A Slow-Motion Conversation: Let's Meet Part-way There

If I could teach you how to put
On your shirt right side out when
You’ve picked it up from the pile right side in
You would know so much more
About my unmade bed, the dishes in the
Sink, the expiration date of my milk,
All passing unnoticed and without any fanfare. The shirt
Stacks neat enough wrong side out, and I
Am on to the things that I
Need; on to the music, on to the on,
On to pondering dried up worms with the little girl next door, to
Picking up hedge apples and smelling each one; to not answering
The phone calls, but surprising someone
With a knock to the door. If I could
Teach you that I place such little value in kemptness, and that
Which side of the shirt the tag falls on tells you nothing
About the warmth of the shirt and how
It will care for you; then I would proclaim
Us both expert navigators in this place.

~Kathryn Schuth

Patti and I met part-way there.

And frankly, if I ended this guest blog post right now, I think you would know exactly what I meant. Happy 6th Blogiversary, 37 Days, you've met me part-way there.

She was in between readings, and gatherings, and talkings, and meetings, and said, let's meet at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I love this place, so there was no arm twisting. Once there, she treated me to the two special exhibits at the museum. The exhibit of Andy Warhol's Commercial art, and the traveling exhibit of Madeline Albright's pins.

I thought I was going to write you a post about how beauty is found in the things that have depth, and that continue to have increasing depth the closer you look at them, which is about everything. How a field of snow is beautiful down to the last snowflake under a micron microscope. How a room of pins is a room of pins until you notice each one, and read about its story, and see the film clip of Secretary Albright saying, "That's not cojones, that's cowardice," and not only learn why she said it, but see the pin she chose to tell that story in an image that she wore on her shoulder as she herself told it in words.

But I realized that what I want to talk about is how after leaving the Warhol Exhibit, (which prompted discussion about whether or not that man Warhol was ever happy), we were firmly directed through the gallery gift shop, and escaped to turn the corner to see the "Star Studio" – the room where the patrons are all invited to participate in the art. And then, they hang up, all over the room, the drawings that were created, and the comments that were received to questions asked about the art.  Like a match lit to our fuse, in we burst, and made art, and read every comment on the wall, and put our own drawings into the file, and giggled, and loved this room of everyone.  We took fifty pictures, we ran around poking everything. The exhibit designers would have wanted to tape us, marveling at it all.  Loving the words, the scribbles, the art that is both so clearly not Art and yet is very much Art.

The Museum Staff called the wall of answers (in pencil, in crayon, in scribble, in drawing) a “Slow Motion Conversation.”  

We can marvel at the exhibits, but we BECOME the excitement as well as the exhibit when we participate ourselves, and then take in the equal thoughts and words of others.  And sometimes the only way to have time to draw to our attention the thoughts and words of so many is to have a Slow Motion Conversation.

37 Days is a celebration of the personal. It is a Slow Motion Conversation, maybe one that starts with your self and ends with your self. Maybe one that has included as many people as will listen.  Maybe if you had 37 Days left, you wouldn't spend all 37 of them trying to save the world.  Maybe we'd know to open our heart to the fact that everything is a gift. Maybe we'd be bitterly angry. Maybe we wouldn't hold our tongues very much. Maybe we'd see each other as wretchedly beautiful. Maybe we'd act very very foolishly in the eyes of others.  Whatever it would be, I certainly know it would be very, very personal.

37 Days is a celebration of the all of us, and the invitation is for us to meet each other part-way.

This, of course, is why I'm a guest writer for the moment. Patti could probably write something better while watching some random pirate movie with an actor she can't quite remember the name of, and sipping on her pink grapefruit champagne blogiversary cocktail with a spring of rosemary between her teeth – but she's invited me to step into the Star Studio and continue for a fleeting touch the Slow-Motion conversation that she's started. Six years of touching the words, and then passing them around the room.

Meet you part-way.

 

{my thanks and love to kathy, a woman who read Life is a Verb and invited me to come read from it in her town in a glorious monsoon. if you'd like to send a guest post this week, email it to patti@pattidigh.com}