Notes on the Wonderlanders

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Notes on the Wonderlanders

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I adore the Wonderlanders. My Wonderlanders. I had to frame them. Now they reside on the shelf alongside Rose Red; black frame, off-white, ivory matting, possessively coveting the reflection of our eternal three-headed tree. Sometimes, when a print order arrives back, it hurts to let them go…….

Their heads were difficult to manipulate, the Wonderlanders. At first, they were supposed to be twins, but it didn’t work out that way in the end. My Wonderlanders may appear to exist within the same visual vista of enchanted nothingness, but in actual fact they are much further apart than is possible to imagine. There are some things that cannot be imagined. The distance that exists between the Wonderlanders is a very good example. The Wonderlanders are illustrative of distance in the same way that a pendulum is an example of motion. Except that the Wonderlanders are not in synch, you could never set your watch by them. They would chew Time to smithereens given half the chance. Time, to the Wonderlanders, is for sissies. Pansies. Girly-boys.

Nobody knows where they come from or how old they might be, the Wonderlanders. Again, Time doesn’t enter the equation. It knocks at the door, it howls for admittance, but to no apparent avail. Poor Time. We shall have to write it an official letter of apology. Can Time read letters of apology? If not, then we shall simply bow before it and smile. We are respectful if nothing else.

(Incidentally, I am not a Wonderlander myself. I am, at present, attempting to learn the difficult art of managing Time. There are a multitude of sub-categories attached to the fine art of managing Time; like making Time, escaping Time, keeping Time and marking Time. I have never been what you might call adept at any one of them. Until now)

The Wonderlanders know the secret of silence. In a story by the author Kelly Link, a character named Talis is described as being the very essence of a secret, personified. The author takes pains to describe Talis as being the embodiment of the secret itself, as opposed to being in possession of it. Therefore, Talis is the secret. My Wonderlanders are of a similar ilk. Talis understands the art of silence. So do the Wonderlanders. Just like some things were never meant to be able to be imagined, there are some things that were never meant to be spoken of, or attempted to be put into words. Human beings are rarely, if ever, subtle enough to adhere to this. I am guilty myself, although when I create pictures, they are in reverence to it. My pictures are those stolen spaces between Time and words, where silence and secrets squirm and cavort and lisp in chaos and wonder. This is good, this is terrifying. This is the unconscious. It is all that I have in terms of a guide - a faithless guide, regardless. A trickster guide with bells in his hair and stars where his eyes ought to be. I can see him now, but I shall not tell you his name.

So the Wonderlanders are the personification of a secret, materialised. On paper perhaps, but two dimensions are better than none. The landscape that surrounds them may, at first glance appear barren, devoid of life, a depressing sweep of unpopulated space that couldn’t be more unsettling were it teeming with cockroaches or undulating beneath the weight of a thousand weary spectres. Perhaps you have to re-consider the girls themselves before coming to any strict conclusions about their surroundings. Really. Number 7, the girl to the left, is most definitely aware if it, cognisant of it, apparently even wary of it, suspicious of something that we cannot see, and that something remains outside of the frame. We will never know what it is. Number 4, the girl to the right, remains oblivious. Head tilted, with an almost euphoric expression, she has closed her eyes. Her secret, knowing smile tells us that she is not entirely oblivious. But to what? The answer is the distance that exists between the two Wonderlanders themselves. They do not actually inhabit the same space. If this hurts you to think about it, then get out now while you can. Go and make yourself a nice strong cup of coffee and switch on the TV . You might still be able to catch the last 10 minutes of Ironside. Who doesn’t love Raymond Burr?

(I, for one, adore Raymond Burr, although I must admit to preferring him in the role of Perry Mason)

The Wonderlander’s landscape does not exist. It is nothing more, or less, than a solitary, singular, visual example of potential. A symbol of an unthought thought, a reality not yet born. But it does exist, if existence is the right word at all, in the realm of dreams.

