We should go to an art gallery together

Thought No. 10

It’s 12.22am where I am. I’m lying in bed. Thoughts loud. Phone in hand. I did the same thing last night. Except, it was later and she was reading to me. Telling me stories about moments in an art gallery. We both said that we should go to one together. Wouldn’t it be nice to do, again? I thought.

I think she’d be surprised by how much I want it, how deeply I do. It’s not just about the art, it’s about being there with her, noticing the same details, breathing the same stillness, feeling time slow in the same way.

I miss feeling time like this. I feel it in the bakery some times, although most times it feels rushed. I did this to slow time though, so I question everything. By did this, I mean open my own business. Here I am, battling monetising it all and losing the slowness. Maybe, it’s just because it’s the beginning and I haven’t gotten the hand of it? Maybe this is how it is? Maybe, it is what I make it?

She spoke about water lilies. I remember the words, you must know about Monet. I thought yes I do, but I will know the same thing again if you’re the one telling me. Maybe just to hear your voice? I want to see the water lilies too. Say, let’s do it tomorrow. How can I?

Sometimes I feel burdened by ambition. I move through the world carrying it first, before anything else. It shapes how I think, how I plan, how I brace myself. I am always leaning toward a future that promises rest, even while the past keeps tugging at me. Its anguish, its poverty, its fear of returning to a place I don’t want to be.

Anyway, I digress. I’ve just written about random streams of thoughts now. It’s 12.33am. I like my ambition most of the time. It feels like an armour sometimes though and too heavy to hold.

Maybe, she thinks I don’t want to go the art gallery with her. Maybe, she thinks I don’t want to see the water lilies the way she does. Stillness feels indulgent when you’ve learned to equate movement with safety. I can’t communicate this right when I try to explain. I just say it’s hard. Or it’s part of my character. Or I need to get things done and you don’t understand.

But I do want to go to the art gallery. I love art. I do want to see the water lilies. I want to stand there without calculating what comes next, without proving anything, without bracing for the fall. I want to let the colours wash over me and feel, just for a moment, that it’s allowed to be enough. To be there, to look, to share the quiet with her.

It’s 12.49am now. I should go to bed. I have to wake up early to get to the bakery.

Christiana