Along the Edges

That first day was the best. The unknown outcome. Curiosity taking hold rather than just pure speculation. We gathered mid-morning and allowed ourselves to be free. With each passing day, more freedom.

Returning each time, we touched the same metallic lines, and held firm. Small adjustments were made, and some surfaces proved more resistant. As shapes either held or failed, there was a comfort in knowing.

When pieces combined more easily, there was a momentum we rode with freely. Laughter, collaboration, wonder. This was our fuel. There was a sense of renewal and achievement with each passing second of the day. Nothing could steer us adrift, because we were adrift. That was the point.

That first week, as something eventually slipped out of focus, the momentum still did not slow. We had plans. We had maps. We had pressure building. But our course was charted solely on an expanding sense of wonder. The wind blew. We rode with it. The wind shifted. We honored each other.

Along the way, when an object ran up against firm resistance, it was dealt with just the same as always. Laughter, collaboration, wonder. This allowed shapes to be held more closely. It wasn’t just that we had everything figured out. We knew we didn’t fully understand it.

It wore on us, too. We were shaped by the process of evolution. We simply stayed inside our domain, like a large antenna that we could live inside. It wasn’t like we could just type in a few coordinates and aim. We became an extension of the antenna, not its master.

As we wrapped up that first week, there were questions being asked. Some needed answers. Others could wait. We just stayed with the repetition, and kept the plan in place. We knew we were onto something, but didn’t mind if we still didn’t fully understand it.

Approaching the next week, we stayed along the edges of contact. When sound is forming, there’s not a lot of time to study it. You react, and occasionally analyze the surface, but going too deeply can create unnecessary constraints. Constraint is inherent. Just stay with the seam of how that aligns itself. If we added too many layers initially, we’d overcomplicate and devalue the formation. We need the seams to gel together naturally.

Fortunately, our unforced approach allowed for just what we needed. There was an outline of material we knew we had, and the final pieces, the last two of them, took shape better than we could have expected. That’s the magic.

Listening back, this allowed us to see what was missing, or could be added. We were graced by a serendipitous shift in our approach. An unplanned arrival, a new antenna! Well, at least a new inhabitant of our domain. This guest proved to be a collaborator at the right time.

So we carried on with that momentum, and wrapped up our efforts with an understanding that what we had created was full of laughter, collaboration, and wonder. That freedom carried us where we needed to go. And with the help of the wind, we weren’t fully aware of how far we had traveled in such a short time.