Stefano Della Bella: Boy Writing (17th century)

Something More Suited For The Ages
I sometimes forget just how very delicate everything is. Nothing's robust or built to last. Everything’s destined to dust, however unlikely that fate seems near the beginning of anything. That head of fresh lettuce seems eternal until a few days later, when it, too, betrays your trust. I flipped my compost heap this week, an infrequent pleasure I'd delayed due to a volunteer pumpkin vine that had sprouted out of the middle bin early in the season. As a result, I'd been over-using the left-most bin, the first in the process, and it was nearing its capacity. Each compartment can contain about a square yard of material or enough compost to cover one hundred square feet with three inches. I consider the heap magical. I throw in every bit of kitchen waste as well as much of my yard debris and water occasionally and infrequently sprinkle in an odd handful of all-purpose fertilizer. In a few months, I have the finest fine-grained planting material ever imagined. Even those innumerable apricots thrown in there less than a month ago and covered with commercial planting soil had already rendered into the consistency of sand with about a million grubs still working their way through their last supper. I think of my Weekly Writing Summaries similarly, for they reduce my daily contributions into something more suited for the Ages.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began this writing week by Returning into a fresh beginning. "Nobody needs everlasting anything. We more desperately need new beginnings we could never muster without fate's intrusions. We must eventually prove willing, relenting to accept the inevitable."

Jean-François Millet:
Peasant Returning from the Manure Heap (1855–56)

"Nobody needs everlasting anything."
—
The once-dominent Summer season started SlippingAway this week. "We struggle to recall the precise chapters. Our stories have become jangled in retelling. The decades seem to have been melting together, SlippingAway, too, inexorably. We seem to lose distinctions as we age. Precisions, once stark, dim. Pretensions almost completely fade away."

Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重:
Yoshitsune Awaits Benkei at Gojo Bridge (c. 1840)

“ …leaves drying before turning …”
—
I pined after the Walla Walla we once knew, that past seeming much more Authentic than its present state. "Wine country without pump houses or upturned crates. Napa was once a backwater where no visitor ever needed to think about making reservations … I fear our Northern Napa has already chosen the same destination."

Jozef Israëls: A Laren Scene (1905)

" … a caricature of its original intentions."
—
I explored the curious relationship we all seem to have with our future and our past in MoreAuthentic. "New and improved prove to be an oxymoronic marriage incapable of fulfilling its promises. We remain wary of improvements and most likely should be. Progress never was anybody's most important product; entropy was."

John Downman: Attention
(n.d., late 18th, early 19th Century)

"Whomever created this clockwork universe seems to have installed it backward."
—
I described my relationship with my hometown fair in Fairness. This story proved the week's most popular. "Anyone who grew up in a small American town suffers from a life-long case of Fair poisoning. We were infected early, and we remain wary."

Russel Lee: At the Imperial County Fair, California
(1942)

"Everybody heads home a winner anyway!"
—
I explained how change actually works in TheTurning. "Change seems to resist itself for the longest time before finally caving into its inevitable, unable ever after to recover what it ultimately could no longer retain. It's always been the same."

Suzuki Kiitsuexpan:
Moon and Waves
(First half of the nineteenth century)

" … surveying my small kingdom …"
—
I ended my writing week reporting from inside our Fair as an insider rather than as a visitor in FairTrade. "The place has a unique bustle before the public invades it, a serenity, a palpable sense of purpose. Even the fellow picking up litter seems on a mission early in the morning. The blazing sun has yet to wilt intentions. The place seems tightly focused."

Hans Sebald Beham:
Dansend boerenpaar [Dancing Farm Couple] (1537)

" … invulnerable to most of the ailments common to mere fair visitors."
—

This writing week represented a Returning and also a Slipping Away where the replacements seemed much less Authentic than the MoreAuthentic originals. However unjust returning or slipping away might feel, there's an underlying Fairness in TheTurnings, the comings as well as the goings. Life might consist of iterated FairTrades, however unjust it might some days seem. These Writing Weeks always uncover and disclose some subtle truth about themselves. If I were to pay closer attention, I might even gain some wisdom from them. This might explain what gets me up and writing every morning: the dim promise of wisdom and a sense of obligation. After all, I enjoy an appreciative audience for my foundering efforts. Thank you for following along.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Honing, #PureSchmaltz, \