What Holds Us Together, series 3, no. 27. Graphite, pastel and cotton floss on paper. 2020
The other day I went for another trek out in the desert…which is what I do to connect to things, to get outside my head and be a part of something else for a while. Every walk presents something new or reminds me of something I take for granted.
This episode was no exception. On a cordoned-off old dirt road I noticed a cabin foundation, its slick, cracked concrete surface polished clean from decades of sandstorms, upon which nothing was left but a few containment boards, rusted nails and glass shards broken so long ago the edges were worn dull like the glass pebbles you find on a beach.
What Holds Us Together, series 2, no. 36. Graphite, ink, colored pencil and floss on paper. 2020
I stood there, looking around me, thinking about those rusted nails. They were all that remained of someone's life there, of some collection of experiences that have since moved on, having transformed into memory. The possessions - dishes, clothes, furniture, carpeting, appliances, books, records, the stuff we surround ourselves with - the stuff we buy with the money we all work our asses off for - were wiped clean away as if they'd never existed.
This morning a friend posted a Facebook comment describing the movement of our planet in relation to a particular set of stars, and how this affects our behavior. "We're moving through Aries," she said. ...
"…we're moving.."
Yeah. We're moving. All 7.1 billion of us, blasting through space and time on this ball of minerals and gasses, moving through, with, between, alongside, etc, other kinds of balls and objects, at an unfathomable speed through space, together. All of us at once, heading in the same direction, governed by forces outside of ourselves we can't possibly know or control.
Nails are used to connect things together. To build things. That they were all that were left is kind of an amazing and beautiful metaphor, I think. All we have in the end are relationships - connections we make with one another and with what surrounds us.
The rest doesn't last.
