“Look up Geoffrey Rush movie pianist. My phone is flat” Carys said to me.
And there it was, Geoffrey Rush with his arms outstretched, abandoning himself to the sky.
“what’s it called again?”
“shine” I said.
“Shine!” Carys exclaimed.
Carys’ inspired reaction came without surprise to me – knowing her to have a disposition for such words and themes pertaining to freedom, the desire for it. Such words I know Carys to trust in already: peace, prize, surrender. These words allude to particular elements, as there are no words to express the whole, of a higher state of being – of a freedom beyond language.
We may find in the few syllables of such words, when rolling off the tongue, a realisation of the ineffable freedom that is otherwise hidden from us. That is not to say that we ourselves grasp it in that moment, as that freedom is not contained within ourselves. It is neither in the mind or the mouth, but in that small, invisible escape of air when the word is expressed, where we are just capable of sensing it.
The polo shirt has evidently been liberated from conventions of proportion and functionality. Yet as of all things significant, there contains a contradiction. Georgia and Carys have only found freedom by placing themselves in service and at the mercy of the tailoring process which normally serves to standardise. A commitment to craftsmanship has uncovered gaps in traditional tailoring practices which they have exploited to serve their own ends. This has amounted in the creation of a sacrilege polo shirt which may be draped on a torso, roll off the shoulder and down the bust in gentle folds as a tunic would.
The embroidered horse dragged along the shirt is a gallant, nearly mythical symbol of a horse. It reminds me of Phar Lap in its symbology. Phar Lap translates to lightning – “like a flash on the sky”. Like the instant of freedom. When Phar Lap died, it was discovered that his heart was 1.5 times bigger than that of an average thoroughbred racehorse. As of the embroidered horse – the entire polo shirt for that matter, Phar Lap reserved an unconstrained anatomy. Maybe Phar Lap himself could have worn the shirt – double freedom.
- Riley Orange