Do they enrich us or do they numb us?
In “The Bridges of Madison County” Meryl Streep’s and Clint Eastwood’s characters escape lives of loneliness into a short moment in time where their innermost need for an escape from the humdrum daily reality is met with a meaningful personal connection, romance, and the realization that another kind of life is possible, despite their age and other “practical” impediments.
And still, out of loyalty to her family she gives up the possibility of this new, shiny world that would renew her life and take her out of her daily morass. In a scene of her returning to the domestic chores of a housewife, after having given up on the man she had come to love, she says that she returned to “a life of details”. Gone was the potential panoramic vision for her life. She was back to the microscopic details of a middle aged woman settled into the indistinguishable passing of the days.
For us, artists, a life of details is another story altogether. Our details open up vistas, enhance the panoramic view of our lives, enrich us and, sometimes, the lives of those around us. Our details are not, as in the movie, a laundry room and a pile of clothes to fold. We revel in colors, shapes both large and small; we float among the nuances of a painting while considering each line, each mark, each detailed gradation.
Yes, many of us, especially those of us who have domestic obligations, must also toe the humdrum kind of a “life of details”. There is no escaping the responsibility of keeping a household going, be it ever so imperfectly. But we are buoyed – nay, saved! – by the shiny respite when we bring to life what has never been created before; when we share our very own personal messages through paint, sculpture, photography, fiction, etc.; when our details even change the world a little bit.
And at the end of a creative day, perhaps folding the laundry or thinking about the details of dinner only complete a beautiful day at the studio and bring the finishing touches to a well rounded life.