Humankind is driven to know more. We have a proclivity for unpacking things of interest to their fullest. These often become our passions. Passions peak our attention, drive us to produce, and at times even destroy. They have an obsessive quality and at their tipping point infect reason. But on average, passions don't end in lengthy jail sentences due to deviations into deviance. They are more commonly a complementary joy to life. We cozy up to them, we seek to know them through and through.
Stamina is required to delve into a passion and a certain hedonism. In addition, the dismissal of time-keeping comes in handy. When I was in art school studying sculpture, the work studios were open 24 hours a day. Fellow students and I could be found creating into the wee hours of the night. The studios were a void where time knew neither sun nor moon. We napped next to our projects, then reanimated with a spark to continue.
My father believed passions were not to be ignored. I can only guess he saw them as a gift. His exuberance emboldened those around him. Our family was imbued with his heart for exploration of curiosities. His interests ranged from creating small self-contained terrariums, grafting fruit trees, carving paths into wooded areas and mowing curves into grassy fields. He designed and built a spacious, modern home, and made architectural models out of tiny sticks.
My sister Noemi is known to be up all night after practicing law all day. She works away on knitting cozy throws, piping colorful icings onto canvases made of sugar cookie and painting miniature landscapes with the hand of Cezanne. The sun peeking over the horizon is received as a galling interruption. She presents her alter ego in court, deftly capable of swaying judicial outcomes to her will.
My brother Lui was distinctly engraved with my fathers creative genius. He too can build a house from the ground up. Recently he took an interest in 3D printing culminating in building a variety of printers himself. These became portals to render his whims, producing a leg brace for his ailing dog and a replacement part for his broken vacuum cleaner. Printed objects litter his loft space: vases, sculptures, relief 'drawings', parts to enhance or modify printers and mutated pieces fraying at the seams. These are mere sketches that lead to more complex ones.
How far does one intend to go down the rabbit hole of passions? In our family, we are apt to eagerly respond, "Until I reach the end!" Well, I think the sensible know it is a trick question with no end. Conclusions only become clear to prompt the next commencement. The curious are never satisfied. Our gene pool is teaming with equal parts rabid productivity and amenable affliction.
My mom is a self-taught master of the spreadsheet. I don't know much about spreadsheets as they are not my passion of choice. Why does one create a spreadsheet? Per Google, financial reasons are at their essence, for instance creating a monthly budget. Statistics on products and customers can project gains and loses. Trends can be tracked for comparison and analysis. Spreadsheets pull a variety of data into an organized readable dynamic. They broadcast potential outcomes, peering into the future to offer a reading of the fiscal palm. This is my mom's passion.
Don't give my mom an excuse to create a spreadsheet. She will quickly offer to work one up while coaxing you towards her computer. Even the start of a sentence with “I’m not sure...” will prompt her to brightly offer, “Let's make a spreadsheet and see.” Then she maneuvers amid the rows and columns with certainty like an ibex on steep terrain. She is sure in her craft. At times, she finds herself in a tight spot from a misplaced letter or bracket. But these are steadily mended with a furrowed brow and determination. When she offers help for one of my financial mysteries, I am the afflicted gone to see the healer. I can only offer meek encouragements in the way a patient wishes her brain surgeon a steady hand.
When my son, Berto was ready for college he set his sights beyond the stars and well into the next galaxy. Mom immediately offered to make a spreadsheet. Taking into account three different college funds, subsequent account additions and stretching projections through four years a myriad of papers were spit from her printer. She smoothed Scotch Tape at the seams of the many pages until it folded out like a map of Siberia. Spreadsheets don’t always have a desirable tale to tell. But they don’t mince words in their prophesies.
My mom, Noemi, Lui, and I all live in Oak Cliff just south of downtown Dallas. Gathering for breakfast on a Saturday morning is not uncommon. On one such occasion, we visited at Mom's house in her cool, air-conditioned dining room while the sun licked its hot breathe at the window panes. Texas summers wield their heat with an iron fist. Step outside in any season, save winter, and the odds are high you will be instantaneous envelopment by a thick, oven-like air. It oozes into lungs and sits on chests until the body is like the inside of a furnace. In any event, on this particular morning as we arrive at moms for breakfast we ask with rivulets of sweat on the words themselves, “ Why do we live in Texas?” Then we volley back and fourth, “Well, I’m here because you're here.” For us, blood is clearly thicker than reason.
