Note: formerly known as Life Theme (what a crappy name, eh?), this series of posts has been re-dubbed Porcelain Philosophy, inspired by Rodin's Thinker and its obvious connotations. huge life-altering concepts are best dealt with in the privacy and serenity of the bathroom, where you purge your waste below to make room for better things above.
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Kallipareos. Of the lovely cheeks. Now she has it. The Homeric word is sparkling on her hook. And beyond that she is suddenly aware of all her Greek vocabulary, of everything which seems to have been put in a closet for nearly six months now. Because she was not teaching Greek, she put it away.
That is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all.
The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember.
That is what happens.
And even if it's not put away, even if you make your living from it, every day? Juliet thinks of the older teachers at the school, how little most of them care for whatever it is that they teach. Take Juanita, who chose Spanish because it goes with her Christian name (she is Irish) and who wants to speak it well, to use it in her travels. You cannot say that Spanish is her treasure.
Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang on to it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.- "Chance", Runaway by Alice Munro
the closet of my heart is the secret vault in which i keep that which is dearest to me. my secret vault is not built with fortifications in mind though. i dislike memorizing passwords and combinations and heavy metal. i see it has a quaint wooden door (two openings, like on Lamb Chop's Play Along) and a window (because some things in there prefer the light). the one shelf is sparsely populated by childhood trophies (the striped "rover's" floor hockey stick*), a few books (my first Bible, which i gave away) and a little box. photographs and memory sketches cover the facing wall. there is a calendar in the corner for important dates and a green marker clipped above it for additions. in another corner is a levitating frog. his name is George. it is a small and narrow closet, but i think i have enough space to get by for now.
* i was enrolled into a floor hockey league from grade one through three. each team was allowed 5 players plus a goaltender. two forwards and two defenders had to stay on their halves of the gym. the "rover" bored a stick that was wrapped with tape all the way up the shaft. rovers could cross the half-line without penalty.
