'What I do, which I have never let anyone know, is I close my eyes every time I have to do something practical apart from the daily chores everyone has, and then I picture how my father would have done it or how he actually did do it while I was watching him, and then I copy that until I fall into the proper rhythm, and the task reveals itself and grows visable, and that's what I have done for as long as I can remember, as if the secret lies in how the body behaves towards the task at hand, in a certain balance when you start, like hitting a board in a long jump and the early calculation of how much you need, or how little, and the mechanism that is always there in every kind of job; first one thing and then the other, in a context that is buried in each piece of work, in fact as if what you are going to do already exists in its finished form, and what the body has to do when it starts to move is draw aside a veil so it can be the person observing.'
*Reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Thanks Chad for the recommendation, glad I finally got there.
I began to read this and knew it was familiar to me. It's good to read again and be reminded of Pettersons's ability (talent) to articulate such an unrecognized but universal concept -- how we do what we do.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm looking forward to reading this.
ReplyDelete