Lately, I cannot recall my dreams on waking. I imagine that this must be the luxury of having finally conquered a nightmare disorder that lasted almost an entire decade. The bat wings have dispersed, perhaps, but the dreams, the new dreams, are elusive. In fact, they have quite a lot in common with the Wonderlander’s strangely tenuous landscape; impossible, unknowable and as slippery as eels when it comes to definition. The word definition/definite does not appear in the Wonderlanders dictionary. In this respect it has rather a lot in common with Time.

Words that most certainly do not appear in the Wonderlanders dictionary - 1)Fact. 2)Precision. 3)Familiar. 4)Reality. 5)Consistency. 6)Proof. 7)Logic. 8)Common Sense. 9)Pull Yourself Together. 10)Don’t Be Ridiculous. 11)That’s Impossible!. 13)Grow Up! 12)Childish.

In fact, you will find that the word (or more accurately, the concept of the word) ‘childish’ is somewhat venerated in the land of the Wonderlanders. In the land of the Wonderlanders, the concept of the square wheel is not ridiculous. Triangular pegs fit into round holes. Pigs might not fly, but they do hold quite intense, philosophical conversations with glass birds. And why ever not? Glass birds are beady-eyed and not to be trusted, but that is besides the point.

Some notes on Wonderland, if I may….

Playing Cards are perhaps amongst the most memorable inhabitants of Wonderland. We all know this. The playing card population are no longer subject to the horrifying indignities that were reputedly put upon them in the Days of Olde. Nowadays, a playing card youth, upon completing primary education, may be encouraged to take on quite a respectable, well paid position within Wonderland society, with the potential to harvest a rather distinguished, lifelong career. No longer the pathetic lapdogs (or bullet catchers) of vicious, raving monarchs, the playing card population has become almost respectable, if not admired. For example, you will rarely hear of a playing card losing his head nowadays, unless he or she has done something excruciatingly terrible, like posing as a scientist or shouting at small children. Queens and Kings do not wield the same amount of power that they did in the Days of Olde. There are still very powerful monarchs at large in Wonderland, but most of them are either too busy practising yoga to be bothered, or they are otherwise blushingly engaged; distracted by affairs of the heart. According to the Official residents of Wonderland, affairs of the heart are the finest, most noble affairs in existence. To listen to your heart and to deny the boundaries of Reason are a Wonderlanders staple. The Wonderlanders are proud of being unreasonable.

On ultra-rare occasions, a stray Wonderlander, (be it a lowly card or an elevated monarch) may buckle at the perimeters of Reason, giving in to the temptations of Common Sense and Irrefutable Fact. This hideous affliction is most likely to occur after a bout of severe personal stress, or sometimes following a painful bereavement or loss. Nonetheless, the Wonderlander in question may begin to adopt peculiar peculiarities, like making lists, shouting at small children, denying the rhythm of their heart, and generally making an ass of him/herself by amateurishly practising the forbidden art of Logic. Upon discovery, the blighted individual may become imprisoned, or at worst, beheaded. If a generous monarch is in power at the time of the offence, the victim will instead be tossed out of Wonderland and sent to exile, on Earth. Once on Earth, the unfortunate soul is likely to find him/herself the subject of great veneration. They may even find themselves taking on rather distinguished positions amongst Earth society, as politicians, professors of medicine, scientists or academics. They are rarely, if ever, allowed to return home.

The Wonderlanders do not grow old. Their bodies may age, fall prey to disease and eventually expire, very much like our own, but a Wonderlander’s soul (that invisible, mysterious source of energy that occasionally animates the flesh) cannot age, fall sick or expire. The Wonderlanders are quite comfortable with this. Earth people are not. For the most part, what an Earth person cannot see, an Earth person has great difficulty believing. The Wonderlanders have profound respect for the changing seasons of the physical body, they celebrate physical maturity (in much the same fashion as an Earth person might celebrate a Bar Mitzvah or the freedom and legality to pollute oneself with alcohol) and the prospects of reproduction, but on the whole a Wonderlander’s main concerns remain devoutly within the realms of the invisible stuff. When a Wonderlander comes of age, it’s parents do not expect or request it to give up toys, play or imagination. Quite the contrary, in fact; a Wonderlander, on reaching physical maturity is positively encouraged to multiply his or her ability to invent, imagine and play. Toys may become more sophisticated, oftentimes even dangerous, as the adolescent Wonderlander matures, but the gist remains the same. Play is the Wonderlanders primary source of equilibrium. This may explain why the Wonderlanders rarely become addicted to drugs, cigarettes or Russian Roulette. Imagination enlivens and heals, there are storehouses in Wonderland with enough supplies of Imagination to keep the entire population satiated for a lifetime, and beyond.

