Making Stuff

Today, I am making a beachglass mobile.  Funny, how I focused on collecting the big pieces, at first. But it's the smaller ones that make better jewelry. The gorgeous large chunks are pretty much gone from the beach, now. So I guess it's my duty to make stuff with them.

Stuff....

Years ago--probably as much as 20 years ago--Jim Wells died. He was a handsome man, very smart. He created the Seagate Bed and Breakfast with Chris Bannon, adding the visual artistry that made the building beautiful.

Jim cared about his community, and served on the town planning commission. I was a reporter back then, covering the news with a mixture of aggression and regret. He saw how I felt...he SAW me. Even dying of lymphoma, he could see beyond himself, which is something so few of us do, so seldom.

One day, near the end, I went to visit him. Jim was about to be hit with another round of home-administered chemotherapy. An "infusion." He had minutes to talk. It would be our last interaction.

Sitting on his front porch, Jim tried to encourage me, to give me strength to do a job for which I was emotionally unsuited. But the shadow of death, and the tsunami of drugs had clouded his mind. Everything he said boiled down to the word "stuff."  Stuff, stuff, stuff. He wanted to say something important, to be kind to me one last time, but the words had dissolved into darkness. "Karenindistinctmumble, and stuff."

Stuff. The last word to crystalize in a fading mind; blowing, like salt, though the latticework of life. And what do I do for a living? I make stuff.

After Hurricane Sandy--when I agonized over the possibility of losing all my stuff--I wonder how useful my efforts are. And not just mine. The whole Stuff Mentality needs to be questioned.

I did, however, spend the storm getting the art out of the flood zone. I guess that says something about how I feel about art. Beautiful things make me happy. I love sunsets and shimmering waves and bold paintings and just about anything made out of  beachglass. So, stuff may come and go, but if it's beautiful, it has meaning.