Pedestals, holding things up above the floor. I’ve been considering pedestals. Why do the busts need to be atop a column? The faces, unattached from bodies, sitting on marble on marble, higher than they might be attached to a body. I’m thinking of the face of fear, the face of a squirrel, the face of my face. I’m thinking of the face of progress, of growth, of work. I’m thinking of the faces of love, of connection, of romance. I go into my statuary (the room where all my statues are) and I wonder if I might invite Marie Kondo to clear out some of the pedestals. She’s been so effective with my extra clothes, extra dishes, extra calendar invites. I think these statues might even be happier down in the dirt. I’d like to be down in the dirt, in the soil, in the loam. I’m feeling like laying down on the ground and connecting closely with the ground. And I believe these pedestals might be happier horizontal. Though the statue of happiness, when off its pedestal, might have something to say about the need to “happify”. What about the statue of de-pedestalificiation? It might argue that Marie Kondo cuts past the bone, that a drained bath with no more baby is something to watch out for. But it’s on the ground too. In the dirt. With me. Laying down. And there are green shoots, hoping to become pedestals, with leaves, branches, and of course, trunks.
It’s morning. It’s May. It’s almost not May anymore. I’m sitting on a porch, listening to the birds talking about pedestals. And I’m trying to hear what they’re saying. The squirrels are climbing on the weaker branches today, they don’t put gravity on a pedestal. I’ve been reading poetry. Feeling close to the ground. On the ground. Ground up. Grounded with coffee.
I added green coffee beans to the top of a plant that seemed to want them. I wonder if they will become moldy or smelly when I water the plant. I thought about roasting them, but then I thought they might be happier in the dirt. And then I thought I might just throw them away and I did. But I fished these coffee beans, unroasted, out of the garbage (they were still in the bag). And I added them to the top of this plant. I like them where they are. They are taking me to Brazil, where they are from. We are in the dirt together, both at home away from home. Because we both know, and I mean the coffee beans and I, that home is a state of mind. Even though the dirt feels more like home, when we’re crawling around on pedestals or at the mouth of house plant pots, we can taste the dirt and smell home.
And I am at home right now. I remember a time, three years ago and a few months, when I was playing every song I could find that had the word home inside. I borrowed a Lapham’s Quarterly that I never returned entitled “Home”. I felt, in the au pair apartment attached to the enormous home in the hills of an upscale suburb of San Jose, that a hot plate and a Murphy bed could be homey. But I did not feel as though I was at home. It turned out that roasting sweet potatoes is part of being at home. And also a porch, with trees. Though I had a porch with trees right outside of the au pair suite. And yet I felt unsettled. I felt that, even though I had one house plant that loved me and I loved it, that something was missing. And the songs and the quarterly magazine didn’t quite articulate what I was looking for. Because I had put home up on a pedestal. And so I went back to Wisconsin. To where I was born, borne into the world. And here I am. In Wisconsin. At the end of May. And it’s been years. And I have years. And I’m home most of the places I go, most of the time. And it feels like I’m in the dirt, watching the worms, pooping wherever it feels right.
Roman Ryan 