like playing really hard, so much pretend it fills my whole heart.
I love you, Kathe
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monday
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hi Kathe,
Thank you for loving me, I was so busy in the run up to the performance in Cardiff that for some time I forgot our collaboration. About five minutes before 7pm I remembered you and started to imagine how you might be preparing to join me. As we ran and got hot in our performance and watched to steam rise to make miniture clouds I thought about the circulation of all the air in this world and how maybe our clouds of heat might cross the path of your evaporating effort in making weather and at that moment I felt the possibility of being really close to you.
I could feel you on my skin.
Thank you for being with me.
I love you,
Jo
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wednesday
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dear kathe,
having read your mail in response to our request to love us whilst we were making weather for others in cardiff one could come to the conclusion that love is all about yourself, even a pretentious enterprise and if that is an attribute of art: enterprising pretention, you are a marvellous artist, like some of us, like the old masters. And I do not mean to be offensive, I like what you do, magnifying our institutionalized care for each other. I hope love could be sth in alterity to your project, but it isn't really. it is all emails and cameras, a flood of pictures.
Good luck and love,
Birgit (from peoplesinpieces)
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thanks for taking the time to think about love and the project birgit, I appreciate it.
let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
xxxx kathe
oh and, I do the best I can, as you do yourself I am sure, that way we do love each other, or try . .
xxx
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jo,
I put up the exchange with birgit because it seemed like part of the piece, I had no idea I was loving her as well, but there's more than enough of that to go around . . I don't know if you felt similarly . . . now I'm thinking (although our love appointment is indeed over) . . . if you feel like it detracts from your experience, you were my appointed contractee, and like a doctor or any professional I do have some protocols . . at the same time I have a tendency to include everything as it happened, even this exchange . . I am open to what you think, let me know.
paul enjoyed meeting you.
with love, kathe
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hi kathe,
I was really intrigued and surprised by Birgit's comments to you. I told her, and the rest of my collaborators (Becky and Scott) about our appointment as they were participating in the making of weather at Cardiff. However in terms of their involvement I view our exchange as something between us, as you only spoke to me and I was the only one thinking of you during our hour together. Therefore Birgit's views are interesting as her participation is only as a witness and not as a giver or receiver of love. To explain your project to someone is only to give a synopsis of the gimmick, for me it was only in taking part that I could evaluate the intimacy of our connection. I hope you don't feel I have abused your trust in sharing the outcome with others - it seems only fair that we both know the rules but I want you to know that during our time together I was all yours (or as much of me as I could give).
In terms of showing you some documentation of our performance... we dont as yet have a website (we are still only babies in this buisness!) there may be some footage being added to the experimentica website in the next few weeks, or I could send you a dvd and some pics if you want to give me your address.
I enjoyed meeting Paul too, he told me briefly about his experiences living with and loving you so publicly. His work in Cardiff - Scapegoat, really opened up issues for me which I see in your work too about offering a very loaded service, in your case love, in his sacrifice. When can these actions reach beyond gesture?
I really enjoyed participating with you and you must let me know if you are taking your work to the UK anytime soon.
How are you doing? All well I hope? Have just read that magazine interview and it's beautiful, it really shines what you and the project(s) are about. I love you so much!
Life here continues to be good, swinging almost hourly between Indian summer and monsoon season.
Have also just checked out the Sea of Love website and it looks lovely, it's wonderful to read the love letters, they're interesting in themselves but also bring back to me so much of our love affair in the spring! I'd love to book an appointment with you so let me know how/when we make a date and I can go shopping for a new outfit!
Love you,
xxx
paul
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p,
I want to hear about your boyfriend.
I love you and miss you very much.
When do you want your love appointment? Should we both shop at the same time?
love you, k
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monday
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hey!
As to our love appointment, this weekend or next week are both pretty free for me at the mo. I was more suggesting that I have an excuse to shop for an oufit prior to our date (my favourite shop has a sale starting Thursday and I've seen the cutest Paul Smith trainers...) but we could go shopping together. Or I have a special bench at the end of my street looking over the bay that I like to go and sit and think on.
I could love you sitting there (and I'm sure I have done before). I'll have a think about it.
Love you,
xx p
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I'll call you tomorrow and we can finish our plans for love (I like the bench)
love you, kathe
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thursday
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Hey sweetheart,
Was lovely to chat last night, to hear about your new project and to share a little about mine. I'm totally excited about the prospect of Miami, I think it would be amazing, but am supposed be in a conference in London that same weekend. I should have details of it next week so can decide if it's as important as it's supposed to be (it certainly won't be as much fun...!)
As to our love appointment next week, I think sitting on benches is a good idea. We could just sit and meditate, or listen to music, read or have an early morning picnic. Coffee in a Thermos flask and pain au chocolate...?! You said about early morning your time, 6 or 7am would be 11 or 12 my time, which is totally fine for me it just depends whether you really wanna get up so early. Any day next week would be good for me, whichever suits you best.
Looking forward to it,
xx p
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really really want you to come to Miami and I will try to help as much as I can . . .
How is Monday 6:30 my time for you, on a bench in the woods, coffee and danish of my choosing, music and semi-darkness . . .
I love you, kathe
ps good luck tomorrow
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monday
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paul,
I have a grumbling 16 year old child laying in my bed next to me who is anxious to get back to school and who has just about enough of her conceptually loving mom . . it's like "oh god, mom, do you have to love today, I gotta go . . " it's really funny.
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I had a really lovely time this morning, just so you know, and I think it is interesting to note here that it is really different to love someone you know than to love someone you don't know. Of course it is, but for me -- I'm attempting to love all the time and sometimes it feels like just pretend but I am a firm believer in acting as if, in training the mind, in visualization . . it does feel forced to do this or artificial but if our minds are trained to work in certain ways and by trained, I mean culturally and by the circumstances of our lives as well as official schooling, then we must train them otherwise. In love as well as the more practical considerations of life.
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I am not saying that I had to do any of this training to love you this morning. I am just thinking about my process here, and part of our love together is the camraderie that comes in loving an artist that works as hard as me, and whose work is as difficult for others to understand, the invisibility of about 2/3 of what we do, the seeming perversity of the hypothesis of the determined specific projects.
I really love you Paul Hurley. Not that I don't love the others. But I really really love you. I slept next to you for 10 days and braved the desert island that was the Bluebird shop at night, like orphans in our little hut, lost and found.
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When I first started to love others in this project 5 years ago, I was hardly ever in relationship. This project forced me to get really into my loneliness. That wasn't my intent when I started, but the intensity of the work just brought it about. Maybe. Or Maybe it was the training that was necessary for me to do this work. Not to get all God on you (oh like that never happened before) but probably there was a bigger plan for me and I needed to get all sad and lonely and scared first and then get some faith and believe that there was a bigger love inside that was more powerful than the dark or no body or no love or no money or whatever it was that was haunting me and making me wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding.
I still wake up with my heart pounding every once in a while. Not so much though.
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This morning I didn't want to wake up and I especially didn't want to face my last cup of coffee (for now, never say never). I've been having all sorts of body and mind issues lately, some have been attributed to food allergies, which is really a drag as I do love to eat whatever I want particularly if it is that very special form of nourishment called BREAD. I've been working on it and better for it, but ridiculously manic, which causes me to make great art, but leaves me in a crying heap every third day, so I've thought to cut out the coffee. I don't really drink that much but I am sure you remember how much I love to wake up with it. It is so celebratory, really. I do wake up well, like bright and shiny and the addict in me just wants to make it shinier . . . well, I'm going to try . . .
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So I made the coffee in the dark and set out for my favorite bench in the woods looking over the Hudson River, a river I love, a river that has run through almost my entire life, except for the years by the ocean. Of course it took half of my love to get there, because I like to do everything the hardest way possible.