Wonderlanders do not pity the Earth people for their inability to enjoy and find faith in the invisible. The Wonderlanders haven’t really given the Earth people very much thought. That said, the Wonderlanders intuitively understand that, when one of their kind goes off the rails and begins to prattle on about Logic, it is high time for them to migrate, quite possibly very permanently, to Earth.

A Wonderlander knows that thought is tantamount to reality. The popular phrase I think therefore I am is not remotely lost on the Wonderlander population. Take the landscape in the above mentioned picture, the barren vista in which my odd, over-soulled little Wonderland girls are situated. The number 7 girl has just this minute created it. She is walking hand in hand with her sister, but she is also elsewhere. This is what I meant when I said that the landscape did not actually exist. Yet …..it has to be accepted that so far as the landscape is a thought materialised, it is as real, as substantial as you or I or anyone else, beloved.

Wonderlanders love to barn dance. They do not keep farms or livestock, but they certainly love to dance until they’re dizzy inside of ramshackle chicken sheds, doing the polka with starlight and fishes and listening to Eastern European Earth music. Nobody knows how the Wonderlanders actually discovered Eastern European Folk music, but it is reputed to have hitched a ride in on the shoulders of a rather notorious seafaring card deck many trans-dimensional moons ago. The Wonderlanders love to barn dance and they love to sail the high seas. The two go hand in hand. The Wonderlanders love to barn dance and they are utterly smitten by the beauty and terror of the high seas, but they will never been fond of chickens.

I digress. A Wonderlander knows that thought is tantamount to reality. As a race, they are said to be very careful what they wish for. A wonderlander thinks nothing of splitting in two and going off in several different directions at once. This is old hat, my friend. Old, old hat. Wonderlanders are not taught to do this, they are simply born knowing that they can. Nothing makes more sense to a Wonderlander than thinking something into existence. For instance, a war may erupt in a remote, Wonderlandian mountain valley, thought up, perchance, by a temporarily bored Wonderland teenager on a sun drenched Saturday afternoon (except there are no Saturday afternoons in Wonderland because there is no Time. The only demarcation of Time in Wonderland is the aging of the body, which the vast majority of Wonderlanders never appear to notice anyway, until they’re dead, and when you’re dead, you’re laughing, so none of this really matters at all) only to be quenched in a blink of the imagination’s eye by a random, passing Wonderlandian pacifist. This is why Wonderlanders are rarely ever at war with their own kind. Why bother? Why attempt to kill what ultimately cannot be killed? Your enemy would simply follow you into his or her subsequent lifetime and make your existence a misery. Not only that, why spend so much money on sophisticated weaponry when you’d much rather be spending it on curiously shaped confectionary? A Wonderlander has little to no time for war, debate or argument. You cannot conduct a successful argument with a Wonderlander. What a Wonderlander thinks just is. As a race, the Wonderlanders have come to accept this. So, you are possibly wondering how a society can survive without debate, war, weaponry and seething disagreements. Well, it isn’t simple, but the Wonderlanders are a fine example of a thriving population that have never had the opportunity or the desire to release the trigger of a loaded gun. I think therefore I am. Isn’t that wondrous enough?

Again, I slightly digress. A Wonderlander knows that thought is tantamount to reality. No Wonderlander has ever stood for hours on end in a laboratory, attempting to work this one out. A Wonderlander just knows.

The Wonderlanders just are.

To return to my picture, my over-soulled girls; all that I have attempted to describe above is condensed, encapsulated in the distance between the visual/non-visual representation of the girls themselves. They could not be closer. They could not be further apart. What may appear to be a paradox to us, amounts to nothing more than an afternoon’s careless recreation for the average, childish Wonderlander.

I wonder if they know how lucky they are.