After coffee and bowls of fruit and warm croissants my mom asked that we come into her office. We leaned over her shoulder to peer at her computer screen, and there materialized a spreadsheet. She began to explain the rows and columns. Her words pinged off my ears like a foreign language. I glanced at my siblings and asked, "Is anyone understanding this?" Mom encouraged us to see her through to the bottom-line. Sure enough, the fog of data cleared into enunciated English at the bottom. She had projected the years she may live by column and intersected those with our names by row. Numbers were tallied at these crossroads into the future. She explained, "If I live to 80 years old, this is the amount I will be leaving you. If I live to 81 it will be this amount, 82 this amount, and so on.
Not withstanding the underlying practical air of her presentation, I was amazed at Mom's ability to take this heap of information and smooth it into a crisp readable pattern. I was also struck by the obvious love for us she attaches to these rows and columns. These structures were whispering, "You will not suffer the logistical when times are at their hardest. I have sorted out the pieces of my life to ease your struggles in the future. This is my labor of love." Overcome with a mix of wonder and adoration, I asked mom why she is so driven to produce spreadsheets. Without hesitation, she looked up from the computer screen and said with a glad heart, "It's like a puzzle."
Her answer struck me as a kinship. Just then, a common thread connected her love of spreadsheets to my love of writing. Both of these require recording and streamlining masses of information into legible, comprehensive ideas. I have endless gumption for piecing together words, sentences and paragraphs. These are shifted around with patient pleasure until I have taught them what to say in the tone and syntax I require. Editing is of great interest. I revise an essay until it smooths like a river stone and reads with ease. Necessarily, revisions are succinct saving me from potential obsession. I bring into focus what I observe, until it is simply made clear.
Passions are prone to proliferate and embrace a variety of intensities. Once, while at an antique store, I peered into a glass case filled with queer, stray items. My mother-in-law inquired at my ear, "What's your poison?" My answer did not break my gaze, "small spoons" I said. But the overreaching poison that keeps me up at night and wickedly content is recording to paper my mind.
First World War studies are a passion for my husband Brent. It is not uncommon to find him with a book laid open to a page showing a trench map. Arranged close to the book, an unfurled map of the Somme and Google Maps displaying a windswept ridge somewhere in Belgium. It is there he cross-references. Locating battle sites, cemeteries, craters, fields and tree stands he unearths various unfathomable events. Those within radius of a passion will be tinged with its residue by proximity. I know more about the Schlieffen Plan than a girl from Texas ought to. In accordance, modern architecture, printing objects, decorating cookies and financial spreadsheets are like acquaintances of mine: I recognize them in a crowd, but I can't tell you where they were born.
Comprehensive pictures are painted with our passions. My mom paints hers with numbers into monetary portraits. Brent paints his with shrapnel into historical sagas. I paint mine with words into observational landscapes. All of our paintings tell the story of us. They bring peace of mind with their sharing. Their brush strokes hold traces of our DNA, our family, our society within its times. Perhaps they will inform our future ancestors of whence they came.
We are bound to family by genealogy and geography, but perhaps most interestingly by our idiosyncrasies. The commonalities embedded within families are many but often veiled by familiarity. My father passed down his fascination with genetics. One day we were lounging in bed watching an episode of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. Amid Prussian blue, cadmium yellow, happy clouds and Bob's calm instruction my father squinted at me having caught sight of a distraction. He grabbed my arm to examine the flesh. He called for my mom and informed her, "Ruthie look at this, she has the same crease on her arm that you do." My mom and I held our lower-arms close to one another. We leaned in to see the tiny line inscribed by a gene onto both of us. Discoveries such as this seemed to ignite my fathers sense of wonder, like spotting a meteorite from outer space on a rocky path he traveled daily.
We are made of stardust. The universe finds its way to expression and shares its lineage in our veins. It mingles in our DNA. It is idiosyncratic stardust that gravitates to common fascinations. It is anatomic stardust that has the same gait when it walks. It is skilled stardust that creates and builds with ease. It is literary stardust uniquely authored to tells the story of us. Perhaps this is why we are mesmerized by the blue-black of a starry night. It is only natural to be drawn to images of oneself. Our passions are personal and generational and universal. They are at their core filled with wanderlust. We gravitate to what we love and we love it so much. Do we ebb too close to obsession? Mom could easily create a spread sheet that would answer the question. But it seems best this one go unanswered. I don't think stardust passion can be diverted from such an orbit anyway. I'm not sure it should be.
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