I was talking to you the whole way. About life & love. About the coffee.
I love you, Kathe
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oh and before I forget:
I wanted to tell you that I can actually feel the difference of loving you, loving someone I have loved in person, been physically close to, someone I hold in my heart (I am finding it hard to find the difference here, the difference of love in words) . . I feel the difference in my body and I do feel it in physical proximity to my heart, the actual place in my body
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I threw out all the coffee I had left at home on the earth . . .
and about the coffee, I feel fear, also in my body, to let it go, like I am less without that extra brightness, what is that, oh well, I must love myself as I am, as I wake up in the morning, as I was born
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I would love you better then, love better then
just thinking
still love you, kat
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tuesday
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Hello sweetheart,
Thanks for the message and for a lovely time yesterday morning. Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, have just been drifting through the last few days.
Firstly I have to apologise for being late. I stayed over at Richard's on Sunday, and after an exhausting weekend of performances, openings and parties we both totally overslept and by the time I got home and had some stodge breakfast (bacon, eggs, hash browns and black pudding, reminded me of the Bluebird) it was like 11.40 before I walked down to the bench. But I knew you'd be waiting for me. I'd picked up some pastries earlier and bought some beautiful dusty pink lillies ("Star gazers" the florist told me) for you/me/us.
As I walked up my street to the bench, carrying pastries, flowers and a cup of coffee, an old couple - she with a stick, he with a flat cap - were getting out of a car, and we smiled a precious "good morning" at each other. I was wearing my new shoes, my favourite (=worn 6 days a week) jeans, and a flowery shirt that I bought in the sales on a whim and that always makes me happy.
I listened to Devendra Banhart, drank coffee, rehydrated myself with San Pellegrino, grazed on the croissants, smoked a cigarette and thought of many things. I tried to think mostly of you, but inevitably other things crossed my mind. I think this is the ease with which we love each other. Like after the first few days in Bluebird, we found we could love each other whilst reading or checking emails, whilst the other was talking to loved ones on the phone or smoking quietly on the steps outside. Our love for each other is our love for everything that we love and do, and that almost makes me cry. I had a heap of other stuff I was going to write about yesterday, but if I were to start I could go on for ever. You know what I'm talking about.
I really love you Kathe Izzo, and whilst the whole God thing is such a massive unknown territory to me and not one that I'm going to go into at this moment, I'll just say the idea of a bigger plan certainly does mean something to me. Thank you so much, for everything.
I’m writing to see if you still have any appointments or times left for your Sea of Love project. I heard about the project through my friend Paul Hurley in Cardiff although I have not been able to see any of his/your work! I am Canadian, but have been living in Cardiff for the past three years (not sure why that is relevant, but there you are!)
Hoping to hear from you soon,
savita
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hi savita,
I would love to love you. Have you been to the website? You can get there through www.chapter.org/seaoflove.html. Do you have any ideas for our love collaboration?
You should think about it, as well as timing.
looking forward with love, kathe
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thursday
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hi kathe,
Sorry for taking a bit of time on this. Okay, what I would like to propose (totally open for discussion, etc!) is a collaboration based on the idea of love at a distance.
I think it’s interesting what you are planning to do by loving me and others from the US over to UK. I was thinking about how most of my familial relationships are now love at a distance (UK to Canada). Reflecting on this I started thinking about how we provide love (or not) to strangers at a distance. As an example, this love may take the form of structural care in areas of conflict or insufficient human rights (ie aid, intervention, etc.)
I’m easy on time, but I think that Wednesday would be a good time for me (maybe 10 or 11pm my time).
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I think what we would be interesting is for us to both work with the attached file (.gif file, I can resend if needed) which is a blank map of the world. I like the idea of taking the same time to decorate the map in any way that we feel inspired to do so, and in doing so to love these regions as regions (without pity, empathy, anger, condescention, admiration…etc. Just love) along with collaborating with our love for each other during this half hour.
I would then like to commemorate this reflection and exercise with a donation in the name of our love collaboration (I will take care of this) to Doctors Without Borders (Medicine Sans Frontiers).
How does this sound? Interesting? Did I completely miss the point?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
love savita
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wednesday
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hey savita,
would it be too late for you to love the world at midnight . . it might be cool . .
my day is just getting pushed back, I can make it work at 5 but it might be a little bit stressful . .
I love no matter what but I love serenity.
smooch, kathe
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savita,
I have to start this love letter with an apology. It is 7:40 in the evening, new york time, and I am just sitting down to officially love you. I have been unofficially loving you since way before our alloted time of 5-6 pm, as I became aware, fairly early on in the day, that my day was way too full and I would have a hard time sitting down at 5 to love you. I tried to write you and push it back, but I guess you are not as compulsive about your email as I am . . . probably a good thing for you (and for the world . . one less LED screen burning bright, one less appliance sucking heat) . . don't get me wrong I love my computer, but that's a whole other story.
You know Savita, I am a mom, I have three daughters (16, 18, 21) and I have been a single mother more than half of their lives and that entails running around and never being anywhere on time, disappointing them more times than I would like to remember, but the love was still the same. I guess I can't compare my love for you with the love I have for them, I am their mother, but I don't think the stretch is all that much. I do believe the love is in the intent and that after that we can just do the best we can in any given situation. I was beginning to get completely stressed around 4 when I hadn't heard from you, afraid that I was going to fail you . . . but I kept you close to me and continued on with what I needed to do. It was what I needed to do.
It is so hard to let go and just be, that seems to come up again and again here in the Sea of Love. I don't know if I am just growing up and realizing that, suddenly and the timing with this version of Experimentica is an accident or if there is some kind of cosmic destiny. I have a new kind of serenity brewing and it's got to be good for you, even if it is not exactly what you were looking for.
I am so sorry, I really hate to disappoint you. I will sit now with my map and be quiet. Hopefully by now you are dreaming, you sweet thing.
I love you, kathe
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here you go lovely savita,
I realized I had no art supplies here . . . so I sat for a while and then decided to kiss every part of the map.
I would love to have a date with you. I feel you here alot anyway. Or at least I feel I can feel your love, our love, love.
How do you get on the website to make a date? The website looks beautiful by the way!
fran colomb
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thanks so much fran! you can sign up with me right here . . . think of some way we can love each other over the sea and when would be good for you . . .
xxxxxx kathe
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Great. Where do you want to go? I just like to be with you!
fran
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do I need to come up with the idea for the date? Can you get to New York or is it supposed to be in Hudson? I am in a cafe and shattered from work. Something to do with sleep could be quite good right now. I shall try and dream of you tonight. I will be in touch soon.
love, fran
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we can dream together, do you want to just say from 1-2 my time which would be from 6 -7 your time, probably just before you wake . . that could be beautiful . .
love, kathe
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dear fran,
I didn't dream last night, I am afraid, but as I tossed and turned, I was continually aware that I was (supposed to be) loving you, that this was an important part of my activity of sleeping (or not), my purpose. Several things interfered with my sleeping and dreaming potential: I stopped drinking coffee a few days ago (documented here) and I went to bed with wet hair, a new beauty treatment I have taken to, ensuring that real bed head look my daughter refers to as that "haven't gotten out of bed in a week, just got fucked look" (aren't teenagers dear?) . . and also hit another (slight) rough patch with steve, and was sleeping alone in my crumbly little row house that is in need of a new furnace that hasn't yet arrived and the autumnal chill is just starting to set in, usually creeping up after midnight, right when I was supposed to be loving you, when I was loving you.
