Clearblue
This is my idea with nowhere to hide
I listen to Clearblue over and again, each time devastated by it. Lorde has bust wide open a new language with Virgin, writing like “there’s nowhere to hide, intimate from the jump.”1
We confuse ideas as the atomic source, raw unit on the timeline of creation. Cause and effect: all things physical come after a thought. Not quite. Thinking re-wires us physically. Ideas are structures and systems mistaken for a brick. No wonder they are stubborn to change. No wonder they are convoluted for us to hide in. No wonder they detonate. No wonder we struggle to dismiss them. Like chemical compounds, the properties of an idea are defined by its structure. Some wrap like a double helix. Some nurture like southern rain. Some self-organize like a grand bazaar. Some destruct like a grenade.
What is the virgin source of an idea? What does an idea look like when it has nowhere to hide?
To act and to feel — verbs Hemingway lived for. Her mother screams. A tree grows. The sun comes out. After the ecstasy, he prays. You sigh. I run. I want to be free. Two people fight, and they feel an entangled ache. Two people make love, and they feel an entangled ache. The world is a feral place. Is this all there is? But then, what more?
Every life wants to live so much. We grow up. We change but don’t change. People give us things. We give back. We carry things. We forget. We feel heavy. We peel away. We feel light. We keep keeping. We dream. We ache for knowing. We keep peeling until it’s virgin enough to be felt.