Night ocean surfers. Cornwall.

.... and I suddenly went back into a state of mind I'd forgotten, something from my childhood. I used at night to sit up in bed and play what I called 'the game'. First I created the room I sat in, object by object, 'naming' everything, bed, chair, curtains, till it was whole in my mind, then move out of the room, creating the house, then out of the house, slowly creating the street, then rise into the air, looking down on London, at the enormous sprawling wastes of London, but holding at the same time the room, and the house and the street in my mind, and then England, the shape of England in Britain, then the little group of islands lying against the continent, then slowly, slowly, I would create the world, continent by continent, ocean by ocean (but the point of 'the game' was to create this vastness while holding the bedroom, the house, the street in their littleness in my mind at the same time) until the point was reached where I moved out into space, and watched the world, a sun-lit ball in the sky, turning and rolling beneath me. Then, having reached that point, with the stars around me, and the little earth turning underneath me, I'd try to imagine at the same time, a drop of water, swarming with life, or a green leaf. Sometimes I could reach what I wanted, a simultaneous knowledge of vastness and of smallness. Or I would concentrate on a single creature, a small coloured fish in a pool, or a single flower, the moth, the fish, slowly creating around it the forest, or the seapool, or the space of blowing night air that tilted my wings. And then, out, suddenly, from the smallness into space.'

From The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing published by Harper Perenniial. page 480.

Painting featured: Night Ocean Surfers, Cornwall.

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