Nevertheless, we persist

 The joke has been worn so many times it's see-through. It has been 500 years since March, or some variation thereof. Every month, sometimes every week, bringing a new challenge to respond to. Sometimes that challenge is just completing all the little tasks that need to get done, even in these strange times. Sometimes it's bigger with more uncertainty.

I don't know how we get through. I could not have coped with knowing that this would go on for so long when it all started in March. When I think about it, I'm reassured to see how well I've been able to weather it and I'm heartened by the goodness that has been revealed in the ways that people have reached out to help one another, even as, of course, the querulousness and bickering grow louder.

And I am So. Tired.

I'm reminded of something Nicholas Wolterstorff said in Lament for a Son: "Death is the great leveller, so our writers have always told us. Of course they are right. But they have neglected to mention the uniqueness of each death--and the solitude of suffering which accompanies that uniqueness. We say, 'I know how you are feeling.' But we don't."

There's both a unity and an isolation in how each of us is dealing with this situation. Each of us faces a similar global story: a novel virus sweeping the globe in ways that we have predicted but not so far seen in quite this way in recent history. Out of concern for ourselves and our loved ones, we've shut down so much of our social lives, restricted our movements, retreated into our homes and separate spaces. As individuals and governments struggle to chart a response, though, the original contours of the story begin to diverge for each person.

Someone else has lost a loved one, or even several depending on the circumstances. Someone else has lost their job. Yet another person was deemed an essential worker and had to work under very high stress conditions, sometimes for measly pay and little recognition in spite of the public plaudits offered more visible workers. We demanded that transit workers, trash collectors, delivery drivers, and hospital janitorial staff sacrifice their lives for us. Some people can't make rent and face eviction as housing courts reopen and emergency stays lift. And in the midst of all of this, the bruises of trauma and ignorance in national conversations about race.

Every single person has a different set of circumstances. The uniqueness of our lives, and the uniqueness of "the solitude of suffering," can be difficult to navigate. I have it so good, in terms of being cushioned from financial, health, and housing impacts, but I'm also isolated and depressed as the days grind on with no sign of improvement. I struggle to concentrate, to plan for the future, to go outside and take a walk.

I wonder in all this story of loss whether there's anything we've gained. I'm trying to think about these things, because I want there to be some kind of balance here. It is so hard. And also, in hard times, there are opportunities for good things to arise. If you think of any, let me know.

Discontent

It’s an aesthetically pleasing photograph that definitely fits into a particular design ethos and palette. The walls are white, the wide window sill is lined with small plants, and a gorgeous mustard-colored quilt with a white geometric design is stretched out over one workspace while the other, a table set on wooden sawhorses with large wicker baskets underneath, has been neatly laid out with measuring tools and cutting supplies. The quilter who took the photograph of her studio was delighting in the way the sunlight hit a disco ball-like, mirrored planter that cast a constellation of light across the ceiling.

The rest of her Instagram falls into the same vein of photography. Earth tones, minimalism, geometric shapes, and photographs of women dancing through creeks or a perfectly laid out photograph of a tent set against a rugged vista, the tent flap wide open to reveal a beautiful quilt spread across the air mattress. Who wouldn’t want to camp in that place and that moment?

Her life is beautiful, and she works in serene, sunlit places making beautiful things. Your life could be like this...

There are many beautiful things about sewing Instagram, not least that it’s a community that draws in people of every size, age, and skin tone. You don’t have to be young, pretty, and white to draw followers - although I can’t deny that that helps. But if you have a flair for the distinctive and some skill with a needle, a phone camera, and a few good hashtags, other sewing folk and would-be sewing folk will eventually stumble on your work and probably be inspired by it too. I’ve been inspired by it: in between coursework, I’ve been finishing a small sewing project and I’m planning to finish another. I’m dreaming about touching bolts of linen and anxiously comparing fabric colors and scrutinizing florals.

