Thursday, August 30, 2007

Let there be (more) light


I got the windows yesterday. They're currently stacked in the back of my Volvo. This is a major step in my whatever-phase of home renovation, which is going surprisingly well. When you are in whatever-phase, though, you probably haven't defined what it means to be "finished," so the end isn't exactly near.

The window factory was about two hours away. You would think that driving for quite some time on a gray ribbon of a highway in 92 degrees would render me relieved to find myself on desolate, twisting, winding, roller coaster back roads. Surely the window factory is not out among the river people in their unique puzzle-piece shacks. Driving by these abodes it's impossible not to wonder why exactly is it that I need new windows when these places seem to need new.... everything. And then there is the window factory, right along the seemingly not-moving milk chocolate Muskingum River (the name of which I had to come home to look up). Armed with my windows, I drive past the river houses again, wondering who I would be if I lived here.

I've absolutely never been fond of roller coasters. I realized that is precisely the term that I've been using to describe my overall experience this summer -- er, year. At the crest, it is brilliant, clear, dry, obvious. At each turn, in every direction, other hills and crests recede in shades of greenish-blue, just past the even ordered rows of farmland. In the valley, it is damp, swampy, eerie, black. In these valleys the light is dappled, the growth is dense and jungle-like, and the scent of decaying earth is heavy. But it's here is where the real, uninhibited growth occurs, where all is fertile and things begin, wild and unhampered.

This is the room where the windows will be installed. It's my teaching studio, and I have been here for six years. This is a south-facing wall -- mirrors currently grace the exact space on either side of the mysterious chimney-ish outcropping where the windows will go. Once installed, the windows that have travelled over the river and through the woods will allow dappled light into a room and house to caress the places of breakdown and decay, ensuring fertile, uninhibited growth.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Belief

Your vision will become clear only
when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.

Carl Jung