Willem Claesz. Heda: Still Life with a Gilt Cup (1635)

Gallery Comments:
The range of grey tonalities that Willem Heda could paint is astounding. With this subtle palette, he deftly rendered the objects – of pewter, silver, damask, glass and mother-of-pearl – on this table. A few yellow and ochre accents compliment this refined interplay of colours. Heda specialized in near monochromatic still lifes, so-called ‘tonal banquet pieces’.

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" … to revel in what randomly colliding atoms can sometimes produce."

I met Mark on the same day I met The Muse, so it seemed especially fitting that he'd made the long trek across the state to visit on our wedding anniversary, May 25. We were married on 5/25/02, and this year's anniversary would fall on 5/25/25, Twenty-Three years later. Our life together has been characterized by fives and twos by inadvertent design. The Muse made a fabulous veal scallopini supper, and we sat around the table reminiscing. Our wedding had been a cooperative affair. Everyone invited had also been asked to help in some way. The result was the product of everyone present. We celebrated being together as much as we celebrated the marriage. On reflection, over supper, we recalled all who were no longer with us, twenty-three years later.

We were in the same house, now extensively renovated. We knew then how very fortunate we'd been to be able to count those people as family and friends. That was the beginning of a life for The Muse and me, and also the ending of a world. I count as sacred any moment that seems to collide. We spoke over the scallopini about how unlikely it seems that this world might have evolved through random collisions of atoms, yet how else might we describe how we came together that night? We noted that if a single, ultimately causal event had not occurred, we could not have been sitting there. A book I found in a bargain bin led to a series of seemingly unrelated events that ultimately culminated in three friends sitting around a table, reminiscing about those dear ones who had since departed. We hold these collisions sacred.

We are now gratefully retired from our careers. I worked as a project management consultant, although I eventually came to appreciate that no such expertise could possibly exist. Decades of dedicated observation led me to conclude that projects worked the same way everything else in this universe does, by more or less random selection. The clever plottings and plans might serve to keep our monkey minds occupied while magic or ill fortune tosses dice. We're left to assess success. Some do seem to win and others to lose, but the assessments continue even after an effort formally concludes. Later dinners with the survivors might reveal lessons that were overlooked on the first pass. No project ever really ends. Everything sure seems to be connected.

Now that Mark's retired, he spends his days doing what he would have always preferred to do. He's one of those fortunate few who knew what they wanted to do and stuck with their convictions. The Muse retired to pick up another career as a public servant. Me? I often wonder what I bring to the table. I have been feeling increasingly irrelevant, but whoever concluded I was relevant before? I was never more relevant than a universe of randomly colliding atoms could have been. That's saying nothing, since a universe of randomly colliding atoms constitutes all the relevance this universe ever once exhibited. Twenty-three years and counting after The Muse and I formally came together, it seems right and proper that entropy should become a more prominent presence. And, yes, that my relevance should come into question again.

We toasted our dearly departed and fondly remembered that sacred moment in the vastness of time when we declared ourselves to be married, and so were. We've weathered what randomness has dealt us since, sometimes feeling like masters and sometimes like peons. Those who were small children then are now enrolled in graduate school or have become parents themselves. My parents have moved on to their reward. My darling daughter, whom I expected to live forever, left the proceedings in everything but spirit. I expect her spirit to live forever, certainly longer than I will. The others gone still inhabit that place we carved out of otherwise random space and time. We didn't understand that we were dabbling in forever after when we came together to declare ourselves. Mark reported that he intended to return Twenty-Three years hence, to remember together again and to revel in what randomly colliding atoms can sometimes produce.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz