A few days ago I learned of a dear friend’s passing. The waves of disbelief have been rolling over me accompanied by the soft freedom of her spirit and the hard knot of grief in my heart. Death always brings perspective to the ordinary. The sweetness of the spring wind wakes me up to the reality of this present moment. Death is a reminder that life is ephemeral, like a scent, here one moment and gone the next, the memory lingering in the bones of our perception.
When you handle stone a lot, there are days when it feels fluid and bright, light and easy. Shaping stone becomes a song that you sing with your hands. There are days like this that lift your spirits. Then there are the cold and wet days when you smash your finger and nothing goes well. The hard reality of pain brings a different kind of brightness to the moment.
Death brings awareness of the temporary nature of life, to the precious quality of life on earth, to the fleeting notion that the people around us are solid and dependable. When we build with stone, it feels like forever, just like this never-ending moment. At the end of the day, after placing stone upon stone, it feels like we have made something that grows roots into the very heart of the earth. All this is fragile in the torrent of time and space, waiting to dissolve into stardust and be reborn again into new life. I love the reassurance of stone and the fact that this is also an illusion. There is comfort in the mystery, and I miss my friend.