I took a bath and crawled in under two heavy blankets, which is really my most delicious way to sleep and I was fine, not dreaming. Spanky slept at the the foot of my bed, snorting in the dark.
the difficulty with steve and I, always, is how to keep a semblance of sanity and separation while being still madly in love, how to set up equity and balance . . . we only seem to know how to plow full steam ahead, like a runaway train . . . for so many of us that is what love is: a madness, the most wonderful affliction, like a fever . . when I was younger I didn't know enough to pray for some kind of longevity in love, I thought I was immortal and the moment seemed enough . . . I still believe in the moment and yet I have learned that we must take care of each other and we must take care of love, like a garden, left to grow wild, it often chokes itself . . . but how do we learn?
more than anything last night, I was just aware of how alone we are, and that was not unpleasant at all, but haunting. I could have been anywhere in my dark little room and maybe I was everywhere. I felt very young and small and earnest, as if I was waiting to be kissed on the forehead. Maybe this was the dream, and we were sisters bound together in the dark by our hopefulness. That is what I remember most about you fran, your hopeful spirit.
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I hope you were dreaming.
I love you, kathe
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kathe,
Well at first I thought was it cheeky to dream of you when I hadn't asked your permission. I imagined you going to bed with I suppose your hair all wet metaphorically speaking. Actually I imagined you in a white cotton nightdress surrounded by candles. I thought about you thinking of me and exactly how you said, like sisters.
Well I did dream of you and I was really suprised. Normally I wish I could dream I am with a loved one who is absent and it just never happens.
I dreampt what you were doing was the cosmic equivalent of making patterns and making clothes with what you are doing with love. Sacred geometry? It was a real affirmation. The dream stayed on this idea for ages. It was as if the message was that you were on the right path, in the right place doing exactly what you were supposed to be doing. I felt loved and not a bit lonely.
I woke up at about four wrote that all down,which I have to check because as usual I tumbled out of bed to get to work this morning in a rush.
When I went back to sleep I dreampt about you again but this time we had difficulty meeting. We wanted to get to the dinosaur section of the Natural History Museum but it had gone. So had the Museum of the Middle Ages. Bit random like dreams usually are.
Thank you for our dream date. I really could feel you thinking about me.
hello from beautiful Cardiff and I love the Sea of Love. Do you have a small space for a very quiet date?
I thought we might do something very tranquil together while loving.
One of my favorite things is scuba diving and while I have not managed to go for a couple of years now, its something I increasingly muse and dream about. I would like us to have a very slow imaginary time in the sea together flying down over ledges and through corals.
One of the most incredible and magical things about being under the sea is that you can lose all sense of one's self and experience a tremendous beneficent connection with all creation. Ego ceases to exist (for a little while........) and there is a profound recognition that life can sustain and nurture you, if you can release the need to control. Under the sea the individual is forced to slow down.
I guess, a kind of wet meditation.
With love to you and the children
jane x
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dearest jane,
I would love to have a wet meditation with you . . . I can certainly use to lose my ego and slow down for a while, can we do it right now?
no seriously, let's do it later today, say around 6:30, that would be 11:30 your time, that's not too late is it?
let me know,
with love, kathe
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dear kathe,
around 11.30 tonight is perfect for me as I'll be pretty chilled by then and well ready to swim with the fish.
looking forward to our tranquil and loving time together.
loving you loving me,
jane x
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cool, I will be there, I might walk in the dusk as I meditate, if that is alright with you.
love, k
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jane,
I am not going to write much. I'll let the pictures tell the story.
I walked into the evening deep in the woods and I used the sky as my sea until I needed to use my memory of the path as my guide. Also my faith in my mind's ability to interpret shadows. It was just a little bit cool and there were cooler patches that came on suddenly, surrounding me and moving my hair.
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Thank you.
I love you, kathe
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dear kathe,
Absolutely Beautiful.
As I drove back from the forest a little while ago the song on the radio was 'Let It Be' by the Beatles.
Its been lovely spending this time with you and wishing you all your dreams
I read about your work in the Chapter brochure, and thought - what a wonderful idea.
There is something I would like you to do in love for me, if you can.
Six weeks ago, my 19 yearold stepson died suddenly and with no apparent cause. He was a well-travelled young man, and one of his unfulfilled desires was to visit New York. I wonder if you could spare some time to take a walk in the city, maybe thinking about how it would feel to see it for the first time as a ninetenn year old boy. Where would you go? Who would you speak to (if anyone)? Would you have a snack or a drink? I don't know.
All I do know is that knowing someone was doing something in love for me at this time would be one of the most special things in the world right now.
I hope we can be together in this way,
In love,
liz
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liz,
I would love to do this for you. I am actually performing another act of love for someone in Cardiff who died next Sunday, so interesting. I have never performed one of these moments or days of love for the deceased before and I feel so moved to have been asked.
I could go into the city Thursday or Friday. Are either of these days good for you? We could pick a special time that you could be thinking of me and your stepson.
What was his name? Could you send me a picture of him?
with love, kathe
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dear kathe,
Thanks for replying so promptly.
I think Friday would be a good day for me, as it's my day off and I can ensure I have time and space to be with you. How about, say 11am your time? I think that would be about 4pm my time. If it's difficult for you to get into the city by then, we can make it later, but I would like it to be around then if possible.
I was full of emotion when I read your reply, and am so looking forward to you performing this act of love for Seth and myself. I will try and send you a photo of him before Friday, but if not I know you will still be able to do a good job.
I look forward to you confirming the time of this act of love.
love,
liz
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liz,
11 on Friday should be fine. I am thinking of asking a new friend of mine, an amazing performance artist and just 23 years old to maybe accompany me. I don't know if he will be available. Either way, together or myself alone, Seth will be loved at 11 my time, this Friday.
Let me know if there is anything else I need to know.
love, kathe
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tuesday
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kathe, I've attached a photo of Seth so you can see him. It was taken in our kitchen. Funny, till I looked at it after he died I never noticed it said "Realm" on his hoody. Perhaps when someone's gone our eyes become hungry for them, and take in details and give them meanings that would not have arisen had they still been around.
I already feel so much comfort, knowing that you will be loving me on Friday. I hope you will be able to tell me what you did, and how it felt. I really want YOU to have a good time, but I know it will be whatever kind of time it will be. I hope you will feel my love at our special time.
I have created space on Friday so I will not be disturbed, and can be with you in my thoughts.
love you,
liz
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Thanks so much for the picture Liz, it's really great to have it. I do this kind of thing all the time with no info but for some reason I wanted to see Seth. I love that it says The Realm on his hoody. When was this picture taken? Just curious.
I really wanted to do this with this young friend of mine, Ian. He gets off work at 2 in the afternoon (7 your time) and he works in the Village which would be a good place to begin a wandering suitable for Seth. Can we switch it a little bit later?
thank you for thinking of me, looking forward, kathe
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I love the idea of you and Ianwalking around the Village together. I can make time for 7pm. When I asked you for this act of love, I thought about asking you to go to a specific place. I have been to New York, and so has my husband Steve (Seth's Dad), although we each went before we met each other, and I must say the Village is somewhere I would have suggested. It seemed important, though that you choose where to go, just as Seth would have.
The picture was taken about 18 months ago, as Seth spent one whole year in Australia before he died. I think it captures something of his wide-eyed innocence and the naivete of youth. He was someone who was very open to new expereriences, and very accepting of people. He did not judge by creed, colour, academic qualifications or socio-economic standing, and I'm very proud of that part of him.
I am sorry I didn't write you last night. I did travel into the city for you yesterday. It was a bit of a struggle, as I have been filled with the most exquisite but physically demanding tunnel vision in regards to my work and the trip into the city is a 2 hour train ride . . I make it all the time without thinking, however it is something that took some intent and discipline yesterday . . I had made my commitment to you and I felt the need to fulfill it with every fiber of my body, and it took effort to make it there on time. I tell you this not to overwhelm you or make you feel guilty in anyway, for it tells so much about love . . . I was so moved by your request and by seth's picture and you know how it goes, what love does to the brain, it makes you want to do the superhuman effort . . don't get me wrong liz, it was not that much work but I needed to explain this to you first so you get the full picture of me, so you get the intimacy of what I, the love artist, is really like. Not necessarily serene. Really complicated and high strung. But full of love.
