Where is the sense of adventure? What is it that will make me look up and breathe more fully? And as is not unusual at this time of year, ask myself (and you?), what is important?
You’re right, of course, the horses are stamping in the courtyard, their breath gently steaming in the early morning cold; the chill of the hour before dawn. Beyond the walls, beyond the closed gates, an internal combustion engine is cranked and on the third attempt, wheezes into life. A chugging sort of life, made irregular with missed beats: a sort of Frankenstein’s monster on four wheels because walking on two legs is a very complex mechanical adventure. This monster which is announcing and ushering in a new age of speed laced with black gold, uniting gods of earth and sky, promising millions of sacrificial deaths. In fact it’s probably all part of the industrialisation of death. Meanwhile the alcohol and caffeine crazies are staggering out into the courtyard shivering and shouting for stable boys to connect them with their mounts. Shouts and whispered swearing, calls for silence amidst the creak of leather, the shuffling hooves fill the air as men haul themselves on to the horses’ backs, settle their protesting flesh into the harsh hide and finding order in a single file they follow on through the now open gate and head west, their backs to the now lightening sky.
It’s impossible to know where they are heading and what they will discover. Who will be the winners and who the losers? Of course, it could be the opening thoughts of a novel but who would write it and who would read it?
Is it me who has to rise early and go out into that courtyard, find the horse that is given? I need some sense, some different sense of adventure in my life but can I put a petition in, to ask that I be not broken again . . . oh, that causes not a little merriment . . . ok it was a stupid thing to even think let alone say.
Apparently Robert Schumann set out with great and misguided hopes for his life (NYRB December 23 2010). His aim was for big and serious and was consequently less than satisfied with his “small” but brilliant pieces that were admired enough to enter the concert repertoire. Here at the wtw printing press we have to find contentment with small and barely read but on the other hand we are pushing on into another year – shoulders to the wheel – so some cause for a minor celebration.