Nigh*

Work in the basement has moved along quickly and things are nearly done. Certainly done enough that we moved most of my stuff down to the new office today. Tom also cleaned up and shifted some items in and out of storage. Here are a few photos with explanations.

This is my new office area as you face it from the center of the basement. The bookcase is in front of my desk, and that black thing on the desk is the laptop.Off to the left is a bookcase, sitting on top of which is a painting Tom did for me. It is waiting until we get a chance to hang it on the wall.  The black chair/bench back there is where I sit for my morning meditation. More on that below. I have wall decals of stylized bamboo to put in that corner after the baseboards go in. That will give a little more definition to that space and add a bit more color.

When I worked at the library, I discovered that it is good to have a work counter as well as a desk. Beneath is room for storage and the counter itself is fine for spreading things out. It also gives me a chance to stand and work a bit after sitting too long. The statue you see back in the corner represents Thoth, the Egyptian god of scribes. It was a gift from the library a couple of years back.

This is the painting. That corner of the office will be my meditation space, and I like this Rothko-esque**  square as a sort of imageless focal point.

The wall opposite my desk is an alcove of sorts where we plan to put a television (temporarily?) for guests, shelves for games and puzzles and other miscellaneous storage. Tom put the tree out because this will be where we celebrate Christmas with the family. And he wanted to get it out of the storage area back behind that alcove to make room for other things. The paintings are just leaning there until he decides where to put or hang them.

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* Nigh, of course, means near. It is not used as much as it once was, seems to me, but I have always liked the sound of it. I heard it a lot as a child in east Texas and once heard it defined as "purt' near but not plumb." If you are from the south, you can probably figure out what that means.

**Mark Rothko (d. 1970) was an American painter of Latvian Jewish descent. Rothko's work matured from representation and mythological subjects into rectangular fields of color and light, that later culminated in his final works for the Rothko Chapel in Houston. That chapel is where I first encountered his paintings as a young Carmelite, and they struck me as powerfully contemplative and evocative. They remind me of John of the Cross and his teaching that we encounter God in the darkness and silence. So I asked Tom to do me a Rothko-esque painting for my meditation space, and this is it. Needless to say, photos do no justice to Tom's work, and certainly photos fail to capture the mystery of Rothko's paintings.