Comfort can be sad
Such is the rain fallen upon a metal roof
That drowns out all the noise that rises from inside
A gray ridden day with sheets of clouds blanketing the endless horizon 
And the sad whispers of the air rustling the twisted fingers of trees
Loneliness and dread
Calmly inviting you from all the troubles of the day

Through the entrance of the old house 
Laid solitary amongst the grasses of the earth; forgotten
Preserving from change the waste of life,
And hope, and love, and all things beneath its drowned roof;
So too does the sadness of god deliver you from the troubles of time 

Wrapped in a light cloth made transparent by the wind 
Subtlety the feelings of your skin are released and you become encased in cool nothingness

The scent of the ground, youth, and terrible things flood your memory. 
Sight giving way to that space between thought- liminal and pale

The soft voice of a mouth you swore you’d remember instills in you guilt
That familiarity no longer belongs to you- you’ve forgotten their face and all your knowing. 
And so that voice becomes the wind-
Yet your nostalgia remains
And you do not know what you long for.

Slowly you are stripped of all things that were you
And left in their place is something quite, that can never exist,
That brings you much comfort.

When I was in Scotland, alone for some time. I rode through a grayness. Not solely in setting but in the lens I held. I stopped in galleries in the different cities I stopped in; some very sad. There was one “piece” (a video installation) that I saw in the upper floor (the attic) of a gallery in the very north of Scotland. I believe on Orkney, perhaps Shetland. There was a chair facing the projection and I sat for what had to of been an hour, though I could wish to have stayed longer.

Projected against the wall were shakey video shots, taken inside a silent and abandoned house in the unkept fields of wherever. The place didn’t quite matter. Nor did that which existed in the house before. As far as I was concerned, that house came to be just as it was, and it would stay as such until the end of time. There was a grayness to the house, and the memory. The memory which was not mine, but that I belonged to. There was no music, no talking. Just the sound of the wind and the creaking of broken wood, as the backdrop of the saddest thing I have ever witnessed.

When I watched the installation, I was not concerned with anything but that house and its wind. My mind was so quiet, and though it was inexplicably saddening, I could not remove my eyes. I felt at ease.

I wish to be the house. I wish to be the wind. I wish to be the gray lens that coats the world. I know that it is comfort.

With hopes of comfort, and all else,

Taylor M. Wilson