The French vendeur who hands me the tomato in its perfect flesh— he knows. Some worlds haven’t been destroyed. It is a globe of seeds, juice and pulp that asserts itself, a repository of what we were given in the love garden of origin. What a miracle that it has not been trampled on by industry and pragmatism! To touch its smooth skin with tender fingertips is to touch origins. To eat it, a burst of elation, then a river of melancholy: eternal values in such a fleeting package! Says France: humans can revere things and earth and nature, even the self.
While revering in reverie, I was close to elements. Fires in southwestern France were raging, but that’s not what shook me. It was the popup window when I clicked on a video of those fires. It was the human-sized robot prancing idiotically. A robot cut off from human roots but embodying the highest hubris of its maker. He promises to help me with everything, bopping around the virtual space. He would do my chores but amplify my melancholy. He has me raging at my helplessness, tossing me against the rocks in the little skiff I’m navigating.