facets, faucets - 03-13-02
The sink in the kitchen struck me this evening.
Slowly you begin to feel at home, to know and embrace the floor, the wall of windows, the faults in the plaster, the beige walls, the sound of the air conditioners. They insinuate themselves as home, become a part of you. Then you stand at the sink to wash an apple or wet a paper towel and it hits you: that sink is foreign. That faucet is not yours. It was picked for one of a million reasons, but not because it would make the occupants happy. Apartment faucets always betray the comfort of everything else you come to know and love. Unwavering, unblinking, unchanging pillars of steel—unbendable and uncompliant, unloving, unadaptable, unwelcoming.
The faucet speaks of this; it speaks of nothing but impermanence. Above all, the impermanence. The faucet has seen everything.
