nigel baldacchino

I call fog something that occurs in my inner life, that from time to time settles into my seeing, thinking and engaging with myself, other things and people. The term falters, admittedly, since what I describe here has little to do with an obstacle lodged between myself and my surroundings. However, making it into object and subject helps me believe it is something, that could also go away. The term also holds however, in that fog suggests a sharper knowledge of what is looked at; some expectation of clarity that is being withheld or momentarily suspended.

Fog is also a meteorological phenomenon, the conduct of which i regard as blameless, responding to its activities with only a loose, resigned welcome. So, it goes with my own.

There’s a texture that my fog is always loyal to. It is consistent but not uniform. It betrays my sense of proximity, placing everything at a uniform orbit, just beyond reach. It is an expression of friction sown within the weave of my reality’s fabric.

I often thought about what my fog replaces when it settles in my mind, but nothing ever feels missing. The place where it settles must then be a vacant space I would have had overlooked, when taking account of who I am. So, for me, my fog, settling and setting, will always be a token of how little, of what I’m made up of, will ever be accessible to my thinking self.

the fog is such,
that no one can see,
my invisible fortress.