T H E L A D D E R | L I F E

WALKING an ancient road, a street, past sundown, the early evening ringing the most extraordinary blue, the light of the streets was a kind of gaseous yellow vapor-light. And that light created a kind of multiple shadow — and there, scratched on the wall — V i V E.

I was thinking about that — something to the nature of life, that upward movement (or down) — and the climb to a vista more luminous. Being higher, you can see farther.

But that graphic, the graffiti scribed there, it is like the hidden message, something mystical, along with the symbolic layering in shadow — seen, unseen, incidence. These combinations recalls these phrasings in my mind.

Definitions, they are:

vive (interj.)
1594 (in vive le roi), from French, literally: “long live ______;” French equivalent of viva (q.v.). Jocular phrase vive la différence in ref. to the difference between men and women is recorded from 1963. Also in vive la bagatelle, lit. “long live nonsense,” denoting a carefree attitude to life.

qui vive
1726, from French qui voulez-vous qui vive? the sentinel’s challenge, “whom do you wish to live,” lit. “(long) live who?” In other words, “whose side are you on?” (The answer might be Vive la France, Vive le roi, etc.) Hence on the vive “on the alert.”

Vive — on the alert. Climb: higher — and be on the look. Out.
Lookout. Look out! Long, live!

Scene, seen.

Tim | Marrakech

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