The earth beard, alone, witness to its cracking. There it was, for days on end, this happening, awaiting someone to authenticate it an ‘event.’ But, there was no one. Those out in the open were no different from a gazelle by the lake, drinking from a small pond, in a hurry, wielding life from caution.
Humans are not the only ones able to touch, but as a French philosopher once said, "human beings touch more and touch better." No longer, though: Hands enveloped in latex are not only strangers to the arms they extend from, the surface they reach, but to the eyes that see them move too. In the absence of the possibility to touch, however ludicrous it is, could there be a gaze? "In the long run, without the possibility of touching, there can be no real gaze," a friend answered. "Yes, for there is this codependency between the two. The gaze induces the desire to touch, even if it's the fire of the lighter one is gazing at," I wrote back. "Do you know Derrida's book, On Touching?" he asked. "Unable to gaze and touch, one walks without the desire to retain the world before her as a photograph," was the last of my responses.
On Touching - I know mostly in fragments. Athens, Still Remains, I know by heart. Derrida walked the streets of Athens carrying Jean-François Bonhomme's photographs of the city's ancient ruins and contemporary scenes of living on the precipice of death and decay. Much like in the text, one imagines that during his walk, every so often, Derrida said, "We owe ourselves to death."
On my solitary walks, I shamelessly imitate the schema of the book: I carry photographs of the city I took a long time ago. "New York, when death comes to collect what is owed, we shall hide the vague memory of birds singing and rain pouring, days on end, in 2020,” I say.