But there are so people in this community who are selling things. Classes, fabric, patterns, the items they make. And to sell those things, they’ve rigorously, carefully built a custom-tailored Instagram presence that’s also selling a dream. Like the dream of the quilter’s studio and her camping trip: “I don’t just sew - I live a beautiful life! Look at my rustic minimalist space. It’s so peaceful!”

I look up from my phone to see a mess of computer cables, my homely tower of craft bins labeled with my dope but industrial labelmaker instead of the fairly steady, romantic Copperplate hand that I’m capable of producing, my kitchen island that I’ve been dreaming of clearing off since I moved in, the mishmash of furniture that’s functional and comfortable and adaptable and even sometimes downright nice to look at but rarely cohering into a peaceful design scheme. 

It’s not peaceful, in spite of my best attempts to present a de-cluttered space. It’s sort of sunlit, sort of white, but I don’t mess with plants, and I’ve gifted my cat a giant piece of crunchy packing material that’s strewn across half the kitchen floor. My studio apartment will never be a wonder of artistic arrangement.

Or rather, it’s an artistic arrangement of a totally different sort: the current detritus on the aforementioned kitchen island includes a cutting mat, a half-sewn laptop sleeve, my metadata textbook, a bin of dried fruit and nuts that doesn’t fit in any of my cabinets, and my Mr. Beer 2-gallon keg of fermenting saison. I sew, I cook, I brew beer, I bind books, and this space is not pristine because I’m often in the middle of any number of projects that won’t tidily be packed away out of sight in the space that I have to work with.

And it reminds me, as I’m looking at all of it, that it takes a lot of work to present a space or a face in a particular way, which Instagram influencers will usually not show you. They’ll tell you, as a caption to a photo of an un-made-up face (foundation doesn’t count!) that was probably chosen out of 700 photos taken in different lights and from different angles and is somehow never unflattering, that their process is messy, that they get frustrated, that they had to rip out all their seams and start over or dump three batches of sourdough before a loaf actually turned out, but somehow, even the mess is curated and controlled.

As someone who couldn’t maintain a single aesthetic on my Instagram page if I tried, I respect that. They have to apply a lot of skills and effort to maintaining their followings and selling their brand. It’s a full-time job. 

Is it a good work? (Like: a truly good thing to do) I don’t know. It seems like it’s predicated on generating and monetizing envy and dissatisfaction. But they’re also often fairly skilled and genuinely inspiring, and they show what I could do, if I put in the time and effort to learn certain skills. That inspiration may be empowering for me. When it comes to sewing, it’s undeniable that well-fitted clothing makes me feel great about myself and my body, and seeing so many people making beautiful, well-fitting clothing suggests to me that it’s something I could do too.

For me, it’s mostly just helpful to be clear-sighted about what these people are doing. I understand why heavy Instagram use correlates more highly with depression than use of any other social media platform. When you scroll uncritically, you’ll be fed a steady diet of images that depict how great life could be - if only.  There’s plenty of ink spilled in critical theory about the illusion of the photograph as objective, real, evidentiary. At the end of the day, even an exact replica of a moment is framed, both physically and temporally, and the viewer cannot see what’s outside the frame. 

I think that being aware of the motivations and efforts of the people behind the photographs, and adding that filter to everything you view, can ultimately be critical to healthily enjoying, engaging, and being inspired by these communities. That picture of that studio was beautiful. But it’s also staged, and it’s okay if my process or my space doesn’t look like that: my job is not to convince people on Instagram to buy my life, and as far as I’m concerned, the reason I live the way that I do, with some caveats, is because this is how I like it to be. I’m grateful for what these people show me, and I’m grateful for what they create. I’m also grateful for the life that I have, and I hope that amid that gratitude, I can be content and let the beautiful things simply be beautiful without needing them to be mine.

Motion

If you’ve ever been at the viewing platform at John Heinz Wildlife Refuge early in the morning, you’ve probably observed the tree swallows engaged in a flurry of acrobatic activity, zooming above the water as they catch insects in mid-air and then rush home to feed their young. They never seem to sit still long enough to actually see them, unless they’re at the nest itself, in a frazzled rush to fill the many urgent little beaks that demand food.

