7.16pm Melbourne

There is an exhilaration, a sense of play and a freedom that comes from not being in the place that is usually “home”. Add a dash of Spring and a glass or two of alcohol and you have a buoyant cocktail. I am in Melbourne and it seems that all I have to think about is creating and generating work with a dash of critical questioning, no other commitments. I walk the freshly washed early evening streets, everything sparkles and there is a promise, a jewel hidden round every corner. That one song I keep on my mobile greets me and urges me on. Colourful hats and whimsical fabrics laugh at me from shop windows. I would never wear such a thing but the frivolity of my mood taunts me, saying “come on – it could be fun! You can do anything!” There is an energy, at the moment, that is very much about living fully, no half measures, no undue compromise! This has been fuelled, once again, by the ever-present spectre of immortality. Life lost and life taking its final curtain call. The players having strutted their stage brilliantly, brightly and with inspiration. May we all aspire to this! May I aspire to this and never self censor a moment based on judgement by another.

5:03pm The Castro, San Francisco

I have bought a book of knots.  An instruction manual.  A diagrammatic narrative on holding things together.  A short story on the ins and outs of taking two previously distinct entities, and binding them. 

Let's wrap this one up...

I am casting out a line (as I did once before), and I am closer than I can believe.  I am pondering the possibilities of  being in two places at once; touching two surfaces at the same time. 

A knot; 

a fold; 

a double helix.  

I have spent some time now researching the possibilities of sending myself over to you ahead of time; of drained blood, neatly packaged in a second skin, and mailed across the ocean.  This blood saves time.  It holds it tight in every molecule a singing bio-hazard.  Touching two surfaces at the same time.  The space between can no longer be measured by the feet of my long intestine, but instead, by the time it takes for oxygen to burn.  Three minutes: thirty-seven seconds.  How much oxygen can you burn in threeminutes:thirtysevenseconds (if you don't mind the gaps...)?

This is my gift to you, at a time when I know that you are waiting for gifts.  Wrapped up, packaged, and sealed with a carefully tied bow (a Japanese Parcel Knot).  I offer you threeminutes:thirstysevenseconds of my burnt-out, fucked-up oxygen.  I've heard it said that every breath of air on Earth has been breathed before and will be many thousand times again.  Recycle it, and use it how you will.

Richard.x