Beauty at the End of the World

I knew in that moment that the world had broken into many fragments and that we were all looking to share our interpretation of it.

Apr 30, 2024

In the afternoon, Luciano and I walk above town from one low hilltop to another. We speak of the breath in our lungs. It’s a gift, he says. It’s a gift, I say. The breeze that slips in from the ocean agrees. It’s a gift.

When the sun dips, we go down to the cove where waves lap the fishing boat planks. From there you can see all the way to the horizon, and – if you close your eyes and open your imagination wider – the other side of the world. They say the world is pulsing with people there. They say the wind moves ships closer to home, and home shores push even the lonely darkness further into the night.

Luciano and I both came to the end of the world voluntarily. If we didn’t know what we wanted when we first arrived, we quickly learned – and we chose to stay anchored here, surrounded by sea, cut off from the dominant cultures that clasp the world.

We enter the harbor tavern with the intent to stay until the moon illuminates the highest palm. Rafa, says Luciano after the bar girl comes and goes, tell me about the time you went to Cuba.

It was spring I say, although I don’t believe in calendars. The waves on the malecón battled enormous rocks. I was alone in Havana to study rhythms of the music, and rhythms of the people. A stranger invited me into his house after I had lingered on the sidewalk to hear him play. This is my mother, he said. This is my brother, Jesús. This is our orange juice.

Luciano nodded. His time in Chicago had left him aware of the coolness that dwells in northern hearts.

Another round. A quick look around inside of the harbor tavern where a few old photos of revolutionary heroes hang in rustic wooden frames. Another look around inside our choices to see if we made good ones. Some say to race from one down payment to another mortgage proves your worth; others: it’s the part of you that seeks humanity.

I don’t exactly agree with either. It’s the part of you that finds humanity that’s important. But where I come from, they sang of money as if it were love. Never sure if I can really tell what other people grasp, too.

Luciano laughs. Let me tell you how I came to paint the world, he says. I didn’t always see every mirror as cracked, but one day I found a man crouched between subway stations with a notebook full of scribbles. Usually, I walk on by, but this time there was something in the tangles of his eyes that made me stop. What do you want, I asked, and he raised his notebook. One incomprehensible hieroglyph after another marched like black ants across the page and I knew in that moment that the world had broken into many fragments and that we were all looking to share our interpretation of it.

I put my bottle back down on the table. That sounds about right, I say.

Luciano and I both understand the difference between popularity and art, between fact and the necessary vision of a new reality. That’s why we both find ourselves under the tavern roof, which in turn lays under the stars. We sit with our faces full and our convictions in bloom.

Although we live at the end of the earth, we still inhabit a certainty. At times it ebbs and flows, as storms also come and go, but it never leaves us barefoot and bleeding among the tidal rocks.

— — —

Thanks for reading Dynamic Creed. This one is from a couple of years ago, and I thought I’d blow the dust off, especially since last time was kind of harsh.

I have some new work in progress that I’m really enjoying. Trying to stay focused on that, which is keeping me up at night. If I had to choose, I guess I’m a night owl. But then my three dogs are early risers, and apparently believe that Papa should be, too.

Victor David