My kitchen floor.
I've moped it many times, probably thousands of times. Too many too count. Swept. Washed. Shed tears, and grumbled over it, more times than I should.
Probably more than most, as many feet, and muddy shoes traversed its tiles. With so many nieces and nephews, its had its share of kids, and toy cars zooming across it.
It was first put in when my brother got married, nearly eighteen years ago. And like my sister said, eighteen years in our house probably equals a hundred in a normal person's house.
It is showing it's age. The floor has been patched together. Cracked. Popped up in places. Crumbled in others. It was looking so shabby, walking on it looked like you were walking straight into a Charles Dickens tale.It's been danced on.
Been skated on.
So many spills.
Glue.
Paint.
Projects.
Glass.
If it could talk, oh the stories it would tell. The things that it's seen and heard. How it's been walked on, used, and washed, and scrubbed, and had animal droppings, and feet, and mud, and just about everything fall onto it.
It would probably would say it's had a rough life. One that was full--of feet
of many shapes and sizes. Many souls.
Though, considering everything it has endured, it's
remained silent, and has been as steady as any floor can be. Quite. Solid.
Never complained once. I don't know many people with that kind of stamina.
This year. Though. It was time for a change. It's was crumbling before our eyes.
Bess tried fixing part of the floor. She got busy, and
I took over, and began fixing it with a method called paper bag flooring, where
you use glue, and paper, and paint, and varnish. It was something I've always
wanted to try. But there's lot of labor involved, and the promise that it might
not last, always kept me from trying it.
But because our floor had gone way passed its expiration date, we figured anything we did would be an improvement.
This has been my zen practice
for two months, in focused spurts Paper, glue, and paint. Wash on---hopefully not wash off.
If you ever decide to do this kind of flooring, prepare to spend a lot of time with paper, and Elmer's Glue, living on the floor, watching feet walk over your sticky work, before it's dry, and, blinking in disbelief, at the trail of paper, tears, and glue, you're going to have to redeo. Don't itch your eye, or scratch your face, or rub your hair, nor wipe your hands on your pants. As glue will be your constant friend, and your family will help spread it around.
I've gotten more savvy after several sticky mishaps. After completing a chunk of sticky floor. I made little barriers, tall cans, and lids, and anything I could find to keep feet from trekking across my progress.
Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Sometimes I'll walk right over where I've done, with absent-minded bliss, until I find my socks have succumbed to paper and glue. It's strange how much we never look down while we are walking. But hey, it would make a great booby trap for invaders.
Also, if you're crazy enough to try this, use only one pair of clothing to glue and paint in. Because I've been working on it so sporadically, nearly all my clothes, and pants, tell a story of glue and paint.
So. How do I do a paper bag floor?
Simple---ish.
You get a pile of computer paper.
Pour glue all over the floor. But first, pop up old tiles, glue them back down, fix old holes with wood glue, and bits of wood shavings. Then after I've cleaned the initial tile, I press the whole paper square right into the glue on the old tile.
After I've got a nice section, I go back, rip up a new layer of paper, in various shapes, and sizes, and glue that down. This adds a cool depth to the floor.
Then I wait for it to dry, which is the tricky bit, because a lot of things can happen in-between the drying stage, and when I can paint it. Namely feet usually find it.
So after I let it dry, I come back, and paint a layer. Usually the first layer of paint gets spotty, because the glue hydrates, and is a bit wonky. So I'll go back, and smooth out the paint, and get it how I want it.
This test section, messing with colors.
Then I wait for that to dry, and do another section of glue, and paper. And repeat the paint process, and try to match it as best as I can. A little bit at a time.
My hands have been sticky, wet, and painty, to the
point, I'm wondering what I've got myself into. But it's not a project you can
just stop, once you started. So far, I've used up two and a half gallons of
glue.
And I'm still going.
Painted, but not varnished.
I've had to be strategic in how I've put the paper down, so as to leave a path to walk on, especially since my mom can't lift her hips up that easily, so I have to leave a good footpath for her.
Plus the kitchen is the highest, most traversed spot in our house, and I've somehow set gluey paper traps for just about everyone. Dogs included.
So yes.
It's been interesting. And who knows how many layers of varnish I need to varnish it with. A lot...
Oh my....
But now that it's starting to come together, I'm
feeling quite pleased, especially after experimenting with the paint, and
seeing how it reacts to the glue, and getting hang of the varnish. The
patches I've completed, have a lovely, transparent feel to it, like clouds and
water. This video is just before I got a couple more coats of varnish on it.