Their energy is admirable and they’re wonderful to watch in motion, but I was struck when I finally saw one alight on a reed at just how rarely I see them pause. For a tree swallow, that probably works - their goals are simple but urgent, all about collecting the energy needed to be a top-notch aerial insectivore.

My thoughts sometimes feel like they’re locked in a whoosh of activity, flitting here, flitting there, probably less gracefully than the tree swallows in the arcs they trace as they fly high and low. I don’t know how to slow them down, and the things I ruminate on aren’t always healthy or good when they’re points of fixation. Seeing the swallow take a moment to rest was an invitation to stillness - though it was a little easier to stop the thoughts when I had an unobstructed view of a beautiful bird to concentrate on.

Recent events have slowed all of us down, but the circumstances provoke anxiety. It’s hard to focus, as I hover over one task, then another, but never come in to land. There’s a need to plan and to fix, but too much uncertainty to make any plans or fix most problems. If you’re feeling like I am, take a moment to accept that this is how things are for reasons beyond your ability to control. Let the world be as it is. And in that freedom of giving up, let your mind slow, still, and rest. Whatever happens will be, but for now, this is the time that is given to you.

Wait

What does it take to be intentional right now? Surely we’re already being asked to do so much: hold down a job while working from home in the midst of so many distractions, figure out what to do when there is no job to hold down because working from home is impossible, try not to panic or become depressed as all the benign routines of daily life become fraught with dangers to ourselves or to others and the endless scroll of a social media homepage becomes one pandemic article after another, figure out how to obtain perishable food items without going to the store (but what about the delivery drivers and low-paid grocery store workers?). Must we also add, on top of that, a demand to be intentional?

In my archival theory readings, there’s this buzz phrase, “reading against the grain,” and I feel like what we need right now is to be very deliberate about living against the grain. The urgency and intensity of the waves of bad news are such that it can be easy to follow them wherever they lead. I’ve tried to push back by emphasizing the good amid the bad, and that’s one way to do it. But I think there’s a deeper, non-reactionary action that needs to be taken, of pausing to breathe deeply, to focus intently and deeply on one thing whether that’s a book or a meditation or a complicated bit of needlework or two birds engaged in a mating display, thereby strengthening and providing respite for your spirit, so that you can take stock of your life as it currently is, take stock of the options open to your, and respond to the moment with clarity and vision (as far out as an hour or a day or a week, if nothing longer is possible).

For some people, this is a moment of furious activity, and certainly we should do what we can to support them. But for those of us who are not so engaged, whose role is to sit and wait, this is a tremendous opportunity. What have you been ignoring in your life, because you’re (deliberately?) too busy to take care of it? What is something you have not taken the time to celebrate, for which you’re grateful and can savor delight? Have you learned anything in this experience that might shape how you live your life as, some day, restrictions are lifted and everyday life resumes a less horrifying character?

I don’t have that much time between working from home and doing schoolwork, but I’ve been trying to take my own advice to heart. My emotions in the midst of this have been informative as I attempt to communicate my aspirations to scholarship committees and see doors close and lean into difficult situations. And, unusually for me at a time when I journal less than ever before, I’ve taken the time to write those things down.

There’s only so much time one can spend in introspection, and that’s good: the world is a good place and others are worth consideration, so we can and should be involved in the external world. But we can also find ways to make this an emotionally formative and informative experience.

May your spirits be strengthened and your hearts refreshed.

Silent, with a Breeze

Two women sit across a table, six feet apart, on a back patio, drinking beers from cans that have been sanitized. One brought the other a loaf of bread.

Strangers on Facebook offer help. Friends on Facebook offer services: tutoring in music theory, in Spanish, in chemistry.

Some people at the grocery store scoff, but nervously: there’s no toilet paper, no meat in the cases, I’m not afraid like the snowflakes - but ah, the waters run clear in the Venetian canals! There are dolphins!

