"…the moment has passed…the destination has drifted past…life has changed tho still in the same boat, same river, traveling in the same direction…the view has changed…no longer standing in the bow looking straight ahead to see life approaching…now it is from the stern, looking backward at the past…aware that this position will remain the same for the rest of the journey.”
THE SIXTEEN PLEASURES (edited) --Robert Hellenga
Like a stubborn, petulant child, the above quote, a modern corollary to the last posting of Brutus' observation about tides missed or taken, has been insistent on an audience, too. For the past several weeks I've tried to ignore the pressure, longing to truly be 'away and beyond' that recent, narrowly-missed stranding in a dwindling tide pool of self-doubt, but that pesky child kept holding up a mirror, asking uncomfortable questions of me.
Transition times are like that, full of flashbacks to a life of meaningful achievements in lieu of an immediate, viable, vision and the baby steps of progress toward it. Change is a constant of Life, but when there are Changes that are not Choices, the recalling of- and attempts to recreate what was, is a difficult and lengthy process. Lots of aimless drifting about in gunk holes, if I may continue to stretch the metaphor.
Thus, thinking a lot about the deep satisfactions that were experienced within this rural Filipino community, the Saturday school students of One Candle Schoolhouse, the two campus' of Bright Lights Community Learning Initiative, and the Sunday's spent with Special Needs Families of Open Door Habilitation...looking back from the stern with longing while daily currents were continuing the journey forward...these ruminations taunted and challenged my determined belief of having moved onward.
Letting go seemed impossible until yesterday morning, in the dinghy, slowly motoring across the bay from the anchorage to shore side workshop, gazing for the millionth time at the exotic chaos of rural fishing boats on the strand, I remembered a quote about why we get married, make commitments. It was from the movie, Shall We Dance, and it suddenly illuminated the Why of what I'd been wrestling with;
"...we need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people in the planet. I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things...the mundane things...all of it. Every day. You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed, because I will notice it; your life will not go unwitnessed, because I will be your witness.”
For over forty years I've witnessed in words and photos, the lives around me that give meaning to my life. Fascinated with the stories I see and hear of other people's lives...the earthy, non-glamorous lives that we of the billion people on the planet live, I collect them, cherish and am inspired by our collective humanity--and then wonder what the heck I am to do with them, who would even care, and why did I appoint myself their guardian?
Well. I care, that’s why. The poignancy of every stage between beauty and tragedy in our ordinary lives touches something in me I can't fully explain. And won't try to explain because it is simply what artists do: they witness. They notice. They care…they share. Whether anyone else is interested or not.
We do it first, though, for ourselves. Possibly because we sense that what we see and feel is a Gift we have been given. That, to not acknowledge it would be an insult. A betrayal. And, possibly, the gift taken away?
In my moments of motoring across the glossy bay, waveletes gently lapping shore, leafy palms unbelievably lush and green beneath a Monet sky, the soft, salty air caressing skin, teasing nose…the realization burst upon me that it didn’t matter WHERE my life was lived! There was no need to worry there was someplace, somewhere else that was better than this seventeen year eddy. No. I mean, Yes, it would different but still the same—slightly changed colors, odd nuances in medium or techniques expressing our humanity, Yes—but essentially the same. So why would I go somewhere else to witness/collect/honor lives co-mingling with mine when I still love the ones here? It would be like having an affair—scratching a seventeen year itch—to leave the ‘marriage’ I’ve enjoyed within this community.
A community I still find fascinating.
“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality."
—James A. Michener, The Drifters—
One of my goals with this website was give audience to the artist in all I see and meet around me. However small or unprofitable it may seem to others, I am humbled by the brief glimpses of art that emerge in those who have no concept of themselves as artists. Suddenly but surely, I am again facing forward on this journey, even if the passage is no grander than a circumnavigation of my community. It shall not go unnoticed.
"The most visible creators I know of
are those artists whose medium is life itself.
The ones who express the inexpressible
--without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt--
their medium is being.
Whatever their presence touches has increased life.
They see and don't have to draw.
They are the artists of being alive."
—unknown author—
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