I still have more to go, more paper to lay down, more places to paint, and layers of varnish to cover it with. Last week Bess and I did a happy dance over a big portion that she helped me varnish----after it was dry. It felt very satisfying, like a very small version of my own Sistine-chapel floor.
Today, my biggest objective was to varnish the sections of the floor I had just painted. And happily, I got two coats of varnish on it, though the first layer had a bubbles in it because I shook the can too much. (note to self. Do not over shake the varnish) The second layer went on smoother. But my cat, I call Bug, kept hopping into through the open window to see what I was doing. I had a ventilator mask on, and yelled at the cat. But my mask muted my voice, so I did not sound very scary. I waved, and did an angry dance at it until it finally got the hint and ran back out---the little pooper. He kept peering in at the open window. Last time I varnished, my cats did the same thing, and when I shut the window, they thought it was still open, and smacked their heads against the glass trying to get in. Thud!
I was just happy to have it varnished enough to protect it from water. So, hopefully I don't have to repaint any sections. It was so pleasing to look at, I kept walking to various places in the kitchen, just to appreciate how it looked from a new perspective.
One coat of varnish.
 |
| Two coats of varnish. |
Three coats of varnish.
At dusk, to celebrate, I got out of the stale house, I popped on my bike, and watched the sun set. It was so beautiful and pink, and my neighbor's horses had fun running along side my bike. When I came back I saw Bess skating on our ice rink, and went to check it out. The ice was smooth as glass. You hardly had to work to glide over it. The air felt crystalline, the moon magical, the stars glittering as if happy someone was looking at them.
The ice hasn't been such a nice texture this entire cold season, so it made my heart very glad. I felt like I was skating on the best floor you could.
And when my limbs got too cold, I popped back into the house, and had to appreciate the floor once again. Though it's not ice-skatable.
Everyone keeps eyeing it, and asking. "Will it last?"
That is a good question.
"Will it last?"
"No." Would be the correct answer.
No floor will, though.
Only the earth itself, the dust that it collects will last longer than the floors we try to keep underneath our feet. So if we wanted our floors to last we'd plant grass in our houses, and keep the dirt under our feet. Something I would be very happy to try. I've done that in my little greenhouse, and find it wonderful, especially in the middle of winter when I'm wanting to rummage in the dirt.
Nothing is so solid in this mortal place that it will last.
Yet we seek immortality in the weirdest things, like floors, and pieces of paper, and our bodies, and possessions. Here we imbue immorality on matter, as it chips, pops ups, and shatters before we can blink.
My sister, who's into gemstones, and always has very interesting jewelry, bestowed Bess with a bag full of beautifully carved cameos. Some are smaller than cheerio. More like the size of the hole in a cheerio. But you can tell that someone put a lot of love, and work into each one. Each cameo is carved, imbued with someone's laser like attention, and incredible detail.
I'm sure the people who carved them are long gone.
But their art is still here, a bit of light of their consciousness they left behind.
But be it Cameo, or a paper bag floor.
It's all just paint, a bit of canvas, something we carve out, and let go of. And if it's any good, it will light up the world in its own unique way.
Life is so frightening at times. So ungraspable, I understand why we seek solidarity in something we can see, taste, and touch. Why we need to feel like we are carving out something solid for ourselves. It gives us a bit of comfort to imbue our objects of desire with God-like qualities to keep us from facing the very real fear that everything we have, our bodies included, are not going to last.
It would probably be more healthy to view everything we stand on, like a paper bag floor.
Beautiful, painted to look like something solid, like rock.
But not rock, not solid, really. Only covered in thin layer of varnish.
Bits of fragile paper, thin, and as magical as butterfly wings.
Whatever your paint is.
Whatever your varnish.
It can only be appreciated in this moment.
Now.
Here is God. In this moment. The eternal.
The spirit that moves the hand.
Here is a bit of dirt.
A bit of paper.
A bit of paint.
A bit of varnish.
Use it how you want.
The world as we know it feels like it's being deconstructed, the floors we stand on, crumbling. A gift, so we can see the magic behind everything we thought was us.
All egos stories included. Poof.
All phantom egoic programs sneaking in the back door--now have full light shining on them. Everything that had power over the real. Every thing we all once bowed to, seen.
And after you peel back the paper, and varnish.
Pry up the old tile.
And you look at the baseboards.
