Leaks happen. Over time, as rain water works into rooftop crevices then expands when frozen, roofing cement separates from rubber. Eventually, wind drives the drops at a peculiar angle, and dark spots appear in ceiling plaster beneath.
The path is now marked and defined, so a more ordinary storm penetrates by the same route, creating two-toned stains for the interpretational entertainment of carpenters installing built-in cabinetry in an upstairs home-office.
The purposes of this essay make it necessary for me to publicly confess, as one of those carpenters, that my first impression was of the… well… biological sort that one would expect from a man whose college professors trained him to spot risqué allusions in classic literature, en route to a degree in English. A younger member of the finish crew, he with a degree in visual arts, offered the more innocent opinion that the stain resembled an avocado.
Thus shamed, I looked again, with an eye toward detail, and noticed that the leak was actually reminiscent of an image of the Virgin Mary. It wasn’t a perfect illustration, of course, but until the drywall’s saturation expanded to a blur at lunchtime, it was at least as detailed as the chance pictures that make the news from time to time — perhaps more so than the image of Jesus recently reported to have appeared on a clothes iron in Massachusetts.
The conversation that followed this revised interpretation was spiritually rich for a construction site, especially considering the dialogical gutter toward which my unconsidered quip first pointed, and I spent the morning thinking about miracles and God, and the concern that deceased saints still harbor for the living. Had my initial association stuck, the workday might have proceeded in a manifestly uglier mental light.
We live in a society that’s much too quick to dismiss the significance of simple associations, taking on faith that the images that splash across television screens and flood public spaces couldn’t possibly lodge in the mind with any effect. But surely they do. A man upon meeting a woman will have different thoughts behind his eyes if she reminds him of a model whom he’s seen in a provocative pose than if she resembles an actress known for a role as a loving wife or if he’s seen her likeness on a prayer card.
One should hope that decorum and maturity will adjust mental images before they translate into behavior, and in this example, the woman will have the greatest effect on the man’s perception of her. Still, when vile associations pile upon each other, ever greater adjustments and contradictions will be necessary in order to dispel the collage that they create.
This is true, not the least, because associations aren’t only perceptual, but emotional, as well. Cigarette smoke on a fur collar might induce a feeling of comfort if it raises memories of mom from childhood. The smell of a specific cologne or perfume might recall dirty awkwardness or nostalgia for innocence depending on the scene of teenage love-interest on which it once settled.
A few years ago, my family arrived at the fundraising carnival of a nearby Catholic elementary school just as three young boys took the outdoor stage to reenact Tom Cruise’s underwear-clad lip-syncing performance of “Old Time Rock and Roll,” from the movie Risky Business. To refresh your memory, the film begins with vacation-bound parents leaving their high-school-aged son alone with the house and the Porsche, and it ends with him buying their belongings back from a pimp with ill-gotten gains. The plot arguably offers a compelling metaphor for the current predicament of Rhode Island’s government, but it’s hardly a story one expects to encounter while handing over tickets for a butterfly to be painted on a preschooler’s cheek.
The dance routine in question has permeated our culture extensively enough that the G-aged boys hadn’t necessarily come across the R-rated content to which they were giving tribute. Still, a path has now been marked and defined between the interior feeling of youthful exuberance amidst the comforting security of a school community’s encouragement and an exterior pop cultural production with its philosophy defined by a famous catch phrase encouraging selfish moral carelessness.
With such associations worn into the cultural psyche, we are vulnerable even during the ordinary storms of adulthood.
A carpenter by day, Justin Katz is administrator of AnchorRising.com, an independent media and conservative analysis blog, and a monthly contributor to the Rhode Island Catholic.
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