The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Anyone reading probably now expects from the title some revelatory musing on theology or the wonder of the universe.
Nope. I've been thinking of Peg's practice of draping pieces of cloth on our furniture.
I pondered this odd pattern of behavior while lying in bed this morning, having returned to nap for a few minutes after sending P out into the world. I noticed the presence of some sort of decorative white cloth traversing the top of my dresser.
Yes, that's the Virgin Mary staring down at us, one of Amo Houghton's relics. And no, having Jesus's mother staring down at the bed is not a spark for romance. I just try to ignore her, which I guess sums up most folks' take on religion.
Wandering in pajama bottoms and sweatshirt down the hall to my office, I'm reminded Peg's done the same thing to my lawyer's bookcase.
You can see my own vocational devotional, a votive candle bearing the image of Vinny Gambini, Esq., from My Cousin Vinny (thanks Laura), resting atop shelves containing the [in]Complete Works of Charles Dickens (we're missing a volume) and a set of encyclopedias cataloguing the world's knowledge around the time Hitler was annexing Czechoslovakia.
Laura's Room also sports some sort of doily.
As I look at the photo, there are actually two in the shot. And a strange illustrated book about feminist spirituality because, well, of course.
If Laura's Room contains two examples of P's furniture draping practice, the little play space off the Girls' Room offers the trifecta.
And then there's the new buffet in the dining room, with a tiny, intricate textile covering a portion of its countertop.
But Peg's not consistent in the practice, not at all.
The end table in my office sits exposed to the world.
Behold the roll of masking tape left behind by Chris the painter this past Sunday. We are hoping he'll return and finish. Things around here have a way of reaching 90% completion, and then just stalling. Same at 407. Same at Wyldswood. What is it about home improvement projects?
I would suggest that the end table remains bare because it hasn't been here that long, but the little coffee table in the family room has been without a white rectangle of cloth for several months since Issac and Olivia helped us schlep it down from Geneva in the rain.
So most flat surfaces in the house are draped with a white rectangle of decorative cloth, but not all, and with no clear pattern as to which make the cut. There is an arbitrariness to it all, as if P wants to keep me engaged by injecting a measure of uncertainty into the whole draping thing.
But the mystery goes deeper than that. Why drape at all?
My first thought was that maybe it's a reflection of her professional practice, remembering that they always seem to have a little towel or strip of paper on the table in the OR under their instruments of mercy/torture, or under my bare behind in a hospital gown whenever I'm sitting on the exam table in a doctor's office. But there's nothing about this place, or any of P's spaces, that resembles an operating room, perhaps besides the fact that they're always spotlessly clean.
Or maybe this a Southern thing? Yet in all my family's single wides in Mississippi, I never once saw a dust cloth on a table under the pile of empty beer cans and discarded, grease-stained Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes (kidding--my tribe didn't eat KFC).
Could this be a ritual of the east Tennessee ridge runners? I don't recall seeing textiles on flat surfaces around Dorothy's house, or Aunt Doris's for that matter. And when I last visited the Hermitage, there was no evidence that Old Hickory engaged in the practice.
I would say she's trying to provide a protective barrier to our delicate wood furniture; after all, the marble topped table in the sunroom where we take our coffee at Wyldswood in the winter is bare, as I recall, while the antique wooden buffet right next to it has one of those embroidered doily things.
[just paused to break up a fight between our puny cats and one of these behemoth feline monsters that roam the neighborhood, then had a closet door randomly pop open at me as I ascended the stairs. This whole haunted house thing is becoming more manifest].
Continuing . . .
But Peg's left the couch-back in the front room there in Perry naked and unadorned, and its delicate cedar surface is constantly under threat from car keys, coins, and the half-dozen pairs of sunglasses P maintains to match whatever she's wearing to the golf course that day.
So it's not the nature of the surface, stone or wood, or its use, or any other metric by which one could predict, if a random new piece of furniture arrives here at Tara, whether Miss Peggy will drape something over it.
The mystery is part of the fun, isn't it? We've lived together how many years now? And I'm just now noticing this strange and arbitrary decorating practice. It's a gift that this other, beloved person is still unfathomable in some ways, there are still doors left to unlock and riddles to solve. I suppose it's love that makes one, makes me, want to solve them.
So maybe I will one day, will solve the conundrum of the draping cloths, with patience and enjoying the ride along the way. As Rilke famously observed, "Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Beginning a cloudy, solitary Wednesday here at Tara. Gray skies promise a little rain later, drizzling cold and steady up here from the same system that is pounding the central panhandle with thunderstorms as I write this. Two very different ecosystems, giving rise to two very different cultural temperaments. I thought about dragging the bag of rock salt off the front porch and back to the garage this morning, but the forecast is for mixed precip today and maybe snow over the weekend. Spring will have to wait.
Older, more intricate wood pieces need a bit of old timey flare and contrast to the often simple wood tops. I'm guessing the unadorned couch back table is a finer design or nicer finished wood. A beautiful walnut table has no need for a white lace :)