Objects, Symbols, Authenticity | Rosemary Leach | Artist | The Ten Collective
“Poem” (sink), 18 x 24, Acrylic on Panel | I choose my titles intuitively, and Poem just seemed right for this piece. Soaking up every inch of life, I try to be present.. A sink is a pause, a blessing, an altar.
I am not the kind of person to sit on someone else’s toilet wondering: “When will I be resilient, and what is a socially acceptable amount of time to spend in here?”.
I don’t know the other guest Sandra very well. She is polished, inside and out. Chit chat sometimes ends up being reminiscent of a PowerPoint presentation.
“Busy busy busy!”.
Sandra clarifies her close affiliations with people, their accreditations her much-in-demand schedule, alongside her intention to slow her busy life down and take on less work.
Which, I think to myself, she has no real intention of doing.
Chronically cheerful people are technically supposed to be uplifting and who knows why they might leave my brain bruised and confused.
I am okay with my gender assignment, but not always confident that I hit the right species.
One can nod with interest at the social self-promotion we do with empathy.
Despite all this wisdom, it can be hard to find home.
Lonely in a crowd etches your insides.
I can ease over to more awkward people, who don’t talk so much about productivity. I like people who forgot to look in the mirror.
Penelope’s sentences meander. She wears lightly battered outfits that might have been on the floor this morning.
Even all of last week.
She can share a moment of humility, a venture gone awry, the tearful heartache of an unhappy family holiday.
Thank you, I think, breathing more deeply.
Penelope encourages my early exit, offering me a lift home.
Stepping outside the air is fresh. My familiar porch and a dog-eared book might be a welcome salve, safe harbour after a storm of socializing.
Penelope’s van features crumb-covered child seats; dented Kleenex boxes and well-sat-on mail. On the passenger side I pick up a round black plastic item that has a screw bottom and I think ‘This looks like garbage, but also could be part of a critical piece of camping equipment.”
A knotted and flattened sticky plastic bag on the floor under my feet might be garbage given the brown dried apple core on top.
I view this landscape with parenting years largely behind me, aware that there in the mess there may be something important in there, like the parent-teacher interview slip I once found frozen to our driveway.
Who knows how it got this way. Life is crunchy.
Peace may be found in unlikely locations.