Monday, February 20, 2012

Tis A Gift to Be Simple


Yesterday was one of those days you wish you could carry with you forever as a reminder that for a day to be perfect it need not contain anything more, or less, than simple pastimes and simple pleasures. I never like it when Eric is gone, but I manage, and sometimes, like yesterday, I do better than that. I transcend all that annoys me, worries me, burdens me by deliberately shutting it out and slipping into a stream of creative silence.

The day began with the usual Sunday morning walk with Nancy. Please don’t equate the word usual with routine and boredom because a walk with Nancy is never routine and certainly never boring. Nancy is like Longfellow’s spreading chestnut  tree, rooted securely to the earth and yet forever reaching upward to the heavens. She talks me out of the gnarly forest of my own mind into open spaces and fresh air, agrees with me sometimes, challenges me other times, but reminds me always that, evidence to the contrary, life is comprised of more blessings than banes. After we walked we went to Panera for breakfast where I had a blueberry bagel and a mug of mango tea. Then we came back to my house to admire the new mirror and pick up a mylar cover for a new book her daughter got for Christmas.

I had planned to spend  the afternoon doing one of two things. I would either read “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair”  cover to cover, or rework chapter one of the novel. I do believe that if I am to write that thing – and I’m still not sure I really am – it’s going to have to be from the very beginning. Either occupation may have been sublime (or not), but I did neither because I suddenly remembered that when Eric was in Indiana last year I used the weekend to create the card for the gift basket that serves as a door prize for the book fair. An excuse to play with the papers is a gift in itself. Five minutes later I was sitting on the basement floor taking every last scrap out of two giant Rubbermaid tubs. A card is not large – the space on this one measures  4” x10” so we are not talking the need for a lot of paper here. A couple items and a dash of invention probably could do the trick, but I was beginning with a blank slate – not even a ghost of an idea lurked in the shadows.

When this happens the paper takes charge, or so it seems. I sort through it (see photo above to understand the magnificence of scope)  piece by piece waiting for a whisper. When one tickles my ear I set it aside. Every chosen postcard, torn magazine cover, stray page, or letter won’t  work its way into the project and almost never in its entirety, but still every one informs whatever happens in ways both soft and subtle.

It’s always scary to choose the first pieces and commit them to the paste jar, which of course is silly because collage is a forgiving art. One can always – must always – cover over mistakes, fifteen times if needed . But the beauty of it is that all those mistakes (as in life) add texture and interest, especially if a new layer is partially scraped off to reveal what lies beneath. Once I begin  the work time disappears. Watches stop flipping digital numbers, clock pendulums stop swinging and there is nothing  -- nothing -- to be done but what is being done in this river of complete and total peace. A card of course is not Art, the kind with a capital A, but that doesn’t matter. Yes, yes, I want to be happy with it. I want it to please me and will work on it until it does – but the process matters as much as the product and maybe even more.The process is key. The process is pay-off. The process is balm for the restless spirit.

Just as I came back upstairs the clock on the microwave flipped from 4:59 to 5:00. Three and a half hours of silence with no worries, no to-do lists, no nattering nabobs of negativism screaming from the TV. I have always wanted to use Spiro Agnew’s famous line “nattering nabobs of negativism" in a sentence and I just did, though mercifully not with the same intention it was uttered initially.

Amazing what a little paste and paper can do, even for the vocabulary!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a peaceful way to spend the day. Love that word gnarly! The photo is so beautiful on this page. I see from photo 2 what it takes to get to the point where you were at 5 p.m. Thank heavens for big storage rooms! I wish we had one.

I enjoyed this very much.
Did you read my blog on the gnarly tree? Maybe one of your readers would like to see it.
It is here: http://gettingafoothold.blogspot.com/2012/02/thats-one-gnarly-tree-dude.html

tess said...

I did see the tree! And I love the word gnarly too. Rarely do you get to use it though. Glad you posted the link here so people can have a look.

If I didn't have storage space I would be in serious trouble between the books and art stuff. I save scraps of everything. Eric is now to where he can identify something I would like and keeps odds and ends of junk for me too!