Still Life

For most of us, we don’t know much about art, beyond being able to say we like what we like. As a consequence it is puzzling to feel we know too much about still life. Not the painting type, unless it be that life imitates art. No, the still life I refer to is ours. Ours in all its inelegant, awkward, and erratically composed non-glory. That is the nutshell version. Luscious fruits in a golden bowl will not be confused with the thin broth of our daily existence.

Whose fault is it that the broth is thin? It can only be ours. It is a poor cook that blames only his pots and pans. Quality of ingredients bears some of the burden, but a thoughtful and careful cook makes the most of what they get. Arrangement is paramount. Whether we cook or paint or compose with our lives it is up to us to maximize the good in our circumstances. By such endeavors the stillness of a life can be made as a snapshot, a slice of time, and not the rule. Stillness can thereby be a temporary rest and not permanent stasis.

This is what we tell ourselves when stillness becomes stasis. Yes, yes, it is not necessarily stillness that should worry us, it is stasis. Stasis can be defined as “the state of equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal forces” and “stagnation in the flow of any of the fluids of the body”. Certainly there are times in all of our lives where either description fits the measure of our days. Consider the pressures generated by the singular matrix of life in which each of us is embedded. The quest for love. Looking for the cure for pain. Freedom from debt , financial or otherwise. How we exhaust ourselves seeking to escape the “sheer hellishness of life”, a phrase so eloquently coined by Jim Harrison in his essay Meals of Peace and Restoration.

Yes, yes, pressures. The external world generates far more of them than any of us want to confront in our lives. Let us not be so hard on ourselves in the rush to keep up. By some lights, we only get one life. By others, we get other chances. Either path could use more kindness to ourselves and others, so that those lives may not fade in stillness.