10.19.2007

Participate... (part 1)

I was sad that I missed the art festival this weekend, so I was glad when "Julia's Parent's Are Out of Town" was at 4411 Leeland, and I decided to go...

Wait, we have to go back a bit to understand this...

So in an effort to delve into the beautiful mind of Boyfriend, I ask a lot of questions, or make him tell me secrets, or random things he is thinking about. One of the questions this time was "if you could change anything in your life, what would you change?" And he gave the answer I would have given, but then qualified it in a way I never would have. "Nothing, you never know what little thing affected something else"

So this idea began to worm it's way through my brain. This idea. Nothing is wasted. All matter in the universe is consistent. This small moment, this was not a wasted moment. No relationship is wasted. No human exchange is wasted. Nothing. It all matters, it is all part of what makes you who you are. The Buddhist philosophy that you never enter the same river twice... you are never the same because this leaf fell in front of YOU today and you saw it or you ignored it. This rain fell on you, but that rain didn't. And it changes you. It makes a chemical change, the decomposition of matter, it releases endorphins and causes change, or it doesn't and that lack of change is just as significant in making you who you are.

Ok. So we have a basis here. A philosophy we can grab onto. So I took all these things in my house we didn't want. And I used them. I gave them new life. Thank you for being in my house and thank you for your decay and the particles you release and the way that changes my body. Makes my house smell like my house. Thank you for being effectual. Crepe paper from a party we never used and it got crushed so it can't ever be perfect and it can't ever be used for a party. Thank you, yes, I'll give you life again. A piece of gatorboard I never used because I got pneumonia and dropped out of school. Yes. Embroidery thread from sewing projects I never finished. Yes. Blue bags for recycling, and we forget to recycle... the blue bags become trash. Irony. No, I won't let that happen, shh I'll recycle you in a new way.

So I took them. And then the idea of perfection came into play. It can't be perfect. I hate that it can't be perfect. It can never be perfect. But does that make it any less valid? No. It's valid and significant, maybe because of it's imperfections. It will be exactly what it will be. My hair falls on it, my fingers smudge it, but it's not a waste. My dog is dying. Her hair is everywhere. It is working it's way under the fragments I'm sewing together. Good. It's part of it.

So this has been my world for the past week. And Julia's Parent's Were Out Of Town, as we all know, so this idea worked deeper, under the layers, delving deeper, a worm in my brain. David and Julia, for who knows what reason parted ways and my brain laughed and whispered, nothing is wasted. So I made him come with me, and then I left him alone as I went and delved into the art being created by our bodies in that house...

He was my participation, he was my piece. It was nothing being wasted... it was recycling. It was using the participation art for my own means. It was saying fuck you, everything I do is beautiful. And watch, I'll put this experience to use so I can experience it and David can experience it and Julia can experience it. And if it's bad, it's bad. And if it's good , it's good. And the time isn't wasted, and everything can be a new thing.

And it was beautiful. And it was good. Not because something good came of it, I don't know if something good came of it... and maybe in the end it will mean nothing, but it will. It will. Because for one night, even one night, they were in the house together, and David breathed in the air Julia breathed out. And Julia breathed the air I was breathing, and I breathed the air that all those other people breathed and we shared this thing. this life, this night, and we will always be different and nothing was wasted.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it was beautiful.

- David