Sometimes, the only thing you can do is toss out everything that's warped, and rotten, and find the surest foundation you can, that never gets worn, or worn, or dirty.
A foundation that's not made with human hands.
A floor built out of the fabric of the only real, raw material there is.
Spirit.
Crumbling Floor
To live as if we were a decaying leaf on this mortal tree, on the brink of winter.
One wind gust away from life, and death.
A soul covered in a soft, decaying embryo of flesh, blood, fears, and passions.
What a disguise.
Like a fleck of sand---a pearl hidden in the clutches of the mouth of a fleshy oyster, that will not unclench, and release its treasure, unless pried apart, and its shell destroyed.
The truth, hidden by bone, and tears, and layers, upon layers of history, of life.
The real only excavated by a few.
The wine of a grape.
The heat of the burning wood.
The act of selfless courage.
The soul in the shoe.
The yeast in the dough.
The oil inside the olive. Only found by crushing away all that is not real.
To breathe and know. That this breath is a gift. The air in this moment is God's grace. Not promised tomorrow. But now.
To close your eyes, and listen to the sound of life beating in your chest. To know that this heart, the blood it carries, the life it supports is happening now.
Tomorrow. This heart may be silent.
To know that we are a fraction away from being severed from what we know.
To surrender to God in every moment is to live eternally present. Knowing the words we speak are lent to us---our breath is not ours. We move, but only through a power hidden under this clay, that silently does its work, like a wind, that holds all life in its bosom, blowing us in and out of the universal lungs of God.
To step forward knowing that there is nothing at all to fear.
Nothing to protect. Nothing to hold onto, nothing to keep. Nothing to obtain. Only an ever present knowing of our souls existence, and to keep that always driving in the front.
The ground we walk on is crumbling, and falls, like careening stones that slide down the mountain of our mortal lives.
We climb, but never reach the top.
There is no top. No graspable spot we can stay on this sheer cliff of life.
Only one more place we can grope for to cling onto for a bit.
Everything we hold onto, like bits of graying hair, fall away, a strand at a time.
Bald.
We cover ourselves with wigs.
But still our branches break.
We lose pieces of everything that is not real. Day by day.
We build something else, and it too rusts.
We seek ourselves in another.
And rockslides follow.
We glue bits of our life together, making patterns in our floor.
Never knowing that the gift was in the decay, the sheerness of life's steep cliff. The unstable floor.
The cliff of our mortal mountain. The realization of our impossible place on it.
The little carabineers we strap ourselves to can never be our resting place.
No.
No place that is safe that will not break.
The gift is in the corrosion. Showing us truth we didn't wish to see.
The old bones.
The mold.
The forgetful memories.
The love that came in human form that left you alone.
It spoke words you did not want to hear.
Family, friend.
Ungraspable.
Religions, jobs, money.
It crumbles faster that we can gather it.
The great piƱata of life. All hands grasping for the candy.
But once it's eaten, we look for more.
All, one by one falls away like teeth that the gums no longer can hold onto.
Each one a message.
Each form a mirage.
We run to it.
It vanishes into the void.
Thirsty. We can feel the dryness in our souls.
Never seeking the imperishable.
There is nothing to get.
No where to go.
No place safe enough that time will not find you, and take all the things it gave to you, away.
No friend that will linger long enough. No kiss that will satisfy.
No earthy joy, love, strong enough to make your trembling vehicle safe.
No shelter.
No house strong enough to keep out the cold.
No sun strong enough to banish the night.
No cure to keep you in this place.
There is nothing to hold onto.
And knowing this is Grace.
Only in giving it all way, every second. Holding onto nothing. Just breathing life in and out in utter acceptance. Ah, life.
Is it not made beautiful by its decay?
All of us are teetering.
All of us are wanderers.
All naked.
Skin soft, and beautiful, yet easily bruised like an apple. Eaten by worms.
Each person is born, with galaxies in their eyes, coming like brilliant sunrises. Ending in Brilliant sunsets. A moment passing. A rainbow of emotions, and experiences, all fading back into God.
Sweet, bitter, salty, warmth, heat, love, and hate, laughter, and tears.
Life. Utterly
ungraspable. Utterly beautiful.
Autumn leaves blowing in the wind, crushed by feet, and buried by snow.
No tree that we can cling onto.
We are all homeless here.
All trembling as we peer over the brink.
No true virtue except letting all things come and go like the tide.
Our only solace, the now of God's eternal embrace.
