- Pablo Picasso
Okay, I admit I am a bit clumsy. I tend to leave spots anyplace I have been. Amazingly I realized today that there is a coffee spot on the carpet by my desk that I cannot figure out how it got there, since I just know I have not spilled. It has company, because there are bits of food and M&M's that have rolled under the desk and which constantly seem to elude the occasional vacuuming of the office's trusty cleaning crew. I have long since abandoned anything but a very busy tie pattern, and generally realize that a nice tie can disguise almost any lunch-stain on my shirt. I did spill water on my desk the other day, a mixed blessing since it required that I stop and sop it all up, but it did leave a nice clean surface - early for me since I generally do a once-a-year cleaning of my desk around New Year's.
I wish I could tie this all in to a treatise on great art; instead it ties me into a long line of eccentrics. Mark Twain was generally unkempt. Einstein. Schweitzer. Beethoven and Mozart. Pig-Pen. It isn't that I don't care - in fact anyone that knows me well would say quite the opposite. It is just that I am, out and out, clumsy. It is the "Mole" in me, I suppose - I would love to be tidy and organized and do a fair job of pretending to be so, but in reality, just like my hero Mole in The Wind in the Willows, I really quietly admire Rat, who has a quality to find organization in anything. Mary is a lot like Rattie - partly because she remembers anything and everything in vivid detail - so while there are times when I see a pile of magazines or papers on her desk, all it looks to me to be is a pile of papers...but to Mary it is a pile of Inspirations - bits and pieces to be harnessed together when the need arises into a creative brew. She inspires me da
ily, thinking in the abstract, and both of us challenge the other to stretch and grow. Thanks to our finding one another we have learned to look beyond the obvious; I now look past the spot lurking beneath my tie - it may irritate me, but then I remember that it was truly a fine cup of coffee.
Seeing a spot as a spot is what I know. When I see a spot of yellow I do give it a thought, a second look, a third. It may be a sunrise, a butterfly, a California Poppy, a taxi or a Golden Retriever. But it is never just a spot. That is what I have learned.
Okay, I admit I am a bit clumsy. I tend to leave spots anyplace I have been. Amazingly I realized today that there is a coffee spot on the carpet by my desk that I cannot figure out how it got there, since I just know I have not spilled. It has company, because there are bits of food and M&M's that have rolled under the desk and which constantly seem to elude the occasional vacuuming of the office's trusty cleaning crew. I have long since abandoned anything but a very busy tie pattern, and generally realize that a nice tie can disguise almost any lunch-stain on my shirt. I did spill water on my desk the other day, a mixed blessing since it required that I stop and sop it all up, but it did leave a nice clean surface - early for me since I generally do a once-a-year cleaning of my desk around New Year's.
I wish I could tie this all in to a treatise on great art; instead it ties me into a long line of eccentrics. Mark Twain was generally unkempt. Einstein. Schweitzer. Beethoven and Mozart. Pig-Pen. It isn't that I don't care - in fact anyone that knows me well would say quite the opposite. It is just that I am, out and out, clumsy. It is the "Mole" in me, I suppose - I would love to be tidy and organized and do a fair job of pretending to be so, but in reality, just like my hero Mole in The Wind in the Willows, I really quietly admire Rat, who has a quality to find organization in anything. Mary is a lot like Rattie - partly because she remembers anything and everything in vivid detail - so while there are times when I see a pile of magazines or papers on her desk, all it looks to me to be is a pile of papers...but to Mary it is a pile of Inspirations - bits and pieces to be harnessed together when the need arises into a creative brew. She inspires me da
ily, thinking in the abstract, and both of us challenge the other to stretch and grow. Thanks to our finding one another we have learned to look beyond the obvious; I now look past the spot lurking beneath my tie - it may irritate me, but then I remember that it was truly a fine cup of coffee.Seeing a spot as a spot is what I know. When I see a spot of yellow I do give it a thought, a second look, a third. It may be a sunrise, a butterfly, a California Poppy, a taxi or a Golden Retriever. But it is never just a spot. That is what I have learned.
1 comment:
....and you gave me the courage to create when nothing I will ever do, will compare or equal anything you do.
You showed me Monet's sky, the glory of David, and Chihuly in London.....kicking and screaming all the way........what a precious gift.
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