Enhancing the sky

I suppose I’m generally a fatalist, accepting what comes. “Che sarà, sarà / Whatever will be, will be”. So I rarely have cause to pray for anything. In small ways, I can impose my creative ideas through focused effort and perseverance: for instance keeping the house and garden shipshape. But my scope is narrow, and when I desire a change which I cannot bring about personally, I don’t join campaigns. I just think to myself “I wish”. To me, that’s the essence of prayer. Addressing a named deity is an unnecessary formality. Usually I don’t even remember wishing: until it comes true.

My prayers always do seem to come true. It’s an awesome power. I have to be careful how I use it. Sometimes it’s a curse.

I was walking into town not so long ago. You’ll see on the bird’s eye view a spot marked with X. That’s where I was when I wished that the town could be less drab. I respect its lack of of pretensions, but I have to face that it’s ugly. Don’t get me wrong. I love the place. I’ve been here twenty years—four times longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. Nothing will change my fierce loyalty to this town once famous for chairs and other furniture, made mostly in small workshops.

So I wished that someone, creative students maybe, could do something to brighten it up; perhaps with some piece of public art, to show that one need not look only to Nature for inspiration. If only, like Renaissance Florence, it could attain the critical mass to attract the most creative spirits, particularly when the drab old college is being reborn into a University.

You can see part of the “campus” in the top right of the bird’s eye view, with a bulldozer in an empty lot. That’s where they knocked down some low buildings to build a new one which fills every available inch, blocking the view for those who work in the one behind. No cloisters, no quadrangle, no lawn and fountains. Just a faceless slab shoehorned into a small plot, for stifled students to suffocate.

But now, just yards from the site of my secret prayer, that same building begins to compete with the sky’s glory. No, it doesn’t compete: each enhances the other; thanks to the addition of a miraculous catalyst, stainless steel cladding. It’s not Florence. But it’s lovely in its way and I give thanks.