links

We are linked to others not just through friendship, family and chance encounter.  A cyclone in Central America stirs concern not just for the populace affected by it, but for friends who live in that part of the world.  The death of Louise Bourgeois reminds me of the day when a friend introduced me to Bourgeois' work.  The potted Moses plant in the courtyard stirs vivid memories of the warm salty air of another life and brings to mind those with whom I shared that life.

The Chinese Altar Table

The sofa table is a dark polished wood in the style of a Chinese altar table.  It is not an antique and has never been used as an altar table. It is long and narrow and once would have been placed against a wall and have been used for offerings to the gods and the ancestors.  Each week as I polish it with a soft cloth and beeswax polish I wonder who made it, where the wood came from that was used to craft it, who cut and shaped the wood.  I wish those unnamed workers well as it is a pleasure to own such a lovely piece of furniture.  Each item we possess is a link to other times, other places, other cultures, other people.

Summer Early Morning

Each morning I step into the Stygian gloom of the hallway. In front of me the front door is outlined in a fiery orange glow as if the flames of hell blaze on the other side of it. I open the door. A brilliant white light blinds me. An effluvium of dust, rotting garbage and hot marble assails my nostrils. The fiery glow is an optical effect as the sunlight pierces the gaps between door frame and the ill-fitting varnished wooden doors.  Yet it is an appropriate image, a warning of what temperatures the day will bring.