Shame on you
Several months ago I was lying in bed watching a TED talk by Candy Chang. She had taken a blank wall on an abandoned building and painted it as a chalkboard, black with the phrase “Before I Die, I Want To” written along the top in large letters. She then left chalk nearby and let the public at it, kids and adults alike, to see what would happen, an experiment.
A few weeks ago I brought this idea to Bishop, well, my own interpretation anyway. I had and old door that I painted with the chalkboard paint, framed a sturdy jamb that was painted a light, sky blue, hung a brass wind chime off to one side and a little box underneath to house the chalk for writing. You can see where I was going here…Candy’s wall, a metaphorical doorway to the facts that life is short and you’d best get cracking on those dreams of yours expressed as a real doorway out in a field, the middle of nowhere, north of Bishop, the wind chime, a nod to change.
When I left it there I imagined people might hear about it and wander out there to see what others have written and maybe leave a message themselves of some life’s wish yet fulfilled. And for the first few weeks it seemed to be happening. “Before I die I want to visit Ireland” or “before I die I want to “Live” or “Make art”. There’s someth
ing incredibly cathartic about writing your dream in a public place for all to see, however anonymous.
I went back this past weekend, maybe four weeks after we left it to visit the door in the middle of nowhere and what I found was shocking, deeply disturbing even. It would seem maybe my little adopted town of Bishop isn’t ready for such a thing, smashed as I found it. Not full of bullet holes or peppered with shot as I was prepared for, heck, it kind of looked like a target, what did I expect?
No not like that, but with the door kicked off its hinges, the four-by-four frame split at the base, pushed to the ground, and the wind chime gone completely, stolen perhaps.
I thought maybe cattle the culprit using the door as a scratching post, it was in a pasture, but a closer look at the door lying broken on the ground showed the work of another beast entirely.
Oh Hate, dear, dear hatred…you can be such an ass, you know, you can be such an ass.
You put it back up again. The good need to be more persistent then the evil.
If it had remained standing, and everyone who happened upon it pondered it’s purpose, and had the gumption and/or instant gratification of stepping forward and writing something of personal meaning, I’d conclude we, as humans, were not much different than the cows that occupy that very pasture. All plodding through life thinking and functioning the same. I don’t like the ill intent either, but considering the genetic and socialogic diversity of the human race, there’s bound to be those that think “this kind of mindset” doesn’t belong. “As least you tried, damn it, at least you did that”