One of the things I have been observing on my trips to Cley next the Sea, and last weekend at Burnham Overy Staithe, is the interaction between beings, the space between, the where there is contact, connection.
The theme for the exhibition at Cley this year is Connection and the work I am doing is about love which is surely a connection. But in blogging I have spoken more about disconnection, the solitary walk that my lover's leaving forced me to take. 
But here is the thing, we are not alone, our being impacts, for good or ill, on other beings. Our line, our simple line,  our thread made, held and cut off by the Fates perhaps, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. 
We are currently living through testing times. Climate change is undeniable and yet is being denied by some of the people who hold most power in the world. We talk of carbon footprints and this is a very obvious form of impact. And it is interesting that it has come to pass that as a species we have become so unaware of the space we occupy that for our temporary comfort we are prepared to impinge upon our children's comfort and our children's children's comfort and so on until we reach an armageddon it seems.
I have gone off track this post was supposed to be half a dozen images of distant human to human or human to animal interaction on the lovely beaches I've been walking. Pictures showing how people interact when unaware that they are observed, the space between beings. And beings, I think, do not have to be alive, and maybe that is why climate change and environmental awareness comes into it. 
Let me say perhaps that perhaps I see myself as just a thread, my thread will be drawn on the beach when I participate in the exhibition at Cley later in the year. But perhaps we are all threads, all beings, all, each bird, each bug, each blade of grass, each grain of sand ... you catch my drift. Let me say perhaps that here is my thread and you lay your thread too close to mine or perhaps the other way, or you take yourself away when once we were attached. My point is that we affect each other. Even lives led in seeming solitude are maybe not so solitary if we allow that relationship with things that are not human is relationship. 
On Saturday walking with my friend David we were talking about traces, the traces we leave as we pass through life, the people who have left traces on us, and those that we have left our trace upon. This might be physical, skin, hair, body fluids - blood, sweat, spit, semen, for instance - perhaps even a child, the next generation, again a very obvious form of how one may impact on another. But subtler traces are also left, by those we are close to, and also sometimes some one we don't know who may pass a compliment or throw an insult. Or our manners may accidentally clash with another's causing pain, frustration, irritation, sadness in one or the other or both. 
We cannot change our being to suit everyone, this I have learned as I have got older. Children are very often asked to please everyone but themselves. Sometimes the reverse is true, a child is given license to assert their will without care for others. Our early years inform our later life and we grow through interaction, discover as we encounter who we are, and how we fit into the world.
Now what does any of this have to do with anything ? Well it's me thinking out loud. as per usual, for myself, notes about thoughts if you will. I am aware, as I'm guessing everyone is of people who have spoiled things for me, made things dark or nasty, been unkind, sometimes cruel, unfair, unreasonable and how they have pushed and nudged me away from loving life. I am aware of the times I have been that person, the spoiler, the wrong-doer. I am aware of people who have lit up my path, called me out of darkness, held out hands to pull me through, rescued me from the edge of a cliff, people who have brought me food and taught me to fly. All these interactions change me, inside of me my essence is what my essence is, but I am also responsive to my environment, be that social, political, physical or ethereal. I carry the traces of the deeds that I have done and that which has been done to me.
The road we travel takes us where we will, maybe round and round in circles, into or out of a labyrinth, or here to there, and maybe there isn't a right way, surely there isn't a right way except that if we are guided by the best in ourselves, follow our light whilst being aware of the shadow we cast we may perhaps make less, or not so terrible an impact on others as we travel from birth to death in the life we have been given.