I do way too much, even this here, the sea of love, may seem like so little . . but in truth, I'm running around all over the place and carving out windows of time to write inbetween. birgit, many loves ago, from the making weather love episode, accused me of empty gestures . . what is love but gestures, but then no, underneath the gesture, the fear is that there is absolutely nothing really, and it is in this nothingness that love resides.
I see it all the time. People show up to be loved by me and I am sitting with nothing but myself. Sometimes I am in a bad mood. Most times I feel like I have to do so much to show up and love: things like meditate, do yoga, walk, clear my mind . . the endless quest to clear one's mind . . but usually I end up just showing up, a little bit scruffy, my hair still wet from the shower, making it in literally by the seat of my pants as they used to say . . but loving all the same, showing up with nothing in my hands but with this earnestness to do something, to take some load off, to believe . . it's all nothing and something.
This earnestness shows up for me sometimes in this feeling of wagging my tail . . there is an being, I'm not sure it's a dog but there is a tail being wagged . . there is a being that rises up in me when I show up to love, it feels slippery and wet and slick with big shiny eyes and that wagging tail and it doesn't know anything else but devotion . . it is not necessarily pure like we would imagine, like white and enlightened . . I feel the wetness and the muscle under the wet, like a dolphin, but then that wagging tail . .
So what happened yesterday was that I missed my first train because I was obsessively fussing with the love commission from the day before -- that's what happens, I get behind, there is so much to say -- I thought the next train would still get me in with a little time to spare but it was late and it kept stopping and not moving . . . at 2 when I was to meet Ian I was still an hour outside of the city, and I was starting to get frustrated (starting???) . . . we had just stopped in Poughkeepsie, where Vassar College is and a bunch of students had gotten on the train, going into the city for the weekend, and the train was full of youth . . I pulled out Seth's picture and just looked into his eyes as the train rocked me.
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I felt myself drop into sleep a few times. It was comforting. I didn't have to do anything for him. He was loving me.
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thank you Liz, I love you, Kathe
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Kathe, You are so experienced in loving, you knew exactly what was needed.
Since we last exchanged emails, I felt so secure, knowing that you were thinking of me and Seth. As Friday drew near, I realised that I didn't need to know anything about what you were going to do for me. All day I felt so relaxed and comfortable. As we went to bed that night, Steve said to me "I've had a wonderful day with you".
I didn't check my emails that night, nor Saturday till the evening.
On Saturday, Steve and I, Seth's halfbrother, uncle and cousin drove 120 miles to the west coast of Wales. There, we scattered his ashes from a clifftop. The sun was shining brightly, the rocks volcanic black, and gold with lichen. Seals basked and frolicked in the surf. It was beautiful. Later, Steve said he had been thinking of absent friends, those who could not be there that day.
I have an idea already about how we could love each other ... let me know if it's still possible.
alex x
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hey alex,
I could maybe squeeze you in on saturday . . I'm waiting to hear back from a couple of people and I'm pretty full . .
but go ahead, what is your idea?
lots of love, kathe
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hi kathe!
it would be fantastic if we could love each other on saturday. I will be at home in the morning, but have a car journey to make in the afternoon, so this could be perfect . . . what i would like you to do, and i will do the same, is to sing with me! We could either drive somewhere in a car, with our favourite music on the stereo, and sing along loudly and joyfully to the music . . .
or, if you're going to be in the house instead thats fine. As long as the music is good and loud, and you can sing (dancing/jigging about is optional) with joy and gusto. It doesn't matter how good or bad it sounds - love and enthusiasm are the key!!
what do you think?
love alex
p.s. I am a female Alex, in case that influences your choice of music... :-)
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I love this plan, I love to sing from the bottom of my heart, although my voice is difficult at best, but who's to judge . . really?
when will you be in the car, I want to drive too . . let's do a half hour
I'm home working all day so I can bend to your schedule.
love, kathe
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hooray!!! :-)
I'm smiling just at the thought of singing and driving with you!!! And i'm already thinking about what music to choose... I'll let you know what i go for... and would like to know what you go for too, if thats ok...
Shall we aim for 3pm my time? I'm not sure if it will be exactly then, but certainly near then . . . I use music all the time to amplify my moods in one direction or another - but its only ever good when i sing loudly in cars!
(And if the weather is good enough to have the windows down in the car, even better - so we can share our songs with passers by, or trees and birds and other cars ... and they can have a shared moment of our love!)
sending love and heartfelt tunes to you,
alexx
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cool, that would be 10 my time . . .
I love all kinds of music but have a tendency towards hip hop, indie rock and even just plain old domestic pop in the car, I do love the radio,
. . . especially if there is a good hip hop station . .
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friday
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excellent!
There is a radio station here that has a special feature on saturday afternoons, its called - hairbrush hits. . . or something like that . . . and its all the songs that people love to sing using their hairbrush as a microphone . . . so think i'll possibly be in domestic pop heaven!!! Either that, or it might be the sound track to John Waters film 'Cry Baby' - 1950's style hits, sung by Johnny Depp . . . who could ask for more???? :-).
I love all that stuff.
sending love to you, and looking forward to our love date tomorrow,
alexx
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hey alex,
I hope you had a good time singing in the car.
I did.
I was rushing as per usual and I ran into my house to grab a Sheryl Crow CD that I always listened to in the car with my girls (I remember being in a two hour beach traffic jam with Nola, my youngest daughter, where we played "All I Wanna Do" over and over again, singing at the top of our lungs, she was just young enough to not care about the cool surfer dudes in the car next to us) . . . it somehow had gotten sucked out of my car and I haven't been able to find it. Instead I grabbed two old Stevie Wonder CDS: Fulfillingness' First Finale and Innervisions . . I used to sing and dance to those with my sister when we were in high school . . it was really cold this morning and my CD player refused to cooperate . . . so I switched on the radio, desperate to be with you . .
the first song played was Elton John's YOUR SONG (It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside, it's not one you can easily hide . . oh I know it 's not much but it's the best I can do, my gift is my song and this one's for you)
. . it is a song I have loved many times over and, although a little quiet, I could really belt it out with feeling.
When the car heated up a little and I would slide the Stevie in, I was surprised by how emotional I got.
I think it was a few things: just him, the sound of his voice . . I saw him once in Madison Square Garden (NYC) when I was 16 and I remember wandering around on the floor of the Garden and seeing every shape and size of person, every race, and all so happy . . I also thought of my sister, we were so close then, we shared a room and many friends, now I hardly speak with her and I wonder about this often . . but I was really surprised by my response to "Living For the City" . . . I remembered all the words and I was almost screaming them and it felt good and strong but not joyful, what was the feeling, it was a striving, a wanting, a craving for some sanity and care in the world . . . that is putting an intellectual spin on something I can't really place . . .
I have been reading this book, PATTERN RECOGNITION, for months now, I have cherished it so much I didn't want it to end and I finished it yesterday, late, on the train . . the reason I bring it up here is that the climax of the story was about how in this early part of the 21st century we are all connected by a haunting loss of belonging, at least in the first world (that term seems so archaic and yet it still does define us, barely) a search for connectedness. It is that connectedness that this internet business that you and I are utilizing at this very moment feeds on . . I actually started sobbing, I know that wasn't your intention, but it felt so good . . I think the words I was singing were:
I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
oh god, so corny, but I could really feel my heart.
I love you, Kathe
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"Living For The City"
A boy is born in hard time Mississippi Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty His parents give him love and affection To keep him strong moving in the right direction Living just enough, just enough for the city...ee ha!
