Thoughts cannot be resisted. Thoughts arise as He draws. The act of shading is a waiting game. Repetition, slow movement, gradual emergence, an avoidance technique, drawing as tangential life. He shades, something is released in passing, a consequence. He draws to escape, leave something behind, to put something off. ‘It’ suggests that he is avoiding commitment, a notion that ‘I’ has previously suspected. The longer He waits the keener is His anticipation. Anal retentive? It fits with a general inability to like things. Describable condition? Satisfaction gained from the physical repetitiveness of shading is substantial, a confirmation of self. The act is what He is. To anticipate is to be alive. I want a degree of disassociation from His more crass thoughts. ‘I’ want ‘Him’ at arm’s length, to observe from a graspable distance. His thoughts as ‘It’ has pointed out can be pretty maudlin. “He should be past all this by now.”, It suggests. It’s right. Sometimes I feel for Him. He is a child on tiptoe at the window. I watch as ‘It’ bullies Him. He is omnipotent and powerless, no contradiction here, incompatible with Himself, a seesaw of extremes, dynamic imbalance of sorts. I remember Him so small at Christmas time looking up at the dining table where the grownups played cards. Is this why He feels Himself to be at the margins? He wrote of another artist, that she seemed to be saying, “Hey! Here I am!” The silence of a drawing can be profound. ‘It’ dares the child to shout. ‘He’ feels the silence as He works. Touch it gently. Build it slowly. I am satisfied for a while.
