Page 184 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 5 #2

emotion in an object. After all, as I packed towards what I took to be an abandoned
the apartment in New York after the de- factory. Only the walls remained. It had
mise of my relationship with nyghtmyst, I snowed and as I moved across the snow
could feel her in every object that she towards the old factory, I could feel my-
had ever touched and I could return to self disappear in to the moment.
a moment in time, to a conversation, to a Behind the factory was a tree, stripped
look in her eyes, to a single tear falling naked of life, despite the pretense that
upon her face. I knew all that. spring was at hand, As I entered the open
Silently. Still. field, the snow gave way to brown, dead,
A part of me heard Mark talking, but I grass. I could feel the weeping of the
wasn't there to listen or to engage him. tree. Its longing for life. The feeling of
Like Koestler's Rubashhov, I was follow- loss and abandonment was so profound,
ing each thought to its last and potentially so deep, so terrifying that I had to get to
logical conclusion. I tried to pull myself the tree. I had to touch the cold lifeless-
back into conversation with Mark but it
wasn't going to happen. Something he
said demanded my full attention.
He was correct - I am an empath and
I have known that a long time. I knew I
could read people, not intellectually but
emotionally, and I didn't even need to be
in the same physical place with them to
know whatever they were feeling.
Yet, there was something more to what
Mark was saying. Something as revealing
as it was perplexing..
Mark made a comment I did hear - well, I
heard the end of it anyway. It was a com-
ment about our ability to emotionally con-
nect with anything that happened to be in
front of our camera. There wasn't anything
new there either. Except that I realized
that I was able to connect with objects
that had no explicit connection to the hu-
man experience. For whatever reason, I
remembered being in Mortimer, NC, with
my friend, Jim Hoyle. I had left Jim back
near the parking lot and I had taken off

184 | Silently Still