Last night,
I made a collage for
an art history class.
This morning,
I was cutting it to
glue onto a bitácora,
a journal of notes and thoughts
used to track one's progress in
some of the classes here.
---
as I cut it
while listening to
a lecture about Frida Kahlo,
I noticed some of the pieces
I had glued on were
falling
off.
it
was
a little bit
disappointing;
I mean,
thinking of all that I had done
to collect these images
and cut them
and rip them
and glue them
and move them
and re-glue them
and so on and so forth
I had
considered
borrowing glue
from someone
to put the pieces back on,
but then I stopped.
----------
revealed
to me
in
that
moment
was the nature
of every
single
collage
that
I
have
ever made.
. . .
yes,
I can paste all of these
little bits and pieces
and segments of
color and
people and
places and
things,
from
newspapers, magazines,
photographs,
whatever
they may be,
all together
into a
piece
of
art.
i can
show it off
and ponder it,
and value all of those
possible subconscious meanings
within those combined histories that it holds,
and when I am done observing it
I can store it in a book, that will act as a
guardian clam for this pearl I made, to open up
when I remember it at some point in the future.
but every collage I have made has come unglued
at some point when I'm not looking,
from right when I am gluing down
the each to piece the week it
spends in a notebook,
to the years it spends
in another.
some pieces stick together more than others,
some fall off almost immediately
some rip, some tear
some move around
when you aren't looking
into something else.
That is what is beautiful about collages
As much glue as I may put on the back of a magazine clipping,
it will only maintain that placement and color and unique location
for the time I notice it.
Eventually, all of the pieces start to fall off, blow into the wind,
get forgotten in the bottoms of backpacks and dust pans,
some held onto for a very long time.
This is what studying abroad has been for me.
With 9 days left , I am beginning to see the family
and friends and places and habits I had pasted all around me
flutter in the wind of time, to soon be released from this work that
I currently call my life and blow miles and years away to exist
somewhere that I am not and may be never will be.
I am infinitely thankful
for my chance to be
placed within
these transient
collages of those
I have met, to be stored
back in the dusty file cabinets
of the memories of one's life, to
dilapidate over time within the
never ending abundance of
life time experiences.
