Tim Meacham
BOH: threshold 2020
After the first dream, I attempted to establish what I felt to be the threshold between the front and back of the house. I hoped that by defining the border, I might stop the bleed between the 2 parts, and interrupt the malicious oneiric ingress.
“Front and back should be clearly separated at all times and never allowed to mix” was the message of the online Teams training provided by the council. “What about the stairs?” a woman repeatedly asked “I’ll deal with stairs in the chat after the session” the facilitator answered. “Are there any other questions?” “I’ve found something in between” I said, when eventually my raised hand was noticed. “It seems to be some kind of craft made from parts of the house” I paused to scan the tessellated grid of blank faces on my screen, and continued “It has grown from the threshold and holds thoughts forever. I feel that there’s no time there and the hoover doesn’t work” There was a short silence, and then the stair woman said " a domestic Lagrange point perhaps ?" and the connection was lost.
I marked the threshold with tape, hung a curtain from floor to ceiling and played ZZ Top through speakers positioned along the threshold, and directed to the front of the house. Despite this, each evening dreams of the ancient sea still bled from the front into the back room I used as a study. One wall was now almost entirely raw chalk face, and as I traced the surface with my hand, sounds transmitted through water and trapped in calcite bubbles 70 million years ago, seeped into the present. Tendrils of vibration released through my stylus fingers now sought purchase.
As I played the surface, a shark of light, its dorsal fin just below the picture rail, cruised the room linking the stray ideas and chapters of my chaotic thesis. As the fish flexed into the corner, the sound of waves and surging foam filled the space.