The Good of Incompleteness

What defines you–really?  Does it go further than who you are?  What you do?  What you believe in?  What you have?  Where you’ve been? How far you have come?  How much further you have left?  What your successes are?  Your failures?

Does any of it really define you?

What about incompleteness?What’s lacking?  What do you have to give up?  What was taken away?  What do you have to work on?  What do you have to work for? What do you have to lose–yet?  Can you gain anything from the loss or losses? What do you have to settle with? What can you count on?  Is anyone there to not go it alone?  Who can you count on if anyone?

Do you settle with incompleteness, the good of incompleteness, accept it like it’s a non-ending ordeal? Have you given up?  Is it worth it?  Do your teeth hurt from the grit?

What is incompleteness, exactly?

It’s an unfinished work, an unfinished way of being.  It’s lacking a part internally or outwardly. Its ticker isn’t ticking adequately. Perhaps it needs maintenance.  Maybe it needs more fuel, more grease, more oil. Does it need a new engine?  Does the red light stay on?  Does it stay overheated?  Does the steering column need fixing? How difficult is it to navigate?  Are there ruts in the road, and can you see through rain? Through clouds?  Is the course clear?It might call for tougher mechanics, stronger engineering, a better way of doing something a little differently.  You think inside and outside “the box”.  You get smarter.  Or did you think you were stupid? You get clever–or more clever. You become resourceful. You get wiser–or the first time getting wise.  All of a sudden, you’re stronger, if not already.  You surprise yourself.  You could do it, after all.  You find that you could and can do it alone, that you don’t need a helping set of hands to lift a lever.

Were you alone?

Was it a long travel?  Did you go off the road?  Was the wheel hard to grip, and the leather wrap torn and frayed?  Did it seem like you would remain stranded, possibly never getting home?

Where is home?

Some say it is where you make it.  Where you strive by the sweat of your own brows and no other.  Some call it the classroom of hard knocks.  Others say it is the most beautiful place on earth because it’s their sanctuary.  Some never like home.  And some never learn. There are some who never knew what home was meant to be.  They refused to embrace it.  Maybe some never had a home, or thought they couldn’t.

Is home internal?  Is it both places?  Is it the clock that ticks inside you, more than any home where you’ve lived and been to?

A home might need repairs, so it stays incomplete…  broken down, junk in the yard, old farm machinery that will never get used again that could still be of great use and service to a crop that could yield and bring forth a grand harvest.

What’s good about incompleteness?  Why should it matter?

The gift of incompleteness might come with a price, a heavy one. Wait…  Hold up…  If it costs anything, if it comes with a price, then how can it be a gift?  Isn’t a gift simply given, no strings attached?  Not always.  When it’s a life lesson, be prepared to pay a price.

It doesn’t feel good.  It doesn’t seem right, fair, or just.  It feels like the weight of the heaviest objects are crushing down upon you, paralysing you for a time, possibly for a long time.  Yes, it’s costly…

It, in fact, doesn’t keep you stranded.  You don’t stay immobile, either. You find a way, out of survival.  And you find a way out.  You fix the engine, you make repairs on the shack or old farmhouse, including the outbuildings.  If you’re stranded on a road, you run home if you have to, just to beat the storm.  You find a way to get there no matter what. You’re not paralysed.  This is what defines you.  It’s the gift of incompleteness and the good of incompleteness.  You have found your inner strength.  You made it home.  Would it still be considered incompleteness?Complete or incomplete?

Skirt in the Kitchen/My Father’s Foods