Diagnostic Instruments

Sick and tired of taking a stand. Maybe it's time to sit down for a spell?

I know how this bike feels. It’s been everywhere, bumping over grass, rolling over hot asphalt, accepting payment, and then doing it all again. It needs a rest. So it’s splayed in the dirt with clear body language that says, no more.

This street lamp is limp with exhaustion. The light has gone out of its face.

And these traffic cones are sick and tired of taking a stand every day.

If it’s not obvious, I tend to anthropomorphize objects. And how I feel any given day is how I regard the world around me. My environment is one big pathetic fallacy.

I was feeling burned out the other morning, and this is what I noticed: the surrendered bike, the drooping streetlight, the trampled cones. I was them, and they were me.

I tend to power forward, accelerating the more exhausted I become. That morning, it was easier for me to feel sorry for these things than to admit I didn’t much feel like staying upright myself. But one by one, as I felt compelled to photograph them, I got the message. A dented, collapsed traffic cone was not just a cone, it was a diagnostic instrument.

When I got home, I listened to my daughter, who told me to cancel a trip. And I took her up on her offer to fix up my home office with new paint, some beautiful midcentury furniture she helped me find, and art she would paint herself. I would try to take care of myself and my environment a little better.

This is the chair and TJ, who sold it to me. He explained that Finn Juhl’s design was inspired by Japanese simplicity and echoed the shape of a temple door. My hope is when I sit down in it, my insides will take the hint.