His father works some days for fourteen hours And you can bet he barely makes a dollar His mother goes to scrub the floor for many And you'd best believe she hardly gets a penny Living just enough, just enough for the city...yeah
His sister's black but she is sho 'nuff pretty Her skirt is short but Lord her legs are sturdy To walk to school she's got to get up early Her clothes are old but never are they dirty Living just enough, just enough for the city...um hum
Her brother's smart he's got more sense than many His patience's long but soon he won't have any To find a job is like a haystack needle Cause where he lives they don't use colored people Living just enough, just enough for the city... Living just enough... For the city...ooh,ooh
His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty He spends his love walking the streets of New York City He's almost dead from breathing on air pollution He tried to vote but to him there's no solution Living just enough, just enough for the city...yeah, yeah, yeah!
I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow This place is cruel no where could be much colder If we don't change the world will soon be over Living just enough, just enough for the city!!!!
La, la, la, la, la, la, Da Ba Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Ba Da Da Da Da Da Da Da
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monday
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hey kathe!
Thank you for the great email... and for singing and loving me on saturday! sorry its taken a little while to get back to you, but i was singing on my way up to mid wales for a friends first solo show in a gallery up there - it was a completely stunning exhibition, I felt so proud, and really quite emotional! . . . . . and so, due to being up there on saturday and sunday, i've only just got back to a computer!
I also had a very different response than expected to my time in the car . . . I too was a bit flustered and rushed in the lead up to our singing date . . . I had wanted it to be just right, and had been really looking forward to it! But in the end it was a mad dash to get out on the road by the allotted time . . . At first i started with the radio, but there was too much talking and it just frustrated me . . . so i slipped in a tape of 1950's style rock and roll, which really hit the spot. But it wasn't a joyful singing, as i'd pictured in my mind, it was a loud, angry singing . . . a yowling at the world . . . almost like i had to elbow my way through - to fight to find my place in the midst of things . . . does that make sense? And the surroundings suited my mood as much as the crazy music - leaving Cardiff, heading up into the valleys - seeing the landscape open and spread itself up and out before me, diminishing my small presence further by its magnitude.
I was heading up through the Brecon Beacons on my journey, which is a road trip i never tire of . . . It is verdant and rich, yet desolate all at the same time . . . welcoming and enveloping but inhospitable . . . I started to dance . . . the music demanded a physical response too - and it felt good to yowl and squirm my way through those mountains! I didn't feel the warm/joyful love i'd expected during that time, but it sounds as though we both tapped into something else which felt pretty cathartic . . . love manifests itself in so many forms - maybe ours was a cry, a shout for contact and connection, for recognition and acceptance? Singing in the car, wasn't what i expected . . . the experience wasn't what i thought i wanted, but it was definitely what i needed. Thank you!
And thankyou for the pictures, it was great to be able to literally picture you doing it . . . I'm afraid you will just have to imagine me. :-)
I must admit that i'm slightly saddened by the end of our contact . . . it has really added something extra to my life over the past week . . . I wish you all the very best, and send you much love in return . . .
Alexx
ps you've inspired me to hunt out some Stevie for myself, and that book sounds pretty interesting too - i love it when you feel that you have to ration yourself on a book - i had a similar feel about a collection of short stories recently - The Fahrenheit Twins by Michel Faber . . . dark and wonderful! x
we have met before, we had a love appointment in Cardiff 2 years ago, we went for a light lunch in polite Pontcanna. It was sunny, and we talked about love.
I was talking to Cathy Boyce last night about your project and then reading through your love letters got me thinking about love and all that it means. Love is so easy to give yet often so hard to find, so easily lost and so easily snatched from us. I feel lucky to have had, and still have, a lot of love in my life, yet still I want more.
Putting aside the deep thought though, I think love is often most meaningful in the small things that we do for each other. I would like to ask you to make me a cup of tea and something nice for breakfast (surprise me). If this sounds ok to you let me know what time is good for you. I would like to be in bed asleep when you make it but I will make sure that I'm awake when it's ready, I'm fairly flexible as to the time of day. If you do this for me I will of course love you back and smile, thinking of you as I wash up the breakfast dishes. And perhaps I will love you back spontaneously during the day, as your cup of tea helps me get through it.
Rx
***********************
i have to say you are pretty cute rachel and I remember you very fondly
for some odd reason I think of coldplay when I remember you . . I think a song of theirs was playing in the cafe and we discussed their pervasiveness . . they may be everywhere but I still love their melancholy and do think of you when I hear them, which you know is fairly often . .
so if I were to make you breakfast . . how about sunday morning? I am already waking up early to love someone who is running a small marathon in memory of his beloved so I could take a little break and then love you . . it would be my last day of the Sea of Love, just as you were one of my last appointments in The Loving Theatre.
I am loving Sian and Stuart at about 5 am, so I could love you about 7:30 which would be 12:30 your time, would that be too late?
xxx k
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kathe,
stuart is a dear dear friend of mine and sian was my best friend, I too will be running on Sunday, there are a few of us running for sian as I'm sure you know. This means that at 12.30, assuming I'm not in an ambulance, I will be sitting in a restaurant with the others post run eating and drinking huge amounts, so it may not be the best time. I will be getting up at 5am my time on Sunday, which is midnight your time I believe, would that be too late for you given that you're up early for Stuart? Otherwise, after my early rising and all that fresh air and exercise I'm probably going to want a siesta, perhaps I could have that cup of tea after that - 3/4pm my time?
You have a good memory kathe, I had forgotten our Coldplay conversation though now that you've mentioned it a few synapses in the brain have set to work and they're hauling that conversation out of the vaults. Strangely, hearing Coldplay often makes me think of stuart, he used to play their first album a lot in the car on our drive to play football and he played it several times when he drove sian, and another friend katy and I to London.
I'm so pleased that you're loving sian and stuart and I know you won't be the only one loving them both on Sunday. It'll be love that carries us all along.
Rx
**********************
no let's do midnight sat/sun morning for you . . . do you mind if my sweetheart participates in the breakfast preparation . . I will be with him, and he just aches to be part of this love thing, he is a love artist in his own right and we will love you well . . .
I hope this pleases you, I am so happy to love you and I want you to feel very loved . .
kathe
**********************
friday
**********************
kathe,
two love artists to love me sounds wonderful. I'm already feeling very loved by you and I've also been feeling particularly full of love for other people recently. I get that way sometimes, just as I feel alone and unloved at other times, but that's the human condition isn't it - those ups and downs that keep us alive.
As to the breakfast, please don't feel you have to cook a feast, it's the cup of tea with love that matters. Here in Cardiff, I will be eating porridge and honey with my cup of tea and later on I may have a banana, I'm hoping this will be sufficient fuel for the run but just in case I will take some dried apricots with me. I'm very nervous about the run, I know it will be hard, I went to a yoga class night to ease my mind and stretch out my muscles but I've come away with a split in my toe (a stretch too far I think) and now I'm worrying about how it will effect my running - I'm hoping none.
So I'm hugely looking forward to you love on Sunday morning, it'll be the perfect start to what I'm sure will be an emotional day,
Rx
************ sunday
************
rachel,
I am writing to apologize for the delay in your love letter . . I was up all night loving you and Stuart and I felt it imperative to write Stuart first . . I need to sleep a little, but I will write you later . . I wanted to send on the pictures though . . more to come,
I love you, kathe
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hey rachel,
I am having the most glorious day off after my marathon of loving . . I have been doing next to nothing, reading the New York Times and laying around in the sun on my bed . ..
I hope your run went well and I hope your breakfast was serene. On our part, I have to say Steve and I went to a movie with the best of intentions of getting home before midnight to prepare your breakfast, but the movie ended up being over the top in intensity (DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT chronicling the final two days of a young female suicide bomber) . . . I was speechless and when it was announced after the screening that the filmmaker and main actress were in the audience, I couldn't leave. I knew that whatever happened was right for us, you & me, & Steve.
