The Shadow Beneath Your Fingertips Upon a Desk

Tonight I came home and opened my bedroom door to reveal a new mattress and box spring atop my bed frame.

This may seem like no big event.

It is a big event.

Within five minutes, I had it dressed in white sheets smelling of bleach. At the final pull and tuck of the top sheet, I immediately ran and locked the door, stripped off all of my clothes minus a black tank top, bra and panties and jumped onto the bed. With my head sinking back into the cool white of the pillow, I inhaled deeply and smiled.

Laying on my back, I looked up at the ceiling trying to touch opposite corners of the bed with my toes- my legs spread as far as they could go and still reaching.

It is incredible to take up so much space.  To spread myself out in all directions without modesty. Without a fear of unwanted attention.

The bed is along one wall that is the color of a stone one would find on a beach.  Perhaps a shade darker.

As I lay there on my bed, the small metal banker's lamp that I use for reading on the other side of the bed cast a shadow of my body on the wall.  The shadow of my leg closest to the wall a darker black than the blurry dark gray of the leg further away. I moved them. Slowly; quickly. And watched as the color changed: a darkness coming in and out of focus.

I studied myself- the landscape of my body cast upon the wall.

(pause)

The book I mentioned earlier, In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, has pulled me into an obsessive thought pattern related to light, the absence of light, and all of the depths and shades in between the two. It is impacting how I think and what draws my attention.  I see its heavy influence in everything from how I have been dressing, to the ink in my pen, to the weight of kohl I use to line my eyes with.

I have become obsessive about translucent shades and all that lies beneath and behind them.

(unpause)

Here is to this bed that will be something between a shadowbox and Salomé's Dance of Seven Veils performed from behind a paper screen.

Truth be told, it will resemble something closer to The Dance of Seven Veils-based tempt seen in The Night Porter, but this comes as no surprise.


-k.


(The Night Porter minus the fascist theme, plus the andro-gloved-uniform theme. anyway.)
(photo from woodydoow tumblr)
(thank you to the ever famous yldarb for always introducing me to film and music of interest.)