Rocks

Here are a few of the rocks in my life. The handsomely mustached rock (his name is Shanely) is currently traveling abroad with my friend in Europe. This picture shows him on a bridge in a national park in Ireland. I occasionally like to paint rocks and give them away or hide them (sometimes by grocery stores or parks, etc). If you think this sounds like an odd way to spend time, I would have to agree. But I would also encourage you to try it.

The second picture shows the two rocks on my window sill. I think the big orangish fellow might be from a bike trip I took with my family? But I don’t actually remember. He ended up coming with me to college by default as he happened to be sitting on my nightstand when I was packing. The second rock is another one I painted. The shadow in the picture almost hides it, but I also scrawled a little quote that seemed deep at the time.

I suppose I should relate all of this to what we’ve been reading.

I feel that I have made these (among other) rocks sacred by associating them with a particular memory, and/or bestowing a name. Actually, the most important and memorable rocks have all been “named” by either title (Shanely) or quote. Similar to Scholes Destry-Scholes’ marbles, I have conferred sacramental importance upon meaningless objects through words. Why would I do this? Why would Vera insist upon methodically associating an arbitrary word with its respective marble? She admits that “she had no hope of ever understanding the system. But by process of elimination, she wondered whether it would be possible to fix a name to each marble. She did believe each had had one name and one only” (203). Vera has no hope of understanding the system yet she retains faith that the system exists; that the system holds meaning and order and is not arbitrary. Vera’s passion to order words into names for the marbles holds meaning regardless of the words’ “correct” alignment with the original order. The system holds meaning because Vera has constructed her own order.

Why would I collect meaningless objects and paint and/or name them? Am I looking for an element of the sacred to enter my life? Do I have to enforce order on random nature to lend meaning to my existence?

Or do I just like painting mustaches?