Many Things at Once

I love movies. I love being entertained, so really do enjoy a wide variety of entertainments (in my oh, so expansive free time), but movies in particular do a really good job of entertaining. Good movies do, anyway. But I have very little patience for many things associated with movies. I can barely stand going TO the movies these days; too used to closed captions. And when did they get SO expensive!?

I love the notion of the Oscar awards, but find the show tedious beyond my capacity to bear. Still, there are moments of brilliance. I saw a piece a few years ago that sticks in my mind. It was when Robert Altman got an award. Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep presented it, and they did a great bit, where they started by taking the stilted turns presenters take when they pair up for award ceremonies, obviously reading from prompters, stopping on cue for their cohort to take up the narrative, the little halts and eye-narrowing giving away the fact that it wasn't a natural speech.

But then they started to blur, talking over one another, occasionally lapsing into simultaneous agreement. How unprofessional! It was at first frustrating because such overlaps make the text of their speeches impossible to clearly understand. But then you get it; that's Robert Altman films. People talk over one another, the text gets blurred, it becomes chaotic, immediate, vibrant. They finish by reciting the line; "You leave his movies knowing that life is many things at once!"*

That sentiment resonates with me this morning. Mrs. L has been frustrated lately with the spare bed-/sewing/computer room. It is three things at once, which doesn't bother me; I see the future in the chaos. The beauty that comes later, after the indecision. I trust the patterns that I see over decades of living together. It's happened before.

When we were moving into this house, my Father asked me about the dozen doors I was stacking carefully against the garage wall. Old, dark, solid wood interior doors, many still with the old timey latches.

"Are you going to use these to replace the doors in the house?"

"Nope. They are art project material."

Dad was dubious. Clearly, he had never seen The Gates installation in New York.

I aspire to see things as they really are, which often means seeing them as more than one thing. It's not just a used door, it's a piece of wood with intense physical characteristics, its own inner beauty. And it's not a collection of beautiful wood, but a collection that creates a dynamic, offers potential in their future use.

But that's why my blog is named what it's named; I can see more than one side to things, it's sort of my gig.

Have you looked at some of the in-process photos Mrs. L puts up when she paints a room? All the furniture gets moved everywhere, we live for a day (or a week) in combined areas, eating around the kitchen island. It's disruptive, sure. But then the room is different, and Jenni is vibrant with the creation she has unleashed in our home.

I know some things in life are NOT more than one thing at once, they are binary, on or off, right or wrong. But the day-to-day living we do, where we are besieged with opportunity to choose, to labor, I suspect we do ourselves a disservice when we are impatient with the process.

Today, I admire my wife's ability to throw herself into things, to try, to do. I know that a natural consequence of that is somethings get half done, thwarted, paused, even abandoned. Don't give up, keep being flagrant, dynamic, stretching towards that aesthetically perfect everything at once room.

I'll be there to help you move the furniture back in and clean the brushes.


*If you want to see the dialog, you can watch the video here, their intro is about three minutes long.