Did I miss anything?

A few years back I visited a zoo where they had set up three big greenhouses-like places, each greenhouse held a biotope complete with plants, birds, some small mammals and insects, non to dangerous and all non toxic or so I think.  It was in the tropical rainforest set-up that I encountered a mum and dad and their two sons all equipped with the latest video camera.  They were walking in neat formation peering through their lenses, loudly conversing to one another. `Do you see anything´ one would screech while he walked right past a lizard clutching a branch. `Can´t see anything` was the reply when they past right under a big clutch of flying dogs hanging upside down off the roof of the  greenhouse. `There is nothing here to see but green stuff` mum said with disappointment, tape still rolling. `Let’s go to the other place, maybe that one is finished` the dad answered grumpily and off they went. Leaving me and the flying dogs stunned, how could they have missed so many sights, sound and smells.

I have witnessed the same thing in shops, theatres, museums and even in places of worship and it left me doubting myself time and time again. Was it me seeing things and listening for things unheard of?

In fear of missing anything we have created numerous devices to keep us posted, like cell phones, video cameras, email, twitter and facebook all to be checked 24/7 just in case we´ve missed anything. That same fear makes us do outrageous things too, we push each other out of the way in order to get a glimpse or just be the first to get in and get whatever it is we don’t want to miss.

Only recently I saw it happen in a place and at a time I did not expect. It was on a calm afternoon when there was a sudden buzz at the stables, a mare was giving birth. Now that is a sight I don´t see every day so off I went  to sneak a peak, when I got there people had swarmed around the paddock pushing each other aside to get a better view, mobiles flashing and some were screaming into the receiver that it was happening right now. There were sounds of disgust  from adults a kids alike when blood was seen and noses were pinched when the smell of birth water hit their nostrils. People went as far as stepping on the mares tail to get closer. The grandfather of the stables who was helping the mare demanded calmness in a harsh tone but that too fell on deaf ears. I could not belief my eyes, they were all right on top of it flashing and filming shouting their accounts into a piece of plastic attached to their ears and they all missed it anyway.

My dad has taught me well how to hear and how to see and many teachers after that added their lessons. But still the doubt remains, it must be me who’s off.

Blank

A blank piece of paper or a blank canvas is often a nightmare for writers and painters. As a sculptor, you have it easy, at least you have a chunk of rock or a shapeless lump of clay you can sink  your teeth in. Even photographers have it easy, there's always something in front of your lens, even if that is still out of focus, there is already something of form, color, movement.

Blank, for most people, is something ominous, the feeling of not knowing what to do and not know how to behave. Form, opinion, judgment and emotion gives something to hold on to, even if this grip is scary or improbable, a grip is a grip.
 

As a child I looked under my bed at least ten times before I dared to go to sleep. The folds in the curtain all by themselves became a robber with a dull ax and how ever scary the robber was in my eyes, he had a form with matching emotion and that made it manageable. Later I learned to transform the robber into a giant rabbit with three ears or a fat woman with huge breasts, but it never became the curtain.

Lately, my hunger for blank increased enormously. Not know and to find no support in form of emotion is a sometimes confusingly liberating.