an ordinary life

Heller:

The portrait of this situation is Van Gogh. The sunflower, the chair and the boots that are the chance receptacle of all that homeless energy of the spirit which once had its lawful house with Giotto's angels-once a king of kingdoms, now a squatter in boots. Look at this bough of almond blossom, look at this chair-indeed, they get much more that their due of the spirit, almost bursting with its superfluity. It is a mere moment of explosion that separates Van Gogh's objects from the distorted fragments of surrealism.

~~~

an ordinary life, surrounded by ordinary objects; the hardest thing. some form of contentment in the middling, plodding way. no sudden bursts of insights or dazzling moments of awareness, no patched up mystery for you; things still don't quite fit, but have grown around you nonetheless. adjustments are made, whether out of maturity or cowardice. time will tell, has told.

you can't remember a tenth of what you've read. a few lines here and there acted as buffers, keeping reality out rather than letting it in, or deepening it. but things are more blurred now, less harsh, greyer..layers of black and white and grey.