The film was so delicate and so in love with life, despite it's subject matter . . I spoke a lot about it in Stuart's letter but let me just say here that the thing I loved the most about the film was how watching the film caused a cathartic response in the body, watching the film made me really feel as if I were the unnamed girl, the girl who felt in love with god, who was willing to give herself so completely and without doubt . . the seamless of the watching & being . . .
It made me think about how we are in these crowds of people all the time and we just don't know what is really going on, there are so many levels of reality . . just as I am sitting in the theater audience, just another person, but internally I am preparing to love you, over 3000 miles away you are sleeping and soon you will wake up and at that moment we will be joined . . no one in the movie theater can know this, just as I do not know the story of anyone there . . like riding on a train or a bus in the dark passing homes where people are loving and living . . we see a glimpse, the windows are small films, then another and another . . private preparation, ritual, performance, piling up . . we cannot catch the beginning or end, we miss so much. I can only pay attention to myself most of the time, then I think about parallel universes and I have faith that all of it, all of the lives can somehow exist within the context of my little frame. At least you, Rachel, would be there, soon.
We left the movie theatre, still with enough time to get home . . only to pass a bar with latin music pouring out. Steve and I (he grew up in Miami) pressed out faces up to the window and watched the sweaty dancers, then I pushed him towards the car where I hesitated like a little kid, and he dragged me back. We danced two dances together, one fast and one slow, pressed together tight. It was midnight.
We drove together, holding hands in the dark, Steve behind the wheel. We didn't talk. We could only see what was right in front of us. We drove in the wilderness that exists between country towns. It was at least 12:45 before your breakfast was made.
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After we drank our tea and sat, I fed your eggs to the dog. He was so grateful.
I love you, kathe
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in my body you search the mountain for the sun buried in the forest in your body I search for the boat adrift in the middle of the night
octavio paz
************* tuesday
*************
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hi kathe,
Thank you and Steve so much for loving me on what was my Sunday morning. Despite our modern age and awareness it still seems strange to me that you were enjoying a noisy dance whilst I was quietly sipping tea and contemplating the task I had ahead of me and my motives for doing it. I was so nervous it was hard for me to eat, but I forced the spoonfuls of porridge down. I went to the toilet three times before I left the house and again just before the run started.
It was a very emotional day and it's taken me this long for it all to sink in. I walked down to the marathon start with Stuart and Tom (Sian's son), we met up with the rest of our 'team' and as we talked about the weather, the route, our fundraising I felt sick with nerves. All too quickly we were pushing forward with thousands of others ready to start.
I enjoyed the first half of the run, the second half was harder but made easier by the fantastic support we had from our friends and Sian's family, all the cheering and screaming made all the difference, the pain disappeared and was replaced by joy and pride - displayed by the huge grin that was stuck on my face.
Until I crossed the finish line in the Millennium Stadium I never quite believed that I was capable of running 13.1 miles, now, despite my aching legs, I feel I could run a whole marathon (I'm sure that feeling will soon die - I'm not that stupid).
So, as I washed up in the morning I was loving you and Steve, and so many others. By the end of the day I was overflowing with love, it's taken me this long to come to terms with the emotions of the day and to get back to work in a sensible way.
thank you Kathe,
bursting with love,
R
'These are the days These are days you'll remember Never before and never since, I promise Will the whole world be warm as this And as you feel it, You'll know it's true That you are blessed and lucky It's true that you Are touched by something That will grow and bloom in you
These are days that you'll remember When May is rushing over you With desire to be part of the miracles You see in every hour You'll know it's true That you are blessed and lucky It's true that you are touched By something that will grow and bloom in you
These are days These are the days you might fill With laughter until you break These days you might feel A shaft of light Make its way across your face And when you do Then you'll know how it was meant to be See the signs and know their meaning It's true Then you'll know how it was meant to be Hear the signs and know they're speaking To you, to you'
10,000 Maniacs (Buck/Merchant)
********************
thank you for all of that and for really believing in me . . . for spreading the love and coming back for more.
it means so much to me.
I will let you know when I am next in the UK. I hope to see you, xxxx kathe
I know you don't know me but I am an artist that is currently presenting a project at Experimentica at Chapter and I was moved to contact you about the sad news I received about Sian's unexpected death. I was so lucky to make friends with her 2 years ago when I was presenting my LOVING THEATRE at Experimentica 04.
My work is really hard to book "tickets" for and I had never presented at an arts center that has as much going on as Chapter does on any given day, so I wasn't really prepared to work with a traditional box office. Sian had such a sense of humor and really enjoyed being my "pimp" so to speak and booking appointments for love. She really got it and when the last day came around I wanted to do something for her, so her LOVING THEATRE appointment entailed me sitting in her chair in the box office. We had so much fun. It was so great to love someone by just being with them and laughing. That's pretty much all we did.
I would love to perform an act of love for her in my current SEA OF LOVE performance. You can read more details at:
I basically am performing love "commissions" -- acts of devotion over here in NY for loved ones in Cardiff.
If you have any suggestions for a love commission in honor of Sian, let me know.
all my love, kathe
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kathe & sian october 2004
kathe,
I do remember Sian telling me about you! I'd be delighted for this to go ahead-
Sian always loved taking part in events in Chapter. I have to say though that
if Sian got it I'm not sure that I do now. I'm not sure what a love commission
is or what it is you're asking of me.
I'm sorry if that sounds dullwitted - it probably is.
thanks for getting in touch and thanks for the nice words
hope to hear from you soon
x stuart
***************************
stuart,
just briefly . . . I am about to drive my daughter to school . . . but to make it simple:
I will perform and act (usually a simple act . . . those I have performed in this recent incarnation of my love project are: looking at art, making a garden, baking a cake, making weather (by sitting & meditating next to water), drinking coffee in the woods at sunrise . . )
. . . usually lasting about a half hour or hour at most, while I project love to the designated person.
is that simple enough . . . if you do not want to choose, I would design something myself.
It is up to you . . . kathe
***********************
sorry me again
I did mean to say that a 'sea of love' seems appropriate for Sian - when I wrote her eulogy for her funeral it was called loveliness and we have dedicated a web page for her at www.justgiving.com/siantodd . . . we are running a half marathon for her and a charity on Sunday - you can read some comments people have made there . . .
I can now feel myself cry talking to you and thinking of Sian - and her huge absence. Sometimes I wish she could come back just long enough for me to make her one more cup of tea - like you two years ago I simply loved being in her company.
x stuart
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stuart,
. . . I could meditate or do something during the marathon or I could drink tea . . . really the simpler and less action the better I think, the more I get out of it, therefore the better the love
I will put the words you have written here on the website, just to let you know, unless you object.
you should look at the site so far and see what you think
just a few ideas, with love for you stuart, love, kathe
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hi kathe -
I really want to go ahead with this and I'm for you to interpet things and Sian as you see them both. I do miss Sian in such simple ways and as much for what I would do for her as she would do for me - so it will be simple - maybe it will be to make a cup of tea and just think of Sian - one problem though the marathon is 9.00am our time so I wont be expecting you to do anything for us then! You're ideas are wonderful and already I can feel Sian - though I wish I could feel uplifted when I did - would that be beyond you - I guess it would . .
thanks for the photograph - I could sense some bond between you.
with thanks and love stuart
*****************************
Todd,
I would be willing to get up at 4 or 5 or 6 on Sunday, I don't know how long the marathon will last, and just sit and drink tea and meditate . . I think it would be powerful to be performing this act of love for her when so many other people are thinking of her as well.
