There is a
video that begins with a man gazing at an empty wall. There aren't words, and he feels no need to explain himself so we are left with our curiosity shifting from one foot to another. He sharpens his pencil, draws straight lines against a two by four, sketches in curves. Then the hammer arrives, and
finishing nails stand like rows of corn across the surface. Except that instead of being perfectly spaced, some are closer, some are farther apart. Why is that?
There are emerging hints as to where this is going, The camera zooms in to a section offering evidence of a mouth. Eyes. A hairline. I would have been satisfied to stop here, but the artist is not. With a ball of string he wraps each nail, connecting it to another, and another, and another. With intense twining, shades take their places, beneath the chin, across the eyebrows, under his collar.
When the camera goes back for a wide view, all of the thousands of individual nails converge into one image. The portrait is amazing. It is of someone I do not recognize, but that is only because I have a limited awareness of who was influential in 2015.
Each day I take a pounding. This morning it was the irritation that yesterday's dishes were piled precariously across the counter. It was not my turn, according the roster taped to the cupboard, but they needed to be done. I whacked them out and filled the dishwasher. The other day I had a lopsided agenda. A doctor's appointment, a meeting about pay it forward, sewing class, and taking food to a new mother were crammed into the morning, while in the evening my obligations were spread
out.
It can be hard from close quarters to see the connections between a meeting and a casserole for a tired family. Yet a slender thread ties them together, as I recall the parade of soups that appeared on my counter with each new birth. Split pea. Chili with cornbread. Other people have been there for me. I can be there for them.
I daydream about what it would be like to stand on the nearest moon and survey the view. Each moment of effort, or exhaustion, or determination is like a nail on the wall of humanity. We are connected by a thousand colored threads that entwine us whether or not we notice or believe.
Heaven appears as one person in the sight of God.
True Christianity 68, Emanuel Swedenborg
