Walking past the laundry doorway, something’s different. Back in winter, we hung a noren – a beautiful piece we bought in Japan almost a year ago. For six months, it hung in our doorway adding a beautiful and subtle separation from the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ world. But today, it’s not hanging straight down – it’s moving a little, very subtly, towards the open backdoor – an invisible force gently pulling it outwards.
Had I not seen the noren hanging in this way, I would never have become aware of the flow of air moving through that part of the house. Because of this simple bit of fabric, I stopped and became hyper-attentive to that moment, that air, that movement – I could actually feel it on my body when I took the time to notice.
It makes me think how little one needs to render the invisible visible; the unfelt, felt. How often this must happen on a day-to-day basis but most of us are too busy to notice. And perhaps, that’s one of the roles of art and the artist – to render what’s there in the gentlest way so that we become more attentive to the world as it is.