Still Against the Wall

September fifth. The prints have been leaning against the kitchen wall for three weeks. Not on the wall, against it. There is a difference, though I have been slow to name it.

I made them at the framing shop's printmaking night. Two of them, one more deliberate and one less, and the less deliberate one is, predictably, the one I keep looking at. They came home with me. I put them against the wall temporarily, meaning I would figure out where they went in a day or two, meaning I have now walked past them approximately sixty times without deciding anything. The cord on the windowsill took about the same amount of time to find its place. I did not rush it. The cord eventually just got worked around, which turned out to be the answer.

Still leaning. Still not decided.

This morning I wrote one sentence in the draft folder. It said: the not-placing is probably the placing. I left it there. That is the whole sentence. I do not know yet if it is the conclusion or just the point I am currently at, but it felt accurate the way things feel accurate at six in the morning when the light has not made any promises yet. The windowsill arrangement has a gap in it that has been the gap for years now, and nothing has gone in it, and nothing has needed to. The gap earns its place. I wonder if the prints are doing something similar, occupying the wall by not being on it, which is a very dramatic way to think about two pieces of paper, but here we are.

The windowsill as the measuring standard, again.

I will probably know where they go when I stop thinking about where they go. That is not a plan. It is more of a record.