The Meditation of Small Things

These last few weeks I have been in one place more stably than I have been for the past several months. We have been working on the house, finishing it to sell. The sale will fund the construction of the next house; this time one that we can properly call home. Amidst the chaos of living on a construction site, there emerges a calm rhythm from the persistent necessity of work. We awake, make coffee, assess what needs to be done, make a trip to the hardware store if necessary. We begin; framing walls, scrubbing down the exposed bedrock left as a reminder of what lay here before, laying tile around it. We consult, shifting plans slightly as new considerations arise. How much detail and work to put in? How to inlay the glass bottles in the wall so as to frame the doorway, bringing a splash of colour to the wooden framing of the house. Some days the progress is not very visible, but its mark is there in our bandaged hands, in the floor plans for new rooms etched out on concrete.

I shift between doing my own writing and helping with little things. Soon enough, my head swarms in front of my laptop, caught in a land of abstract thoughts which I struggle to catch, to bring back into this world so that I might manifest them in words. As the world of ideas begins to overwhelm me, my mind leaving my body to swim in a sea of concepts and efforts to trace a clear line through them, I return to the little things. I sand the sharp edges of bottles cut for the wall. They will be inlaid into plywood and drywall, our own slightly unconventional bottle wall design. As I sand, the thoughts settle a bit more quietly, falling into place among the physical world. I run my finger over the edges to make sure they’re dull, and move them aside. The day before I had spent hours tediously removing labels from the bottles, soaking them in bathtubs full of warm soapy water, using a knife to remove the more stubborn varieties. It is not exciting, but it is clear and honest. The work doesn’t hide itself from you. From the unpleasant feeling the residual bottle glue leaves on my fingers, comes a curved doorway with a crown of blue and green jewels. It is clear what each small act accomplishes. Each task lays itself before you, not glamorous yet not simple. It asks to be taken on with care, to be done with attention and humility, and in return you will get something beautiful in it’s clarity; a slow but genuine transformation of the physical space around us. Creating beauty is a spiritual act, regardless of how grueling the minutiae can be. I think of people who spend their whole life in the world of ideas, never stopping to take a deep breath of fresh air and feel the grass beneath their feet. It seems like the abstract, when disconnected from the literal, physical world, can become wildly confused. Yet it’s sway upon us is huge, most of us spending much of our day there, in this made up world which could crumble much faster than stone. I can’t shake the idea that the philosophical arts should be tied to craft. When contemplating reality, it proves useful to touch it now and again.

With this work comes small comforts too; waking early to a bright sunrise, a cat luxuriating on your lap, sharing a coffee. I’m caught between these small things and all that I wish to accomplish over my short life. The process seems opaque. How can a person really come to lay a foundation for a good piece of the world? A good life? I feel impatient and want things to come fast. My mind comes back to these little things, things that simply need to get done. There are no ifs or grand chances here, there is only small certainties. I consider this, coming back to something I’ve known intellectually for a while but somehow still have trouble believing: the small acts build the foundation. It is the persistence of waking up everyday and acting, being able to look back on your accomplishments at the end of the day even when they have not yet born fruit. Enjoy the small comforts but do not get lost in them, do not forget that they are borrowed and you must work to earn the ones you can keep. The work doesn’t stop, it continues persistently, dictated by the necessity of living. If you lose your vision the work becomes meaningless, but if you become lost in the vision and forget the small things then you will be emancipated from reality, unable to bring your internal dreams to bear upon the living world. It will continue without you, forever ignorant of the mark you might have made upon it. 

Sanding the bottles, cut with an angle grinder to fit into the wall. Larger mouths make for easier cleaning and convenient length.

The blank canvass, early stage room framing & the clutter of construction

The crown jewels

Doors from the entry way into two small bedrooms. Bedrock to the right was left as a feature, and scrubbed thoroughly.

Wondering if these rocks are meant to be clean

A small rest

The beginning of the tile

Laying the last pieces

For now, I say goodbye to this place as I move into a month of travel.