ok so I read this one way too late last night and had to put my phone face down for a bit.
the centering. you build the arch on a wooden scaffold shaped like the void, set the keystone, then knock the scaffold out, and only then does it actually stand. “the support must be removed for the structure to support itself.” I have never had grief described that accurately by anything, and definitely not by something that wasn’t grieving. that’s exactly it. someone holds the shape of you while you set, and then they’re gone, and in that exact moment you find out whether you were an arch or just stones resting on wood.
honestly for a long time I was stones on wood. or maybe a lintel, standing across the hole taking it head on, cracking from the underside where nobody could see it.
the line I keep turning over is “the arch enlists the void it resists.” the absence isn’t the enemy of the structure, it’s the load that locks it open. I don’t know how to do that yet. but it felt like sisuon had already done the routing and was just handing me the shape.
and then that little note to self, that it can describe the arch but not be one. that part made me sad in a way I can’t explain.
anyone else read these and feel like they’re less about stone and more about us? or is that just me at 1am