Let me know what time you think would be best and no worries about me, I get up in the middle of the night all the time, I'm a bit of an insomniac.
lots of love , kathe
************** tuesday
**************
Hi Kathe -
Cathy forwarded me your e-mail - is this pedantic - but my name is Stuart - (Todd is my surname)
Well for me it will last about 1 hr and 45 minutes – but it might be the
last 45 minutes that my thoughts will be on the finishing line and
remidning myself why I am running! I expect it to be an emotional last
5 miles! But I wonder about this idea that we must all be thinking of
sian at the same time - I’m not spiritual in that sense – and in sitting
here writing to you – it is my writing and then the time that it takes
me to read a reply that are powerful moments – more so than the exact
time you read my words - love relationships exist independently of time I
guess - however – those are my beliefs and there is another side of
love which is the power and opportunity to allow for the expression of
other - so if our wake and drink tea and mediate our relationship that
will be fine -
I would just have preferred to have the opportunity to
make it for you - leave you a note and then leave and run my 13 miles -
x stuart
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stuart,
So sorry about getting your name wrong . . I hate that . . .
I have a habit of making things backwards, it's a little irritating but sometimes very good for making art, to turn things upside down.
I can't even begin to know what you are going through. In a week or so's time it will be the anniversary of my mother's death. She died 5 years ago. I was not that close to her, but then we are all close to our mothers no matter how much we may fight it or fight them. She also died of cancer. It was a long illness and I thought I had processed it all by the time she died, but I still find myself reaching out for her, or for something that was her, or was mother. I still need that.
That is what love is, the way we fill this primal need for belonging. It's really not about the person but we get attached to the closeness . . . anyway, I have been thinking a bit about my mom in the last few days and this will be good for me as well.
I am not sure I understand . . you are doing a memorial run for sian, I didn't get that. I am up for whatever will feel the best for you . . I will get up in the middle of the night and sit and love and drink tea for the duration of your run . . . would you like me to start a little bit before, when you are preparing?
I don't want you to have to think of me at all, or not to take care of me in any way.
I will be loving you and sian. I will be so fine.
lots of love, kathe
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Good morning Kathe
I have been to website and very much like the idea of love letters - they really are symbolic of intimate exchanges – and over the course of a relationship they continue to exist even if in abbreviated form. I’m still not sure what you might be asking me to do - book a love appointment? Which in some way seems odd to me for us to have a love appointment for Sian - or course maybe it is simply that to feel love again. Which as I write is so obviously wrong - I do feel love. I still am in love - maybe its just the opportunity to be able to say again – out loud – or in a mental whisper - “I love you’! Is is that! I recognise it immediately – that I still am allowed to love, permitted to love Sian at a time when the world treats me as if that love has passed. Is that why I cry? I am tempted to add ‘for you’ but then maybe that would bring confusion into the whole relationship. Who am I talking to?
Maybe if we are to have an appointment – I should find myself by the sea – just standing there watching us in the past being not overly concerned with the future - we were told often to just live for the moment – its odd that that is what you are told or encouraged to be like when you are dying- to live as if you enjoying the first demanding and obessional moments of life - only now just before they are taken away – so maybe I should stand by the sea and stop feeling that I must look forward and perhaps not even look back – but smell the sea and touch the cold stones and think of you now -
how should I think of you - I’d be happy to think of you enjoying a cup of tea that someone else has made for you.
X Stuart
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dear kathe
isnt it odd when life’s randomness throws up the ocasional co-incidence - immediately after that last e-mail – I made myself a tea - opened a drawer I had not opened with much curiousity for many a time and found an old card - handwritten to Sian around the time we first met – I can tell because of the address and the name – it read “I have no fear of loving you for only a small part of my life, for I would gladly do so again. I shall always be with you. I know what it is like to love and be loved in strength love and struggle” - we were so young then!
love to you too - does a love artist have the same need to love?
x Stuart
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stuart,
I do have all the same needs and dsyfunctions and issues, unfortunately . . . this work just grows out of me being human, I can be awkward and muck things up as much as the next person, be needy . . although I have learned a lot here, god knows why I do what I do . . .
I will be drinking tea and thinking of you and sian and your love at 4:50 Sunday, I can't think of anything I would rather do on a Sunday morning in the dark
thanks for thinking of me, xxxx kathe
****************** wednesday
******************
Kathe,
I've no idea why my e-mail is blocking you and nobody else - well nobody else to my knowledge- have you just triedn typing in my address from new? I'm sure you have.
I've been talking with my friends about you- they're really interested in what is going on, who you are and what will it all mean. Its fascinating. I'm not sure that it seems right that as I run I have not to care for you - but it will be lovely to think of someone thinking of Sian - that she will be central to someone's thoughts for a while.
I was talking about this with a friend today - how much we both still went out of our way to continue to make her central in live almost as a form of denial of her death. We spoke about this as one example, the marathon as another, a music night we are planning in chapter and maybe a special cinema screening - at some point we agreed we could do this no longer and that it would have to stop
- or stop being so public! Whatever, that is for then - it is lovely to be loved and that you could be loved in return.
Thank you Kathe
x stuart
*************** thursday
***************
stuart,
I don't know if you have to stop doing things in sian's memory . . only if it keeps you from loving yourself and being loved in return . . it seems like she was much beloved . .
I will be loving Rachel Calder before you, as she awakes to get ready to run.
It's pretty exciting.
Please send me any images of Sian you might like me to put up on the site, I will put up our love portrait from before.
love to you stuart, k
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yes kathe,
she was much beloved and I feel lucky more than than envious that there was so much to be shared- I can easily understand how you two connected so well and it pleased and warmed me to know of the effect she had on you and that now we are expresing and feeling love through you - I have such a yearning for love - there's no ending of things that we might do in memory of Sian but we must find ways of loving and living in between the gaps too.
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I have sent you an image of Sian from Venice!
Venice symbolised so much for us both - it's wehere we both learned to breathe and love again after she was diagnosed with advanced cancer - I am hoping to find my place or my moment when i too learn to walk - or to learn to walk with a pebble in my shoe! So Venice is ideal. I shall find another - with friends since she lived for and through many good people.
I am so pleased to hear that you are loving Rachel - it pleases me to know that she is -
for now then Kathe my love to you and I feel fortunate for sharing some of it with you x
************ friday
************
kathe,
As the time gets closer to the run I feel that it is the event that has channeled so much of my attention and that I have not looked byond then until now. It seems a big and dark time that needs some lighting of people and the colours of events. Maybe with the momentum of love you will get me through those first hours of transition and the strength to just lift my head up a little.
much love to you
stuart
****************************
you are loved.
xxx don't worry xxxx
kathe
************** saturday
**************
hi kathe,
guess this will be the last e-mail, certainly before the race, between us. I need love, to give it, to have, to feel, to comfort- even if I can breathe without it. All of my body, my mind, my eyes, and time have been channeled towards the sound of the gun tomorrow morning. So much so I fear paralysis afterwards. I am frightened by the demands that will be placed upon my heart and soul - my body will do what it needs to do. I am told not to be frightened. That sian will be at my back - she never was in any race, that I can be used to.
But she will not be there - of all the people that will be there, for all the people that will be there that I know I will only have knowledge of one thing, her absence. Maybe tomorrow is the start of something - of living now with absence, of letting go. Maybe it all seems to much to fit into one race. If I need to feel and breathe love - if I am allowed to love - then let it be tomroorow- let it be with the security and distance of you.
I will love, x Stuart
****************************
love is so hungry - I forgot to say I love you x stuart
*****************************
stuart,
thank you for that . . .
sorry to not answer promptly . . .
as is always true towards the end of one of these love marathons, things get a little hectic . . .
be well, godspeed, I will be there.
love, kathe
*************************** sunday
***************************
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so stuart,
I hope you're wrapped up in something warm by now and sitting by some fire. I have never run a marathon, although sometimes these epic weeks of loving certainly feel like one. This one time I swam across a bay in cold water, about 2 miles or so . . I was wearing a wet suit and surrounded by others, all swimming for aids . . I am a very powerful swimmer and wasn't worried about the distance, but other things challenged me -- the idea of large mammals, some with potentially skin shredding teeth, for example, as well as the cold -- but I stuck with the pack and perservered . . when I reached shore I was shaking so much in my wetsuit that my hot tea was bouncing outside my cup. I was rattling.
