Every so often, when the noise and chatter of the world goes quiet, you can listen to life raising its voice, asking to be heard. It tells you there’s another path to walk, one you hadn’t previously seen. And because you know change is needed, you listen, you step onto that new path.
You set off down it but, even then, the destination is not clear. Then the sun rises and daylight breaks, and all around you the darkness falls away, and you wonder why you were ever uncertain of things.
Someone enters your life, like it had been scripted from the beginning, and they support you and teach you, and you discover more of yourself than you had previously known.
You’re taught that your art extends further than you had ever realised; you’re taught that your art can speak to people in a way that can divide or unite them; and you’re taught that you have thoughts and visions that can help people, because beyond all things you had always maintained the hope that humanity could be brought together through awareness and understanding.
And, suddenly, the world shapes itself in a way that doesn’t only start and end in tragedy because there are also aspects of love and hope and magic.
You come to these realisations in a place of simplistic fantasy where you question if any of it is real. Then you decide, as the clouds build and form and roll across the sky; and the birds sing and glide and soar; and the wind pushes and tugs the landscape of jungle, encouraging those trees to swing and sway and live, while Charleen stands beside you already knowing all these things, and you understand there are more stories – and more ways to share those stories – than you had ever imagined.
Jake Combe
