Nice Breeze

Falling leaves, though no color change yet. About a zillion geese at the lake. The museum is totally trashed, and, of course, my little apprentice janitor person calls in sick, seriously, emergency room sick. D is back from some days off but he absolutely most spend the day designing a mailer and fixing various computers. A string of events upcoming, one right after another, so I spend the day putting away chairs and tables, sweeping, mopping, the floor is as bad as I've ever seen, except for that Sinclair reception a couple of years ago where they actually slung beer at each other and we had to repaint walls. Nothing surprises me anymore, maybe not nothing, but close, very little. The way people abuse public places. The menu is written on the floor. D and I talk about the Wrack Show, I walk the space, counting posts in my head, what we need. He assembled the sand-blaster while he was off and I can hardly wait to use it. It's a process whereby what is hidden is revealed, taking away what isn't necessary, blowing off the sap-wood to reveal the heart. I'm a builder, essentially, where things are added to define, paring down is almost the opposite of that, but what has happened for me, in the last decade especially, is that I want the materials to speak for themselves. I don't want to mediate, though I am, at heart, a mediator. Letting go is difficult, it's easier to exercise control, but after many years of demanding a specific outcome (that set of stairs will look like this) what I want now is to see what happens if you follow the grain. It's a paradigm shift, but subtle, you get good at something and then relinquish control. The stairs in my house, for instance, look like something I've done, I did, in fact, build them, but my ego was not involved, I was just paying attention to what the materials could do, they dictated what could be done, not the other way around. I don't want control, I want to watch the ducks, notice the crows, fix breakfast for dinner and smile at the discrepancy, read a book at the island, and write you, about my confusion. The wind picks up and a few more leaves fall, it doesn't matter, but I'm watching, I take the time to watch. What is insignificant becomes important, the way the leaves turn, a subtle difference in light, I've always liked fall, the intimation of death, like taxes, what you can't escape. Human too, after all. I have a rash on my foot and a rash in my crotch, I treat them as best I know how, still I scratch and itch, sometimes it's unbearable, I wake up in the night uncomfortable and bleeding, but I'm alive, and it's better than the alternative. Didn't mean to go there, but there it is.