Alfred Stieglitz:
Georgia O’Keeffe—Hands and Thimble (1919)

"I'll insist on seeing level even if some crookedness persists …"

On the third day, brick removed, the concrete contractors started pulling string and finding plumb. I asked Pablo if he was doing that, and when he confirmed, I cautioned him that many had sought level and plumb in the old house, but they had yet to find it. He insisted that he would persist and lay a footing upon which a level and plumb front porch would permanently rest. The Muse and I left town for the weekend while his crew prepared to quit by noon that Friday. I'm watering around the works this morning, waiting for the crew to arrive to start fitting rebar into the space. Tomorrow, I expect some concrete will be delivered, and the permanent part of the effort will commence on just the fifth day of work.

Pablo moves sure and fast. He exudes a confidence I've never experienced, but then he works in concrete, and I work in material almost precisely its opposite. He can weigh and finely measure his successes. I must mostly imagine mine. He can determine whether he satisfied his intentions, while I almost always forget my intentions in execution. He creates satisfied customers, while I rather blindly supply an audience. His work utterly conquers ambiguity, while mine seems to produce ever more of it. I do not envy his lot even a little bit. I'm confident that his world would not make a great fit for someone like me, who relies upon ambiguity to preserve his delicate self-esteem.

I wonder, though, about the effect of introducing level to the front of this crooked old home. I accused Pablo of creating a construction that would mean the back of the house would have to crumble when the big earthquake comes since the front will have been fortified like Windsor Castle. The place featured that northward sag long before The Muse and I first saw it. The neighborhood has become accustomed to its eccentricity. I imagine that it successfully adapted to that crooked, and might need to reassess its orientation relative to our newly LevelSet front porch. Inside the house, too, forces long ago adapted to the front porch sag and might well need to realign. I expect one of the less obvious wall or ceiling cracks to start acting up, seeking attention like some jealous sibling.

Those of us who inhabit the place have also very likely silently adapted to the persistent out-of-plumb condition and might find ourselves disoriented as the place gets level to the world. Our tacit adaptations might lose their usefulness and need some adjusting from us. What will tell us that we need to jack up a part of our approach? Who will set the strings and shoot the angles? Who performs the LevelSetting of lives accustomed to being encapsulated within an incongruence? Who will teach us how to level our expectations? Who will notice when we're poor students of the new geography lessons when one of our shopworn dimensions continues unnecessarily sagging? I feel a nagging sense that I might be unable to make immediate sense of the world Pablo's constructing for us. Who doesn't aspire to live a level life, to live square to their universe? But who among us has very much experience living like that? We're much better adapted to making do than to LevelSetting. We're accustomed to our inherent imperfections and might well question if we really need to pursue any greater perfection.

I cannot say what this remodeling might produce. I expect subtle differences, but significant shifts could happen. I feel confident that I will be ascribing to this LevelSetting any good or bad fortune that befalls The Muse and me in the immediate future. Nobody can say on what scale such changes occur. They might immediately appear, or they could lag by years. Though it seems impossible to me, it might even be that nothing will result from leveling up the front of the house. It could be that this world will be indifferent and unfeeling to even this heartfelt LevelSetting. If the world won't care, I will. If the universe insists upon indifference, I will perceive the differences. I might project my future and see what was never there, but we haven't initiated this change to produce no effect on our lives. I'll insist, as the sponsor's prerogative, on seeing level, even if some crookedness persists!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz