Objects Change

Objects change their nature.

I have a textured silver little zipper bag brief case that I bought for a project; someone was interested in hiring me to write the music to her words. I put the spec music in it to take to her. After she said No, that was too much money and the music wasn’t right and she would look for another composer, I didn’t wanted to put anything in that bad luck silver zipper bag ever again. It was too good an object to throw away but it was unusable. Until -  three or four years later when she asked for my advice about that same project and, over lunch, told me how much she wanted me to be in it. Then the bag started to look better and after the performance went very well, the little bag had become detoxified and ready for use again.

My mother gives me gifts from the five and dime. This one is a miniature lava lamp. Instead of lava there’s glitter and a little color wheel inside that changes the light from red to green to blue. It used to be a sad little item, cheap and mass produced and not really a part of the way I live. Now, since the deep reconciliation my sister and I had with my stepfather, and the time we all went through together last summer when my mother was in the hospital, the little lamp has become adorable. At night I shake it up to make the light go on and throw swirly red green and blue glitter patterns on the ceiling and the wall.

A few years back in spare moments I would sometimes get captured in a critical line of thought about the Amercian Flag. I couldn’t stand looking at it and started to believe that, of all flags, this one truly had an ugly design. Completely lacking grace - blunt and unintelligent. And a bad color combo. Then after the 2008 election it started looking different; more neutral, not offensive, just like any other flag. The red white and blue sort of simple primal colors. And now, there are even moments that I look at the American Flag and connect with concepts of democracy and freedom, and the feeling I had waiting for four hours to vote with a thousand other people in an atmosphere of world-changing patience; Glad to be part of the USA.