Clay, Thumbs, and Your One Precious Life
on thumbs
“But isn’t it just a finger?” asked bird.
“As with Most Things,” replied cat, “the truth lies in the Both-And.”
Mobile: Efflorescence (metal and hand-shaped dried laurel)
Thoughts while making
“Thumb.”
I woke this morning to bird song, feathering in through the window I’d cracked open last night, an invitation to the cold.
“T-h-u-m-b.”
Sleepy eyes, golden rays fingering their way through my bedroom curtains, the smell of cut grass and dew.
“THUMB.”
That aroma of coffee, a morning floor creaking under first steps, trees abloom, peeking in:
hawthorne + snowball
glory hornblower + dogwood
crabapple + magnolia
And yet: “T-H-U-M-B!”
That first sip, sinking into the couch, shadows and light, waxy leaves illumined, across the living room, down the hallway.
gravity + rotation
orbits + galaxies
stardust + cells
But still: “T-H-U-M-B” “T-H-U-M-B” “T-H-U-M-B”
There’s a line in a Louis L’Amour book that says every life is shaped within the contexts of the time within which it is lived:
the prevailing ideologies + technologies
the latest news + events
even the architecture + food, the gossip + games
It seems self-obvious; but it feels (to me) both daunting and rich with possibility.
For the latter, Louis writes:
“There comes a time
when it lies within [our] grasp
to shape the clay of [our] life
into the sort of thing [you] wish it to be.”
“Everyone has the power to say,
‘This I am today.
That I shall be tomorrow.’”
I woke, and my first thought was what my first Wordle guess would be.
“t-h-u-m-b.”
But, then pulling back the covers of awareness, Mary Oliver gently asked:
“Tell me, Mark,” she inquired,
“what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
And it made me laugh.
And open my eyes a little bit wider
as I tried to focus on my second guess for the day.
Where can you find humor in your awareness today?