A bit of a break, perhaps, from meditations on death...
Just a minute ago, I was down in the basement/studio/foretaste of Hell, looking at the little piece of glass-occupied sculpture I'm putting together for an exhibit at WheatonArts this spring and summer. As often happens, the idea, if one can call it that, arose simply from my having placed a couple of my glass bulb-y things on a metal shelf I'd reaped from one discard heap or another. And I sort of like it because it's much smaller than most of my other work, but still seems to capture the central themes of worth vs worthlessness, or privilege vs. servitude, or beauty vs. ugliness. Amazingly enough, although I tried to waste prodigious amounts of time yesterday, I still got a lot done on the basic support system, including the attachment of wheels, which never fails to give me a tremendous headache, because at least one usually falls off at the most embarrassing possible time.
In any event, I'm looking at this nascent work, and then washing the soldering flux off my hands, and as I came up the basement stairs, looking idly at shelf upon shelf of accumulation, stacked every which way because of the various emergencies through which we've lived over the past three years, and for just an instant, instead of feeling oppressed and bad, I felt as I might imagine Howard Carter did, when there was just enough of an opening into King Tut's tomb for him to stand there, at his full height, and confront the mystery of what lay there. Before all the gold and stuff. When everything was covered in thousands of years of dust.
And I thought -- what if, instead of viewing the tasks that unquestionably lie before me -- and which must be accomplished sooner rather than later -- as grievous burdens and shame-inducing admissions of defeat, I were to treat, say, the resurrection of the basement (and the back porch. And the green 'guest' room. And the back porch. And the garage. And the flood-prone Newark space. To say nothing of the two packed storage spaces some 350 miles away...)(Have I made my point, I wonder)... What if I were to treat each of these accumulations as some lost trove of goods from a long-dead civilization? What if I were to go through these oddments, not looking for ways to increase my already sufficient store of inner self-loathing, but with an almost child-like thrill of discovering something wonderful and strange? (Because there are certainly wonderful and strange things to be found)
I think one reason I've been so resistant to undertake this daunting set of tasks -- did Carter do more than one tomb? -- is the assumption that I am going to have to discard absolutely everything -- everything I touch. Everything I've made. Everything I've found, whether in a dumpster, or on the street, or in my own driveway. This radical surgery seems, at least ahead of time, like an evisceration which I would undertake by my own volition, and without anaesthesia. Wielding the scalpels and bone saws, clamps and hemostats myself.
Without question, things would have to go. In fact, I've got an unsightly pile of soaked wood and distressed furniture parts leaning against the chainlink fence by the driveway right now, and feel that I'm trembling on the brink of calling someone to haul it away. And I feel, at this moment at least, not the slightest interest in what may be lying there, to be hauled away and never seen again, at least by me. But maybe, if I can at least sort and classify -- and even exult from time to time -- there can be the pretense of salvaging things, as may be what operates behind what I'm told is the custom of Hawaiian homeowners, when a nearby volcano is erupting, and the lava flow is threatening their property. Instead of merely fleeing madly (unless that's the only option, of course), they remove the possessions they want, and then clean the house. Sweeping the floors, wiping the shelves, perhaps even putting a flower in a vase on the dining room table. Thus taking back just a little, from the awful sacrifice that's being exacted from them. A feeling of dignity and personal autonomy, limited though that might be.
Well, this is obviously far down the pike for me. I'd be happy, I think, to be able to go through the contents of, say, one of the many shelf units downstairs, just to see what's there, and whether or not it has any value at all. Maybe I could keep, for myself, a list of the wonderful things, so there would be another activity and focus superimposed on the one of which I'm so afraid.
And now I've got to call a bunch of doctors, to find out some information. I may add to this later in the day, as it looks as though it's going to be an interesting one...
(Later that same day...)
Well, it was interesting. But I'm burnt out, and want to go to bed now. So I'll just stop for now, and resume my recitations and reflections tomorrow. God willing.
© 2013 Walter Zimmerman
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