When I was a child, about 10 or 12, I made a discovery about myself that’s proven itself true every day since. My Dad drove a 1976 Ford Thunderbird. 76’ T-birds were assembled in Wixom, Mi. Dad’s was a blue, 2-door “beaut” and this iteration of the longstanding Ford staple, shared a common platform with the Lincoln Mark IV of the same era. 1973 saw the oil crises and the decline of cars of this weight that boasted the 7.5 liter V8 engine. Apparently Dad found a ‘76 in mint condition, complete with cornering lights, in 1983 for just around a grand (the list price on these was apparently $7,790 in ‘76). He bought it from a kindly old soul whose faculties had inevitably started to wear away. My Dad always had a reverence for the older fellas he encountered and after seeing how the old-timer had cared so diligently for the car, he jumped at the chance to own it.
My two favorite things about that car were first, the doors – those enormous metal swinging doors with massive, ½” thick plate steel, spring hinges. They swung thru space heavy and sure like a big vault door. And you felt just as safe inside.
The second thing I loved was the fact that its interior was bigger than most of the apartments I had in my 20’s. The expansive interior space combined with the lack of overly cautious constraint seats or straps meant that children of the era could be physically expressive in the car even as it rumbled down highways and byways. Depending on the relative leniency of the guardian/driver, we may have found ourselves scaling the high seat backs of the torn and tattered bench seats. Another benefit of the interior space was all the legroom. In my pop’s ride I used the legroom to lay on the floor as my spindly childhood legs had little need for the space. I would lie down on my back with my head on the mid-hump that ran the length of the car to house the driveshaft. I would stare up through the windshield to some progression of clouds and sky, telephone wires, building tops and overpasses.
One of these trips to one of many childhood wherevers, I happened to catch a glimpse of an uncommon sight. My father was the rare two-footed driver. He used his left foot to apply the brake as opposed to the standard of moving his right foot back and forth. He often said that it just “made more sense” to him. Honestly, even though I tried his method as a young driver and it almost killed me, I still couldn’t argue with him. I can’t say why it caught my eye and I cant say why, having caught my eye, it stayed with me but I noticed the irregular wear in the brake pedal. My father, because of the unanticipated angle at which his foot came in contact with the pedal, had worn away the stiff black rubber of the brake, right down to the white plastic bones of the structure.
This was the moment that I mentioned at the outset. I knew at that moment, (and I assure you, this is not the typical hyperbolic application by which you usually experience this phrase) I actually knew at that moment, that my life would be spent tracking decay.
I knew it, because the rate, process and various other distinctions of the brake pedal’s decay were all immediately fascinating to me. Then, as I grew older and I learned more of nature’s unstoppable, entropic escapades I became an insatiable witness of decay. Most of the time there is nothing more beautiful to me. Seeing things as they are is essential in any creation, and things are constantly breaking down. Things fall apart and knowing how and how quickly things fall apart, you can create accordingly. Be it carpentry or story or love.
A butcher’s block, upon which constant activity pounded the lumber down like a fossil to, at some point, generate the requisite resistance. A bicycle chain ring whose line is askew, wears into it, a shiny hieroglyph on every tooth to, at some point, accommodate the chain’s need to transfer energy. A belief gets worn down enough by logic or reason, or the cold, enduring wind of experience to, at some point accommodate the need for proficiency.
It’s everywhere in the grand scope of the world and sometimes it’s all I can see. I’ll be the first to admit that this sounds like a pretty appalling way to go thru life. Seeing only decay, seeing the wear, seeing what once was and is no longer. This sounds particularly peculiar when you consider the great joy and pride I find in efforts towards creation. But decay is creation as it is not only about the loss of something, but rather the fluid and temporary nature that we should all exhibit, in an effort to accommodate something that needs us to give way. In fact, an honest acknowledgement, acceptance of and acquiescence to our own personal decay make whatever portion that remains, much more sturdy and sound.
Does anyone else ever suddenly marvel at how one person can exist, as the only person on the planet with his or her very specific, very unique mental, emotional and physical decay? It’s not unlike a fingerprint in its specificity and intricacy. Even those that have been worn by similar circumstances and environments are worn at different rates and display varying tolerances to decay. It’s actually the percentage and rate at which the self-specific decay occurs that makes us the unique creatures we are. It’s what’s been worn away previously, more than what we experience, that changes us. The relentless decay is what creates the foundation for how we receive the new experiences. Think of a riverbed and how the flow of the river depends on the very unique decay of the riverbed. The human psychological decay creates the flow of the mind. It is our argument, and it is our passion, it is essentially our belief system.
********(Portentous and undiscerning literary reference warning)*****
The Tao Te Ching states the following:
Harmony experienced is known as constancy;
Constancy experienced is called Enlightenment.
Harmony, requiring 2 things by definition, experienced is constancy. Well that’s fine, but the missing step here is that constancy must generate decay for it is the scientific law of the land. And, when that constancy is experienced in a true harmony, decay and creation, then we are all witness to enlightenment.
