It would be kind of cool if we were actually made of clay. If we broke a finger or an arm, we could just go in to a human sculptor and they could mold us a new one and just smooth it into the socket. I imagine we’d be a little simpler – our symptoms would be easier to diagnose if we were made of only one material.
But then – we would likely be simpler in thought, too, if we were made of solid clay. Our thoughts would be clay. Our emotions – clay. Our imaginations – only clay.
My friend likes to point out that communists must have not spent any time with children or they would have known it could never really work. It is pretty remarkable how embedded the impulse to ownership can be. To watch children lay claim to things, to see them scramble for mine, mine, mine – it does kind of make sense that true communism is hard to make work.
Is this Hamlet’s way of making conversation? Hey man – who’re you digging the grave for? Not, like, “Hi – you’re a gravedigger, what’s that like?”
I don’t know. It’s a funny question to ask. I’d wager most gravediggers don’t have a sense of who they’re digging graves for. I saw the guys digging my grandmother’s grave and I would bet a lot of money on them not having the slightest idea of who they were digging it for. I would bet that they could tell me its exact location and how deep they were meant to dig it for the box of ashes – but if they even knew her name I would be surprised. More like something like Position Q2 on the Northeast quadrant. That’s more likely.
Granted, my grandmother was buried, alongside my grandfather, in one of the biggest cemeteries in the country but still…I would never assume a gravedigger had knowledge of his grave’s future resident. And I wouldn’t start a conversation there. However – it’s good that Hamlet does, as it allows for some fun wordplay in the midst of a pretty dark tragedy.
At Christmas dinner, everyone was talking, with the exception of this one couple. And my dad, who had also not been talking much, reached out to them, to ask them a question. It wasn’t that he needed to know the answer to that question – it was a sort of intentionality of inclusion. It was looking around and seeing who is left out and then making space for them to feel welcomed. The question is an announcement of intention like this. I will speak to this fellow and redirect the conversation which has been headed in many other directions. It is interesting because I don’t tend to think of my dad as being a masterful conversationalist but we all have our little geniuses.
Is the assurance about being turned into parchment? That we will go on after our slaughter if we can be turned into paper? Or turned into art? Or turned into writing? I think I may be a sheep or calf in this arena. I do find assurance in knowing that some piece of me will live on after me. That I leave behind me a large body of work. Even if no one ever reads it or finds it or enjoys it – I am assured somehow that I labored for something that has meaning to me if no one else. If that makes me a sheep, I’m okay with it.
One of the nice things about working in Chelsea in Manhattan for a while was the occasional weird surprise, just walking through the neighborhood.
Maybe two years ago, some promotional company took over a whole bar/restaurant and turned it into a pilgrim tavern. Upstairs there were free drinks and food and downstairs, there were craftspeople and displays. I made a cornhusk doll at the cornhusk dollmaking booth.
There was also a parchment expert. He just sat/stood there working a skin and I chatted with him – turns out his family has been making parchment for many generations. It’s a tradition and business that has passed from one family member to the next. It is a peculiar business now – though I imagine parchment was once much more in demand.
Of the many things I am grateful for, in living in the time that I do, the ready availability of paper is not one that occurs to me as often as it should. I mean, I go through a LOT of paper and a lot of that paper is essentially wasted. Part of my writing practice is to just vomit ink on the page for a bit before settling in to write the thing I came for. Part of the reason I am able to achieve a certain amount of prolific-ness (prolifity?) is that I am able to be “wasteful” with paper. If I had to be sure each word I wrote was worth it, there would be a considerable chill on my creativity. I notice it even if I’m running low on paper in a temporary way. If I had to write on parchment, I might never finish anything.
Apparently, jot comes from iota – a word that means “the least part of anything.” The journey of words is so delightful. An i becomes a j and the a disappears but the meaning remains the same.
And the jot takes on another meaning as well – to quickly write something down – so it retains the sense of a little bit of something but becomes an active process of getting the least part of something written down.
It is funny that our stuff lasts longer than we do. Our paperwork, our trash, our bills and our un-done to do lists will all be left behind.
I suppose some things pass from generation to generation – things like furniture or pictures – but very little lasts more than a few generations.
The original sense of conveyance was a document that transferred ownership from one person to another. It is interesting that language has shifted the sense from the document to the movement.
Now a conveyance suggests some transportation. Something as still and inert as a piece of paper can become a moving object.
Also – it is quite extraordinary how many pieces of paper, how many documents a person can acquire in his or her life. If you had to take them with you to the grave, there would be no room for you in it.
Archive 1980–2024
Feldenkrais for Artists in NYC
You aren't stuck in traffic. You are the traffic.
The Hamlet Project 