Landscape

"We are the landscape of all we know."
--Isamu Noguchi.

This old guy standing in front of the Noguchi screen is proof of the words written on it, words he pretty much blocks with his body, so I repeat them above, trying to take it in. History is written on our bodies. Our loves, struggles, and losses; our trauma, our genes, and our memories are inscribed on us as surely as tattoos. These inscriptions become clearer and more visible as we age, and as our bodies become roadmaps of our lives. Faces we've kissed, hands we've touched, cats we have stroked: are in our body memory, and sometimes the marks do show.

At the top of the screen is an almost-transparent image of Noguchi himself, who died in 1988, taking his best landscape with him.

It was a busy Monday. Dental appointment before 9 a.m. (got a filling replaced, not as painful as I feared, thanks to the capable woman who is my dentist). Phone conversation with my old friend Leif while my mouth was still numb: she's coming for a two-week visit in July, hooray! And then a trip to the Japanese Garden this afternoon, where I got my blip. I could have posted Noguchi's sculptures. I could have posted nature shots--azaleas and wisteria in bloom, beautiful trees, fine woods, beautiful landscaping. But I'm going for this old man's well-landscaped body instead. More about Noguchi.