Curator

Well, re-reading Lynda's statement after I posted it below, it occurred to me that I am now the owner of all that she discarded, the result of the life-long process of creation that she cultivated. It is essentially a waste product, what is left after the creative energy of a living person has been charged with the act of rearranging the world on some miniscule level, and I am now the curator of the same.

The word 'curator' sounds so much better than 'collector', but after acknowledging that there is some responsibility for preservation associated with curating art as opposed to simply storing objects, I conclude that the two roles are in essence the same. Would that I had inherited some of that energy, but it seems clear that I not a creator but a 'keeper of things', or a curator. It is becoming clear to me that in this world, my role is not to add to the inventiveness of the human condition, but to preserve it, in the hopes that some other creative soul will see and resonate with it. The two roles of curator and creator are inextricably linked, in much the same way dung beetles are linked to excrement.

But so far all I've managed to do is get the things together and store them crudely. This is hardly the effort required to preserve them and much more deserving of the term collector. It remains to be seen whether or not I will have even the energy required to store these object properly, let alone catalogue and record them, but for now I will stay with my long-stated intent to preserve Lynda's works so that her life-long efforts will not have been in vain. Seeing her struggle for so many years with identity and recognition issues, I had hoped to be a part of the solution, but now that she is dead, I am not so sure that I can live up to the promise made. How and where I will find the time and energy to complete the task is beyond me.

It is a dark day today, but it is not the only day.