Author's Commentary
I hesitate to explicate my own work, because there's something of the Modernist in me that says it is Art and it stands on its own. But I thought the subtly of this piece perhaps required a little context. The screen you're using is flat and so is my text. Screens, images and text - these are the media of digital space. I'm manipulating my medium using lowercase letters and spare language with few emotional or extravagant words. I'm commenting on the flat, sameness of domestic life and how all that is unique and compelling occurs in liminal space, the unsaid and the unsayable. To expose the sentiments that are not directly uttered, I'm over-coding symbols and words - the easiest example to see is the "I do" at the end which echoes a marriage vow, but there are others so hopefully the reader comes away with a more complex understanding than devotion=ironing. This is an Imagist piece as I'm trying to capture the essence of a moment, so it's as much an exercise in the technical as it is the emotional.
Peace, Mneme
i drag the ironing board out of the hall closet and set it up on the smooth stone floor where it makes a soft scraping sound then settles. i abandon it there for a moment, knowing the second i shift my gaze your crazy white cat will make a nap of it. on the way to the closet, i pass you, standing over an open duffle on the bed, weighing oxblood loafers in one hand and glossy black oxfords in the other and I laugh to myself; i know this is a highly technical decision. which pair of shoes should you bring along? because God knows you don’t want any extra bits of stuff weighing you down - so which pair of shoes can be leveraged into the greater number of scenarios, like meetings, airports, restaurants, night clubs, lobbies, taxis, sidewalks, stairs and maybe the odd grassy surface if you’re in a city with a sense of nature. but all i can think of is red ox or black ox, red ox or black ox, and i wonder how you can balance all that weight.
i remove a handful of empty hangers from the closet and brush my shoulder through a row of belts hanging neatly behind the door. “do you want one of these?” i ask knocking them lightly together in a disharmonious jingle. “please,” you say, “the black one with nickel.” i select the belt that matches the description. aha! i am a paragon of domesticity! and i drop the belt on the small stack of stuff that has not yet met the standard for admittance into your bag as i pass on my way to the laundry, whispering, “come see me when you get a minute.”
a few hundred heartbeats later, you’re at my elbow (after i’ve cleared away the comatose cat and all the little bits of fluff he’s left behind, heated the iron, softened the dry cotton with a little starch and began a meandering hum through U2’s early catalogue). “hey!” you complain, “what are you doing? i have a service for that; i don’t need you for that.”
i continue carefully aligning one long, French cuffed sleeve, beneath the cathedral arch of my iron plate, “your service uses too much heat. too much starch. this is a beautiful shirt. i love this shirt.”
“you bought me that shirt.”
“exactly.”
i make a lousy fairy princess. the only thing i can enchant is a computer which is a lot like a line cook offering to make her chef an omelet. i forget i need saving and wander off in search of something more interesting, leaving neglected calamity in my wake. my brain chases butterfly arcs of thought and i recklessly charge after them, and so narrow is my focus that i can burn eight, count them, eight, sequential slices of toast while i am admiring things aloft. and who knows what happened to my princess crown? … the last time i saw it, i think, i was in Texas.
tomorrow you will be in another city, sharing your vision and your process along with small bits of your soul with a crowd who maybe doesn’t know you. i can’t magic open doors that are closed. i can’t shimmer away the drudgery of one more airplane and one more generic hotel room. sigh. i can’t make anyone comprehend the value of your genius or the subtle edge of your wit. but perhaps tomorrow, when you slip buttons through a smooth placket structured with the perfect amount of starch, when you tug your left sleeve before fastening the cuff and then tug the right, when you make one last check in the mirror before you head down toward the generic bank of elevators, you will remember – i do.
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