This is a poster from 1977, which I look at every day, in my spare room. As you all know, I love flowers, and I find the mandala of flowers to be very calming, comforting and centering. I don't know who made the poster. There is no credit. Down in the lower right-hand corner, it has a logo of a waterfall that says (upon close inspection) "Conserve Water"... but that's it.
The California Wildflower Show is still happening every year at the Oakland museum, now in its 40th year. We have the internet now and no need for mad-postering all over town, which was one way some of us picked up a few bucks.
I often wonder who designed the lovely poster that is part of my daily life, and if they even remember making it.
We forget the tasks we perform, the creative projects we are part of, the various things we make, craft and write. As I approach my 52nd year, I am stunned by all I have done, and yet I also worry it will all be forgotten. As I search online for old photos of pop-culture events and political demonstrations, I have a hard time finding them. So much of history, before the net, is simply forgotten. And now, with the advent of the net, we are threatened with a veritable deluge of ephemera and drivel, drowning out the important news, the crucial history.
I find myself deliberating about this stuff more and more as I age, particularly when I blog about the past.
And then, I see the poster.
The person who made this poster probably does not remember making it, or perhaps only thinks of it now and then... but it is part of my daily life. Their consciousness, their artistic vision and work, is part of my home.
What have I done, what have I said, that is now part of someone else's daily life? And I would never know it. A photo, a gift, a kind word, a wrong word? Maybe something I wrote a long time ago and cannot even recall now. Maybe a comment in an AA meeting that I addressed to them, or something I wrote in an online debate.
The poster reminds me that there is so much we leave behind. Beauty AND ugliness.
It is a good reason to remember, always, the line from Plato: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Or as Bill and Ted said: Be excellent to each other.
(And as always, keep making pretty things. Preferably with flowers.)