There is falling in love and then there is what I call, “falling in wonder”.
Both involve the butterflies of connection. Both involve a sudden shift in what is on ones’ mind. Both involve the mixing of fiction and fact. But the difference is one can be done many times a day, with several people and without disaster. The difference is one can be remixed, replayed and repeated. In the past, I couldn’t tell the two apart and it caused me a lot of confusion. I had a sense of difference but no words of distinction. How can I get so pre-occupied with certain things? Why do I get so encompassingly enamored with certain people? And why does my sense of time bend so much when this happens? Falling in love is beautiful but there’s an emotional limit to it: one person at one time. I needed an alternative concept with no limit (and also not limited to humans). So falling in wonder is what I do; in my car, on my bike, on the street, in the alleys, in galleries, in friend’s living rooms, at the end of a song, in the middle of a word, in front of people and behind their backs. I’ll do a hundred hours of web design for someone I’ve fallen in wonder with. I’ll pull off the road at any time of the day for an object, building or situation I’ve fallen in wonder with. I’ll be wonder-struck by someone’s words for weeks until I remix them into images and new words.