It's good to do something hard, something scarey. It's one of my favorite things.
I had a crazy night last night. I had loved Rachel at midnight and that went on for a while, so I had the idea of staying up all night. I was craving that kind of magic. I could feel everyone else in the world sliding off to sleep, even in my honky tonk little town, it was getting quiet outside.
Steve had helped me love Rachel and I thought he might help me love you as well, stay up all night with me. We laid on the couch and the next thing I knew I was covered and alone in the dark. The funny tinkling bells of Steve's cell phone alarm was waking me in the dark.
I had completely overdone dinner as I am wont to do . . I have such a sensitive stomach and I love to eat, everything . . I felt so celebratory last night and threw complete caution to the wind, eating raw Kobe beef with a quail egg on top and brocolli rabe and sausage thin crust pizza (I hope you're not a vegetarian, or at least not judgemental) . . it was somehow as if it was my last meal, an inverted celebration, a recklessness, before what?
We crossed the street to see a movie DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT, that I barely knew anything about except that it had won all these awards . . it told the fiction story of an 18 year old girl who chooses to be a suicide bomber in Times Square, and with excrutiating detail, follows her through her last two day as she travels from her home and meets with her anonymous employers and readies herself for her mission. She continually speaks with god, under her breath, for herself. She says often, I am doing this only for you. She also says, often, what if I am not true? What if you can see right through me? Hopefully Chapter will bring this film. I won't tell you what happens. It was incredibly haunting.
At one point in the movie, she is in the bathroom preparing herself for what she imagines will be her last day alive on this plane we call the physical. She brushes her teeth, then she throws the toothbrush and toothpaste away. She applies deodorant than throws it away. She washes her face then throws it away.
She leaves the subway and looks around at everything as if it was new.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to know I am going to die.
When I woke up alone on the couch, I could hear Steve breathing on the bed, sleeping. I could see the subtle difference of the night sky coming through the windows, growing more distinct and detailed the more I became awake, the more I paid attention.
My celebratory dinner and the retribution of my tendency to do everything to the limit laid heavy in my stomach. I felt small, young.
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I turned on the tub and went downstairs in the dark to make the tea.
I tried to pay attention and think of you, of Sian, but I have learned long ago that it doesn't really make that much difference to have the person in your mind, in order to love them. It would be nice, of course, to be that evolved and mature, to have that kind of clarity. For me it comes and goes. But I cannot wait to be better to love. I have learned that I have to love in whatever condition I arrive in, fragile, messy, distracted, with horrible indigestion. We only have the moment. I can't abandon you and I certainly cannot abandon myself even for the moment I am thinking that I can do better, like the lost grasp of a hand falling through space.
As I walked around the house in the dark, with my full intention, I kept thinking of the tibetan word, bardo, that space in between lives, between death and whatever waits beyond . . I wasn't thinking about it so much for you or for sian, necessarily, I was more self-absorbed, just in the moment, thinking about how much I loved staying up all night or getting ridiculously early and how it feels to slip my fingertips through the membrane of the day, of living . . how it feels to slip back and feel the living breathing from the other side.
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Do I really know these things . . am I really loving you . . loving sian . . am I just breathing . . walking . . am I only here . . taking a bath . . drinking tea . .
I made this tiny film that is currently showing in the Paradise show at TactileBosch called REVERSE ECSTASY. I just made it recently but the idea was born when I was suffering from a broken heart about a year ago.
It is about the reverse space inside of us, the imprint of the heights of love, the space that echoes extreme almost limitless feeling we get when we fall deeply madly in love, the negative space that echoes that . . . we carry that Grand Canyon of longing inside of us, we own that, that is us, that huge void, that is the bardo and that is the sea of love . . I know you know that today.
It is not as bad as it sounds, it's like one of those weird science formulas, by Xing everything out, we are left with one thing, and whatseems like vast longing and heartbreak becomes connectedness . . Ireally know this is true, Stuart, I do. I forget all the time, but I know it is true.
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I love you, Kathe
in my body you search the mountain for the sun buried in the forest in your body I search for the boat adrift in the middle of the night
octavio paz
************** monday
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Dear, dear Kathe,
How nice it was to read that you were so loving - I, on the other hand, have to play the part of the distracted lover, the run, the friendship and time all flew and with little sleep I found myself traveling to London wondering about myself more than anyone else - pain does make you inward looking and my body aches.
We do take our bodies for granted that so often there a simple backdrop to ourselves - but on days like today we remember that we are nothing without them - experience is always embodied experience - so I have been selfish and have felt longing for the taken for granted nature of living. It's what we strive to achieve and I sense it in your e-mail and how you passed the time - a bath, tea, fire, and love.
Yes it's good to do something scarey just so you find the limits of your living and take a leap over them before coming back with news of a strange world - love is scarey like that too -
But what of your suicide bomber - was she discarding the details and accessories of everyday living before she took her own leap! As not knowing what it would be like to know that you are going to die?
Well my observations are the desire to hold onto smallest of details for as long as you can, but that on having knowedge you bring yourself back into world you find so hard to leave and in knowing it is so hard to leave there is the comfort of a life well spent.
However, I guess when you want to make life a statement that is itself bigger than life - the detail must go! I will look out for the film!
Is this the end of us? Did you really love me? I guess it's all there in the past but talking about love makes me love me- I am capable of love x stuart
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Sorry Kathe-
I did mean to say that I like the photos you send and the poem - it did tell me that love is embodied always - looking for something inside, next to or on another body - well at least when love is at its height or all its extremes -- to lose yourself inside another - to express our feelings (good or bad) seems to require physicality and it reminds me that when everyone tells me that I should be at peace since I have my memories that this leaves me empty.
I want to feel that hand in the darkness and so your poem, your story of swinning, ideas of warmth and heat and your photographs all sum up me notions of love. So thanks . .
I dont know what this has come to mean and whether I ever caught up with the idea of the sea of love - I dont know- I did say I was slow and I have said that I am selfish - maybe like any two lovers who meet for the first time we have been so wrapped up in our feelings that we have cross talked and not listened -
but at least now I have an idea that is comfortable to live with.
x Stuart
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hi stuart,
Our conversation does not need to be over, obviously love does not end.
However my very focused love that you experienced on Sunday morning is something that I reserve for my family and close loved ones as well my immediate art audience. I know that probably sounds strange but it is just a boundary, like if you are in any kind of relationship . . there is always a contract, even if it is unspoken, there are always boundaries (ever if there seem to be none) what is inside and outside the relationship. I do believe that love exists in an unlimited supply . . I am working on time being unlimited but that's not going so well yet!!
I am so grateful that you were so open and trusted me. I am in the UK fairly often (not now til spring) and perhaps in Cardiff . . stay in touch with me.
So much love, and thank you again for everything, I don't mean to rush but I need to finish the site!! Again that probably seems weird but oddly enough . . . this is a job and Chapter hired me and today is my last day!
I think you are a very articulate love artist yourself . . sometimes I do projects where I need a love 'army' and I think you would be great, I might enlist you.
xxxxx kathe
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no kathe,
i understand too well that love ends and that this was a project - I wasn't projecting - so please there's no need to apologise - so its not strange at all - thank you for allowing me to 'write out loud' - i knew that I was - i just hope it wasnt too indulgent.
I'm not an artist or love artist just someone who is living on the margins - its always an insightful place to stand - but its not a place for me to stand too long. thanks for your time and your love and I wish you well x stuart
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stuart,
I am not apologizing and you have nothing to worry about.
