“For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”
Mary Oliver
When I return to the USA after spending time elsewhere, I’m often asked questions like: “Iceland, that must be a really different world! Do you get culture shock when you go there?” Well yes, it’s a different world. But the biggest culture shock usually hits when I return home.
When I recently came back to California after many weeks of living in Spain, the difference between Europe and here that struck me most was the American obsession with “winning.” Perhaps because it’s November, I thought. Somebody won the World Series, the elections are over, and now football commands attention. All opponents have been, or were being turned into, “losers.” Is there an insult more dreaded in our culture than “loser”?
So why, I wondered, did thoughts of winning and losing occur to me when I happened to be drawing flowers? I had bought them at a local market because their tall, slender shapes resembled trees. Also, I could see the roots! But they grew quickly and soon the stems would not support the weight of the flowers. Could I finish drawing before they began to droop?
How to pay homage to little, evanescent trees, to draw them accurately, not run a race with them? To pay attention is to search: Erasures, hesitations, mistakes are all part of the process. In this case, I “lost” the drawing. It’s only an echo. So here is the result of the process, the loss. The misdirections, uncertainties are all here, just as I made them.
And yet, the world is still full of doorways to temples, even ephemeral flowers that briefly resembled trees.
I ACTUALLY APPRECIATE THE PART OF THE PLANT THAT IS ESCAPING THE CONFINES OF THE BORDER…..WHAT A GREAT COMMENT ON OUR PRECIOUS GIFT OF IMAGINATIONS! AND YOU CAUGHT IT!
Thanks for the the acute observation that I didn’t know that I had caught, Marianne. More things to write about, but I still have a hangover from the Christmas Holidays, so they will have to wait. Meanwhile:
What’s the difference between a great jazz pianist/composer and the President of the United States?
One is Thelonious Monk.
The other is Felonious Trump.
Love and hugs to you, as always.
I recall that the still life paintings of the Dutch and others (Caravaggio comes to mind, Sanchez Cotan too) would often include a suggestion of mortality in a painting of, for example, beautiful ripe fruit: a bruise or worm hole on one of the pieces of fruit, a fly, or, more obviously, a skull to one side of the platter. Your “Paperwhites” captures the exuberance of life while simultaneously insinuating the flowers’ demise: the wild up surging sprouts, in contrast with the few saddened, dwindling or yellowing ones. Subtle, beautiful, tragic — life in a captured moment.
Many thanks for yet another excellent insight, Tim. (Especially mentioning Sanchez Cotan.)
I love T. Monk’s music and even more his sense of humor. How can you not respect a guy who writes a song entitled: “Todo que podrías ser ahora si la esposa de Sigmund Freud fuera tu madre” ?
Oh no!!! It wasn’t Monk at all, it was Charles Mingus! Ah, what the hell. Two superb musicians for the price of one. Happy new year.
An absolutely beautiful piece – it captures the untameable spirit of blooming Paperwhites.
Speaking of Paperwhites, I mailed your drawing this morning so it should arrive early next week. Meanwhile, love and a long hug,
M