Then I discovered Stan Munro, architect and mayor of Toothpick City.
We, I will say we though my only point of reference is I, wish to see the sturdy, not wobbling towers of our lives rising floor by floor, milestones one atop the other, the random setback appearing only as a few dropped stitches in the sweater's design. The key phrase is "wish to see."
Some scientists have come to believe the pyramids were built, not from stones but from composite material, molded in place as the tombs grew. The matter is still in dispute. Regardless, we, our own monuments to genealogy, family folklore, DNA, experience and imagination, while Wonders of the World by some standards, were not fashioned from rocks of mythic proportion. When I peer, squinting, at my personal timeline, my strata, with periodic scrapings transferred to specimen ziplocks, I find the structure is pure toothpick, growth often imperceptible.
As I experience it, more so as I pay better attention, life evolves one thought, one seed, one moment at a time. With his painstaking, scaled-down recreation of temples, skyscrapers and sailing ships, Mr. Munro reveals a parallel universe in which the process is more easily understood. Slivers, slender renderings from birch logs and glue, lots and lots of glue...it is a day's work, day after day.
There it is: life is a daily, hourly, one-second-to-the-next business. It is our choice whether we approach it with quivering eagerness, apathy or dread. I have begun to see my questions as answers; allowing them to remain questions is pointless. I have actually, and against all expectations, fallen in love with the Mystery.
Before sleep each night, I peel the metaphoric glue from my fingers, check to be sure stray toothpicks aren't stuck to the soles of my feet. Mr. Munro is able to see his progress as the Taj Mahal, the Chrysler Building, grow beneath his hands. The rest of us are left to faith, that what we have wrought invisibly will stand. When I wake, I trust the day will sweep in, tide-like, my next assignment in a secret language spelled by its foam.
12 comments:
Dear Marylinn, the compost theory of the pyramids is fascinating. Aren't our lives built much the same way, today's experience upon yesterday's, compacted in turn by tomorrow's? Each of us builds our life according to the plans of the architect soul. Soul expands, the architect awakes, and cell by cell, spirit by spirit, a shanty becomes a cathedral.
It's strange, isn't it, how little grasp we have of the construction we each build and inhabit — we feel we have a much clearer idea of the warm human edifice encountered in the other. And yet — nicely put, Timothy — we trust that it will now and then and increasingly resound with something like praise. Thanks for the thoughtful post, M.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a blueprint? But even so, the process always includes several change orders. I like the toothpick analogy-those little sticks can also be rolled along the ridges of your teeth, augmenting the thought process, giving pondering woody substance and structure.
The question is the answer, isn't it? ;)
(So good to be back here, Marylinn!)
Nice structure but it is merely one building... not to be outdone is the recreation of San Francisco (video here) done by another artist. This one even has a track for ping pong balls to traverse the tooth pick city landscape.
Interesting metaphoric post.
Timothy - Yes, and beautifully stated. Thank you. Keeping the soul fit and engaged, so the work may continue.
Penelope - Thank you. Sometime I think the sentence should be, how little grasp we have. Period. A strange order there is in being mysteries to ourselves.
Jayne - And how likely would most of us be to follow a blueprint. We all do have them, in moral teachings, models of virtue and success, but they don't fit or we resist them or fate delivers unexpected materials. Pulpy pondering, you've come to the right place. Nice to see you back.
Robert - Stan Munro does have structures far beyond the one cathedral, though I don't believe any of them are kinetic. The workings of the human mind and heart...Thanks for the link.
Laoch - Thank you. These synaptical leaps are entities unto themselves. I leave them to tell their own stories.
yay!
you are back with the mystery!! Very happy for you as you seemed down for the last few months..
at least your toothpicks have diamonds in them.
Denise - I am certainly here (back?) with the mystery. Don't know that it felt like being down, so much as sober. These are sobering times. Toothpicks with diamonds, that will do just fine. xo
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