often wrong
I gained some resolve recently. I’m not sure how, but it feels good. At the moment it hit I was between appointments, rushing between pleasures, a little lost and late.
I saw this toy sword on the cramped landscaping of some business or another (a car lot, I think). The blade in the sun and the handle in the shade. Which to choose.
I went to Wordcamp Portland yesterday. Though I couldn’t stay for the whole event, and I’m far from a wordpress power user, it was still quite inspirational. I met good, positive people and saw some shining examples of people doing what they loved with good tools.
Though I learned something immediately useful, and somethings that helped me rethink my weak approach to blogging, it could have been a day long conference on fly-tying, or quilting, or chain-saw sculpture. In my current situation, I just need to know that things can work.
I had a very well-needed walk full of objects to contemplate. Many had immediate, sometimes laughably obvious, relevance to the matters on my mind. All of them had aspects that provoked rewarding contemplation.
First off I found this level. I’m getting further and further off balance, allowing myself to be shoved off balance too easily. Though this picture may not show it, this level is covered with either mortar, or very pale mud. Some of the bubbles are completely obscured. As I walked on, I thought about which level (in both the true-to-horizontal sense and the higher-or-lower sense) I might be not seeing, which bubble balance I need to clean.
I also found a fork. Though not actually in the road, it did make me think of points of decision and their influence on direction. I crossed the street on whim and immediately found a shard of security glass shaped like a heart. When the phrase “heart of glass” is used it is meant to indicate a vulnerability, but this was a heart shaped by the fragility of the glass around it and the accidents it met.
While still thinking about what remains after the accidents that might befall me, and the shape it’s left me in, I saw what looked to be a silver-plated spoon with a very ornate handle. The bowl of the spoon had black burn marks left from somebody’s fix. The addictions of wealth, the abuse of the beautiful, the lost way, all of these things kept my mind busy until I saw a very beautiful red door that had been nailed shut.
The one thing I didn’t get around to contemplating enough, and I still haven’t forced a meaning upon it, is a piece of bread I found with the center torn out, resting at the edge of an intersection downtown. I’m still working on this one. Let me know if you have any ideas.
I didn’t get a picture to capture this morning’s divination moment, but it will stay in my head. A puzzle piece is always appropriate. I’ve been finding a lot of them lately, as well as playing cards. So this post won’t go pictureless.
On the way out this morning, I heard a loud burp, really loud. When I looked up a man across the street, who I suspect made the noise, just stepped in something, turned his foot to see what he stepped in and stumbled.
I helped myself a lot today by staying quiet, even though the indigestion is very, very uncomfortable.
A great deal is changing in my life. Each moment is one okay-have-I-got-everything Moving Day among the not-yet-packed priorities and principles. At least, I’d like to say “moment”, but I’m still clinging to everything but the moment lately. “Now” hasn’t been figuring into it much.
Only after a half an hour looking at trash and clouds do I finally let it all go. Triage involves being able to identify what arrives dead, and what offers hope with good work. This is the way I need to walk forward.
On my walk today, I was thinking about how much my life will require more confidence and creativity now, more than in the recent past at least. I was thinking about how limits on my time, increased procedural and resource burdens and my own confusion are weighing down on me more just as my discipline and drive to express myself increase.
Then I saw this rock on some kid’s drawing. It was raining. It was easy as pulling it out from under the rock. I hope.
I’ve troubled myself a great deal recently wondering whether or not I’ve missed opportunities that could of made my financial situation better. I think about the professional ambition that I avoided thinking that it was either dishonest or too prideful, or at least something other than the love of good work.
I found this sign while fretting. No doubt it fell off of a sofa or exercise machine while someone was hauling it off the curb, but out of context it was a great find. I realized that I have worked hard to get what’s most important to me to be ready for what’s free to me now. It’s hard to remember that because it’s all around me every day. I’ve got a great wife and great children, and that wasn’t even remotely possible to me in the past.
(No pictures this time. My camera is dying and I can’t afford a new one just yet, besides, it’s just a paperclip. Imagine it.)
On my walk, I was being overly concerned about money. About a block a way, I saw something shiny in the gutter, something certainly metal. I’ve found jewelry plenty of times before and this seemed a possibility.
A paperclip holds paper together by being bent, and clinging to a bent shape. Its grip is relatively loose, and temporary. A staple holds by piercing. I will think about staples.
I was remembering a time when I meditated a lot, sometimes for most of the day for days in a row. I saw this several blocks later after my mind had already drifted away.
What I had remembered most was that, near the end of my practice of meditation, I had read something about a form of walking meditation. I think what I do is the opposite of that now.
Some cards serve only to show the name of the game.