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October 05, 2006
All Out on the Table
So this is a bit embarrassing: yesterday I mentioned that the day marked the three year anniversary of this blog. Entirely untrue. It marked the fourth year of this blog. Something about this century messes with my head: I can’t see to figure out what year I did anything in. Can’t remember when I broke up with my last GF, when I met The Girl, when I last wore matching socks…I mean, I can pinpoint these things anecdotally, but placing them in specific years…more difficult. So, essentially, my carefully thought out segue from anniversary to “Lost” is fact a big ol’ lie. Apologies.
Speaking of years, however…
It’s been just over a year since The Girl and I settle in together here in Chez Awesome. Feels like much longer that we’ve been living here, and I don’t mean that in a negative way…just that it feels like we’ve been here, and by extension, together, for quite a bit longer than that. Over that year plus, routines have been developed, attitudes have been formed, and a more casual relationship with the space as a whole has occurred. What was once rife with possibility simply exists as a natural state: of course that lamp sits upon that end table next to the wall painted that color all facing that direction. Makes sense, right? I mean, where else would that lamp go? Honestly.
In showing a new coworker pictures of our apartment, I glanced over the work-in-progress pics that I took last summer as part of the overall moving in process. One photo in particular stood out for me. One photo that, when reshot tonight, in a way encapsulates not only our life in this apartment, but in some ways, our life in general, and in even a few ways, domestic life as a whole.
Two pictures, from the same vantage point, of the same object, some 14 months apart.
What you see above is pristine, it’s new, it’s shiny, it’s untouched, its placed just so, free from use and wear and tear, but also free from memory. What you see below is cramped, slightly unusable in its present state, and witness to fourteen months of our shared life. The Girl blanched when I told her I was going to photograph the table, and quickly scrambled to clean it. Me? I like the mess. It’s honest. It’s real. It’s us. It’s this, our one and only life. It’s sixty-two different moments, small moments, perhaps inconsequential moments, but moments that are ours and ours alone and as such have meaning. And while it’s now clean (as part of a long overdue cleaning spurt on our parts), I like it just fine as shown above.
The first picture is how movies end. The second picture is what happens after the credits. There’s no sequel, just more life. Life in its real, and yes, messy, glory. It’s a good thing, and shouldn’t be swept away for the sake of others’ eyes. There’s a place for pristine, to be sure, but there’s plenty of space for the disarray of every day. That second photo is a testament to that.
No shame in that at all.
Posted by Ryan McGee at October 5, 2006 09:50 PM