Thought-Drive

Part of me thinks I'm close to understanding the flow of a timely blog. The other part of me feels like I couldn't be further away. I know one particular artist that works visually, and just about every day her social media is peppered with her current project progress or future progress aspirations and notifications. I think it's a really excellent system. I wish I could adapt it for myself. But things don't clarify in the same way for a writer. An image can become crisper, as the darker lines bring confidence and by juxtaposition the hesitant strokes become grayer and grayer until they're almost the color of the paper. Paragraphs only work that way with very close inspection, and even then, it remains subjective. When a non-abstract visual artist moves forward, the representative image becomes more and more of what it's supposed to look like, as if it's slowly transitioning from solely within the artist's mind to a place where everyone can see it. To ...

The Spectacle of Freedom It had been almost a week since the “last time.” That’s what he had shouted at Eduardo after they had returned the boat, after they had watched that mother walk free onto the mainland, childless. The authorities had caught up with them unusually quickly, flashed their sirens and lights, and asked their questions. Gabriel told his story, well-rehearsed like he had lied to other coast guard soldiers, not just practiced relentlessly in mirrors. The men in their uniforms had stomped above and below decks anyway, unbeknownst to Gabriel and Eduardo that a woman was struggling in a closet to keep her baby silent. Gabriel understood; he remembered when he would have done almost anything, as well. But smothering the child had been a mistake. In the short trip towards Miami, all of them had imagined the baby boy growing up, not born a free child, but growing up a free child. Since the last time, he had been driving the speed limit, walking between the lines at...