Beauty in the Breakdown

A tiny part of the floor of my studio in Sausalito, California

Drink up baby doll

Are you in or are you out?

Leave your things behind

'Cause it's all going off without you

Excuse me too busy you're writing a tragedy

These mess-ups

You bubble-wrap

When you've no idea what you're like

So, let go

Jump in

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go

Just get in

Oh, it's so amazing here

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives

And then advances with the form

So, honey, back for more

Can't you see that all the stuff's essential?

Such boundless pleasure

We've no time for later

Now you can wait

You roll your eyes

We've twenty seconds to comply

So, let go

Jump in

Oh well, what you waiting for?

It's al right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So, let go

Just get in

Oh, it's so amazing here

It's all right

'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Lyrics from a song in the movie “Garden State”  called “Let Go” by Frou Frou.  Words spoke to me when I heard them the first time.  My melancholy side is seduced by the darker side of things…beauty in decay or in marked up concrete or the shadows of things rather than the sublime photo of something expected to be conventionally beautiful.  There have been times in my life when I’ve been forced to look down, for safety’s sake or protection from even worse hurt or loss, rather than upwards toward heaven for illumination or benediction.  A captivating turn about is that I’ve been finding lovely patterns and markings and colors in unexpected places and forms.  The reverse of life, endings not beginnings, or repairs and restorations rather than the perfectly unblemished new.  Life changes constantly and happens without special preference or dispensation for some.  We all experience it without fail. 

Rust on a weathered wall.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

And a time to every purpose, under heaven”  

by The Byrds

Amusing; another song lyric by which I am certainly aging myself. The message though is timeless.  Let’s revere those times of quiet and reflection and loss as well as the time of creation and expansion.  Maybe heaven isn’t just above us but in the dark and broken places as well. Surrounding us and encompassing us with it’s beauty.  As above…so below.