Unidentified Artist: Industrial Problems, Welfare Work: United States. Ohio. Dayton. National Cash Register Company: Welfare Institutions of the National Cash Register Company, Dayton, Ohio.: Departments: Showing White Aprons

Series/Book Title: Social Museum Collection (c. 1903)

A Requisite Humility
Six hundred and sixty square feet of clear verticle grain Douglas Fir tongue and groove boards were delivered to my driveway yesterday. They represent the start of the final chapter in a two-year quest to refurbish our formerly beleaguered front porch here at The Villa Vatta Schmaltz. Those who have been paying attention will have noticed the continuing disruptions I've been reporting for nearly two months. At least two more months of effort remain to finish constructing the structure that will support the porch deck and then to lay those lovely gold-plated deck boards and the bead board ceiling, not to mention the dressing out of the new posts and beams and the construction of the new railing, top and bottom. My role in all this effort has largely been as sponsor and chief miscommunicator, for however skilled I might be as a writer, I suck as the supervisor of construction efforts. The workers speak in nearly indecipherable dialects heavy with incomprehensible terms. I banter through sixteen-inch centers as if I understand what I am saying. I later learned that I sometimes misrepresent my best interests by simply showing interest. Those trying to read the boss imperil the whole enterprise. Any boss trying actually to boss anybody proves to be a serious hazard to navigation. I am reminded how critically important ineptness always proves to be in every undertaking. It usually insists upon a requisite humility and more patience than Job.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

This Grace Story, Graceful, was the final story in this summer's Grace Series. In it, I note how I don't always make that Graceful of an exit but that Grace often injects a coda just before the end of my performances.

Julia Rogers: Three Graces (1939 - 1943)
" … each seems willing to show up for the cast party following each performance."
—
This Story presented the first installment in my newest series, Exiled. In this series, I expect to describe my experiences in exile and reflect on how they informed and defined the life I live today. My exile, my exiles, profoundly influenced who and whatever I've become since. I often wonder if I ever returned or if my exile continues. Welcome!

Paul Gauguin: cover art for Catalogue de l'Exposition de Peintures du Groupe Impressionniste et Synthétiste[Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings of the Impressionist and Synthetist Group] (1889) A book containing eight zincographs and letterpress text in black ink,  with photomechanically printed gray stripes on cover, on tan wove paper
"I never learned how to feel as though I belonged there."
—
This Exiled Story found me recounting how Experienced I'd been in the odd art of exiling. It was as if I'd spent my entire adult life practicing for the aftermath of being Exiled.

Russel Lee: Cot house in the oil town of Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs is now experiencing a boom, and the cot houses are necessary for the swarms of workers who come in. This is typical of all oil boom towns.(1940) United States. Farm Security Administration
"I'd been shipwrecked before. I knew the routine."
—
This Exiled Story found me beneath myself. The initial landing place within my exile properly seemed BeneathMe. With my nose in the air, I struggled to find anything acceptable there.

William Blake: Fallen Angels, Alternate Title: Three Falling Figures (c. 1793)
"Maybe I could find a new identity, even one AboveMe there."
—
This Exiled Story, Hopefulling, found me foraging in a seemingly unforgiving country, dragging home provender as if I were a Neanderthal, Hopefulling for a living.

"(Giuseppe Niccolò Vicentino)(After Parmigianino) (Previously attributed to Circle of Ugo da Carpi): Hope(Sixteenth Century) 
"We were never caught once."
—
This Exiled Story recounts my experience inhabiting the CashEconomy, where liquidity was severely limited, and prosperity came to seem over-rated.


Unknown Igbo Artist: Mami Wata figure (1950s)
"I might have been broke, but never broken."
—
This Writing Week found The Muse and I hosting a series of houseguests for the second week in a row. Regardless of how welcome they might be, houseguests inevitably intrude and seem best when served in small portions. Our blesséd routines seem too easily disrupted. Our usual distractions come to seem almost sacred when repeatedly interrupted. A succession of fine dinners seems hard to swallow compared to a simple impromptu one. In the background, I finished my summer-long Grace series in a fittingly Graceful manner. I began a fresh exploration, personal history, and reflection on The Muse and my extended experience with having been Exiled from our home overlooking the center of the universe. I realized how Experienced I had been going into Exile, though the world we entered seemed BeneathMe for the longest time. We got by Hopefulling into and through the CashEconomy there. I anticipate eighty-six more installments in this story, so stay tuned until just before Christmas. Thank you for visiting and following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled