Without the preservative of gravestones, each
generation conceives itself self-generated and sustained, without relation. We
try to come to terms with a loss of continuity, called isolation. Do
we solve it by analyzing those fears we cannot see which cause our
self exaltations? What separates father and son if not the sons fear of the
father’s expectations, retrogressive centuries removed? We could reconcile father and son, fathers and sons. They go on like that forever. Gravestones
and books cry out.The
heirlooms have a voice. The china speaks, the chests, the linens. In the cases where these have personal identity they give
their names, which in itself revives the innateness of the names themselves.
Hovering around each example is a little light if we see it, a context for
viewing the object if we can find it. Names are illumined by other names,
linens by linens, chests by chests, books by books, quilts by quilts. Right
away to place the names and their creations among their contemporaries is a way
of proceeding. Contextualizing takes us into history, art, language with some
startling surprises. The previous dark is shot with light. It makes us think
even more light can dawn. In the end the whole is light if we find it. The
recovery process seeks an heirloom as a means of restoration. Going back
we track the antiques heard of but not found, the etched wood signs in the
attic barn. More often the last will exists. More than the will, the man’s own words
exist, impossibly true, court filings defending his actions, his inner
thoughts and conflicts in the quotation of his words in letters of his
antagonists prove his character, a father with an edge, but not a
diplomat.
Moreover
this seems a family trait. It is all context and text, celebrations false and
true, involvement in controversies of another kind, resolved in the will to
faith. The more you look the more you see. I’m watching a hyperbole develop. As the lines increase so do the contexts. We
see it better reversed, when they converge, concentrate when we are born, bring the essence to a
focus as though the generations had a purpose, something to reveal, that this
could be named, these attitudes repeated again and again. It seems best not to
name them here. Let the details, artifacts, histories, contexts speak
for themselves. Let each generation name itself, but the name is the same. We just
won’t tell.
