The Third Something

150 / Fog

I feel stuck between two worlds. Thoughts on how to be comfortable when you’re lost.

A graphite sketch of a woodland in dense fog, by Adam Westbrook

Fog is my favorite thingā€¦specifically the moment between dense cover and the sun breaking it, becoming part of that weightless glow, that in-between time feels like the place I belong and where my foundational self exists. Do other artists have a place/moment like this that grounds them and fuels how they exist?Ā 

Alonna, California

Dear Alonna,

This past week ā€” as for much of January ā€” a cold fog has wrapped itself over London town. Iā€™ve looked out of my window as the tops of buildings dissolve into grey and thought a lot about your searching question.

The truth is your words resonate with me because, like you, I find myself often in the metaphorical fog. I think most artists would agree this ā€œweightless glow, that in-between timeā€ is where we want to be: Not fully part of the world ā€” somehow always separate ā€” and seeking a new thing that isnā€™t yet clear to us.

The romantic poet Keats famously called this ā€œnegative capabilityā€, arguing a tolerance for uncertainty is essential in the pursuit of the sublime.

Wisdom and experience teach us to tolerate and eventually embrace those things which are both unknown and unknowable. My sexuality eludes definition, much in the same way fog seems to recede from us as we near it. I am neither entirely straight, nor gay; bisexual is also inadequate although, for ease, itā€™s what I default to these days. The totality of my desire is a mystery ā€” even to me.

That isnā€™t OK for a lot of people, who insist in knowing the unknowable in themselves or in others.

Most people canā€™t handle the fog, which is why we are artists.



Iā€™m going to try and articulate something else, Alonna, even though it is on a plane that is entirely unknowable.

Right now, right this instant, I believe I am stuck, in a liminal space between two worlds. Five years ago, things fell apart and, in the year that followed, I shed the skin of an old version of myself that was no longer serving me. I thought, naively, that was ā€˜job doneā€™.

But I feel in me a now an un-ignorable yearning for spiritual growth that makes me realise I did not finish the work. I did not fully assume the newer version of myself; I have been stuck in a holding pattern, not fully part of one world or the other, searching, seeking something that isnā€™t yet clear to me.

I am surrounded by fog, behind and in front. Your question reminded me that it’s OK to stay here for a while.

So thank you, Alonna.

Until another Sunday soon,

Adam's signature