Sunday, January 2, 2011

On the corner of my desk, I have a large hourglass. Sitting atop that, is a hand-carved statue of a man, legs crossed, whose face is resting in his hands. Each time I view the statue, I read something different into the man’s posturing. Sometimes, I see him as bent in shame, hiding his face from the world. Other times, I see him as being deep in thought. Still other times, I wonder if what I’m seeing is a man who has turned so far inward as to not be aware of his posturing, instead, focusing on his inner nuances.

For the longest time, I had the statue resting on a shelf behind my desk. One adorned with a collection of writer’s tools—dictionaries, thesauruses and various books on writing. I frequently referenced these books, so got to glance at my statue when retrieving one from the shelf. But then one day, while flipping over my hourglass to mark the passage of time, I got the idea to rest the sitting man atop the hourglass. I figured the two went together.

There have been times when I’ve viewed my carved man and wondered if what I read into his posture was a direct reflection of what I was feeling at the time. Or if it might’ve had something to do with things I’d recently experienced. That was why I joined the statue and hourglass together—to remind me that how we perceive things is oft a manifestation of who we are at any given time.