shaving in the south…

every morning i shave myself, i put on a white soapy and slightly scented face, as if to play the masked assassin in a korean drama. Beneath this luxurious whiteness my bare skin, in a brief morning moment when the day is about to begin, before or after the existential crisis that is living in this world has begun, but here as the razor is moved in a first downward stoke I and We stand on the edge of spacetime itself, already beginning to engage with the world. Perhaps today she is sitting in the bathroom with us chatting about speaking to her first client of the day, on the phone or perhaps they will be walking up the gravel path to sit on the chair or lean back on the couch. She talks about going shopping afterwards, and then water flushes as she ties her bathrobe and goes to get dressed. This is still part of the moment of waking, that secound or two when you have the freshest and most… useful ideas of the day, sometimes as we shave, now alone in the bathroom, we think that we may understand things. Here my body, this singular ‘we’ or ‘I’ if you prefer is occupied with its morning care, thinking of a sentence it wants to remember to write down, a sense like this, its attention taken by the sounds of the house. Another few downward strokes of the razor and my mind takes flight with the wasps passing by the clear glass window from… the wasps nest in the eaves, flying out seeking its reserves, its orchids. There is a singular vibration in the morning, perhaps its in us as we finish shaving and wash our face(s) and feel our wet face(s) for singular hairs we may have missed. Not a binary event of failure or success, but a fuzzy set, a fuzzy choice. as always. In that moment we dry our face and think of how the shaving is an act of love we practice on ourselves, similar to the act of reading which we practice on the book you are looking forward to reading later or talking to her as she drives you to the supermarket, your hand resting on her thigh for a few seconds as she curses some fool. Somethings and nothings most of the days begin like that, all the best days do as the wind from the south enters the house, moving curtains, blinds, caresses the climbing rose bush facing the south and finally my face as i climb the stairs to get dressed and talk with her about her choice of clothes, apart of the day…