Today, while waiting for my ex-wife to come by to pick up
some things for our daughter for a play date, I was waiting in the foyer of my
apartment complex, and I was leaning my arm against the wall, stretching it out
as I had come from a good swim earlier and I was starting to feel the muscles
talk to me.
I was almost taken aback about how smooth and cool it was.
Not that this was the first time I have touched marble of course, but it was
just a jolt of consciousness to suddenly feel that surface, and it felt good to
be pressing my arm against it.
I was then reminded of three marble things that have made
the most impression in my life. One of them was the sheer amount of marble that
the Taj Mahal is made of, so much that it is staggering to comprehend. The
second are the statues of Bernini, which if you have ever seen them in real
life, you would swear that they are soft and malleable if you touched them.
The big one though, was not the product, but the source. One
of the eeriest places I have been in is Carrara marble quarries of Northern
Tuscany. It is a haunting feeling to drive up this mountain that is a sheer
cliff of un-mined marble. Not only is the looming façade of marble daunting, it
is the ethereal white dust everywhere in the air from the extraction tools of
the rock. I just remember driving up in near silence, as if we were going to
the castle of some White Witch or Elven palace high up in the mountains, and
the wisps of marble dusts were the guardians.
I had forgotten about that drive until today, when thinking
about that marble on the wall, and how it got there. Though Belgium is known
for its own opulent marble supply, I will never forget the specters of the
Carrara quarries, even if I have to be reminded of them.
