process note: unmaking
I made the double macrame plant hanger in the top left corner of the photo above a couple years ago and in some way I have been its employee ever since. Always trying to somehow be in service to its potential.
I mean, it’s double, right? So fancy! Doesn’t that automatically make it twice as good? The thing about it is that it has always been a bit too long and the weight of the lower plant pulls down the upper one in a vaguely uncomfortable way.
Not a huge problem. As you can see Jesse is super chill (post beach run), completely unbothered by the plant hanger’s awkward relationship with gravity.
One way I’ve addressed the issue of the lower one pulling at the top one it is to use those eco-pots in it because they’re lighter. It’s mostly fine. But it has always somehow felt very laborious to me to confront each day the way this plant hanger isn’t quite working.
It must be said that it hadn’t actually taken that long to make it in the first place. Unlike knitting, macrame is something that has a tremendously satisfying ratio of how functional something can be with very minimal effort, once you’ve figured out the basics. Probably the whole thing took no longer than an hour to make.
Even so, the unspoken contract I’d made with myself was that I just had to keep working to find the right combination of plants and pots to make it work.
Today I looked at it and had the clear thought: what if I just cut off the lower one? Yes, to do so would undo all the effort that went into making that second level, but today for whatever constellation of reasons, that seemed possible to bear. Sunk cost.
An image I often call forth at such moments when I feel a kind of grief at what seems like a waste of effort or time is that of a pianist playing in a room alone for hours. Playing a piece over and over, working out timing, phrasing – those hours of playing are just part of the ongoing process of being a pianist.
But with things that have a 3D presence, a kind of grasping can quickly set in for the made thing. And with writing, it seems that the second a thought takes the form of a line or a sentence, it’s hard not to reify it.
But what if it’s all just notes in the air?
Ahh. So much better.