With son and daughter a few years ago I stood in awe at the St Louis Gateway Arch and saw and appreciated something that I’m betting very few visitors there even notice: the welds. The memorial is a well executed tribute. The structural necessity of weld seams was not designed of them selves to make any statement at all but were utilitarian from start to finish. To me, they signified something more and it’s even more powerful a symbolism as an unintended thing.

The very best actors push their craft into precious perfection with inspired adlibs in similar fashion. They make it  better than the written lines though their only desire is to do well.

I’ve been thinking about the glorious thing that ‘rightness’ is. It has no peer. Many things work without inspiring joy. Snags seem to document the resistance of life to our will. But then, someone or something comes along and shows what it would be like if the world were right through and through.

I honestly don’t know enough to judge if it was the case that afternoon when I went to fetch my daughter at the ice rink where she was skating with friends but I thought I saw the manifestation of perfection in motion. While I was there I watched a hocky game that showed me for the first time in my life that team sport is civilized war. With unabashed amazement I watched as the puck was passed in complex sequences from one padded fat-beetle player to another to another and into the goal net and realized that at the speed everything was happening those guys had to be very well practiced. They were a team! That moment, the concept of ‘team’ meant exactly what it always should have to me.

I’ve been in situations where I and others worked together with almost mystical unity, knowing and flowing according to the understanding we each had of what must be done and each other. That is a magic that I wish everyone everywhere can be part of.  Friendships manifest it when code laced conversations are completely comprehensible only to the participants, and somehow the words carry so much more than they’re capable of between anyone else.

At work, it’s sometimes easier for this sort of chemistry to surface because when good people and their good attitudes get excercised in winning routines it is a matter of practice. One day the practice gives way to inspiration and the chemistry of perfection happens. You can feel the majesty of unified purpose as all the planets seem to align. Many times, that is the thrill of creating art. Me, the tools and pigments, inspiration, and artistic pursuit combine to make an intoxicating mix of ‘just right’ confirming that I’m doing what I am meant to do.

I think that the more demanding the particulars of difficult but well defined collaborations are, the deeper the satisfaction when problems are overcome. We know that the seeds of satisfaction can sprout from the soil of frustration.

None of the flavors of rightness need to trump the rest, but it’s still true that the eyewitness and first hand accounts of the experience frequently come from the same  course: battle. We win the respect of those seemingly impossible souls we helped shepherd, of those who saw us accomplish the unthinkable, and of our selves in reflection upon our behavior under aggravating circumstance when we came out unbroken and uncompromised.

Just as wonderful are those times where no pain at all, no real discomfort, and no fear ever entered the ring: the meal that could not have turned out better. The painting that you want to own forever. The friendship where decades of proof support the worthy bond of trust that each party honors without any reservation. Compare that to the times when trust unearned was rewarded with pillage on your means or your character. There isn’t an equal for “right”. There are imitators, but when something is right you taste heaven.  Imitators represent the opposite.

I know both sides of that equation. The imitators always disappoint. The people and situations that are part of the real deal, the grand desire of living, are the actual glue that holds this entire creation together. They are the matrix of strength and joy that confirms what we were actually meant to be like and what really makes the universe healthy.

So here I am, working on my ideas. I’m building paintings, writing stories, and constructing the infrastructure to make those activities self supporting. Say what you will about people, but if you are complaining then you’re focusing on the inferior elements of society. Mixed amid the rest are the jewels of humanity that make the heart quicken. Dirt gets you dirty but you

There are not even words to express my appreciation and my gratitude for them. All I can hope to do is keep my place in that matrix of life and expect that they too will have greater joy as a result.

But here’s the thing, and that Gateway Arch had the reminders of it all 147 sections of the way to the top:there is perfection. The Arch is sheathed with a skin of stainless steel whose welds are so well done that they aren’t even noticable. My father once commented that no one notices a perfect weld. He’s right. They notice the ones that look like snot. They notice the ones that break.

I notice the ones that are so well presented that they don’t stand out. Partly this is because I am a welder. I know what it takes. I know what that perfection looks like. Realizing that it works this way makes it easier to accept non-recognition which can be so amazingly casual in the face of the facts that in fairness others aren’t privy to.

No doubt, I miss chances to recognize excellence and commend it for the same reasons. Sometimes it’s so well done that I just expect it. Shame on me!

But I can not over estimate the value of good people, solid material resources, and prime circumstance. Tonight I’ve been marvelling over the good people in my life and especially the ones who just in the normal course of our interactions seem to be confirmations that there is a God and there are angels and they aren’t reserved for rare sightings. Not at all. I’ve seen them, hugged them, and love them. Without them, well – let’s not even consider that. I wouldn’t even recognize the place. With them, it’s beautiful there is purpose.

That’s what those welds in the Gateway Arch reminded me of. We don’t gush over fresh air and clean water and we try not to ruin the delight of friendship with excessive adulations that risk cheapening the superlatives we actually want to use. So we play it cool. Every now and then though it is fun to point out the obvious.  The perfect welds on that monument are equal to it’s grandeur, but the response if I point it out is, “uh. yeah.”

So I’ll keep it to myself, but know this: I still notice unspoken perfection. Oh yes, very much : )