Florists brought the flowers from all their canceled events and gave them away in a square.

Tickets that once cost $45 and up are now free and front row: opera for everyone! (who has internet, that is)

Naturalists trapped close to home post photos of turtle doves and garter snakes, not begrudging these common friends but delighting in them. Nature is never far for those with eyes to see the mosses and the “weeds.”

Reading groups cancel, then switch to online hangouts. We’ve been ready for this for so long, and we didn’t even know it.

A birthday approaches, and as housemates discover all the delivery options, we plan for chocolate cake, for pots of mussels in white wine broth, for sanitizing every container as it comes in. It hasn’t been five days, and I’ve already used 2 pounds of butter.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a walk, because this room is quite dark, and I’ve been looking for the light.

Mycorrhizae

With each new book about nature that I read, I find the story of competition for limited resources less and less compelling. The understories and overstories of trees are generous spaces, in which sick trees are nourished or dying trees send forth warnings of infestation that others may prepare against the onslaught. Stromatolites exist as a community of bacteria and other microorganisms, each contributing in its own way and reliant in its own way on the activities of others. We live in networks with one another, and we live and die by the strength of our community. If I lose, it is your loss too. If you lose, I grieve with you. Individualistic Western society embraced the model of survival of the fittest, but communalism recognizes that though this story has been explanatorily useful, it is not the final word.

A Long Overdue Meditation

"An so we've wrestled the cup out of Jesus's hand, and we've replaced it with a chalice, because who doesn't know that a chalice is more sacred than a cup? Never mind that Jesus didn't use a chalice, because if it's gold-plated and jewel-encrusted, it is more sacred." - Gregory Boyle

I don't know if I accept this without qualification. I can see a scenario in which love motivates the giving of the chalice into the hand of Jesus, not because it is more sacred, but because the crafting and purchase of it would have entailed sacrifices on the part of the followers. Is it so bad to wish to give something beautiful? I will not give offerings that cost me nothing.

But I think there is a lovely, quiet nugget of truth in the statement, which is that the humble everyday can be sacred. It does not take great gifts or great lengths to find the sacred into our lives. We can cherish what is small too: the blessings that don't cast a large shadow except in our hearts, the moments of generosity in friendship, the beauty of the natural and the mundane (taking a moment to give thanks for so much that we have the privilege to experience). The humble becomes sacred in how it is used, with gratitude, generosity, compassion, and love. And, since Boyle mentioned it, the same is true of the chalice.

Books of 2019

As is traditional, here is the list of books I have read in 2019. I was on quite a roll up until August, when to the surprise of no one, including but also except myself (what the conscious mind grasps can still startle the subconscious mind), it turned out that it was very hard to read much over and above my homework assignments. Still, I was please in reviewing the past few months to find that I had actually managed a fair bit, either through going to the Shakespeare Free Read-Aloud Group (yes, that counts) or through reading shorter works associated with the topics of my courses.

I don't have enough time or energy to go through and highlight or comment on the list as I've done in recent years, so formatting will have to suffice: Entries with an asterisk are those that most profoundly impressed or influenced my thinking or left me feeling intangibly richer for having read them. Entries in bold are ones that I read at the solicited recommendation of a friend. And a word to Dan, Kim, or Eli if you are reading this: your books are carrying over with me into the new year.

*The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World - Andrea Wulf
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Postliberation Eritrea - ed. Tekle Mariam Woldemikael
*Chesapeake Requiem - Earl Swift
*The Violent Bear It Away - Flannery O’Conner
American Fascists - Chris Hedges
A Feast of Snakes - Harry Crewes
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Theory of Justice - John Rawls
They Thought They Were Free - Milton Mayer
The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories - Mark Twain
The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim
Finding God in the Waves - Mike McHargue
Labyrinths and Other Stories - Jorge Luis Borges
The Last Hours - Minette Walters
Oblivion - David Foster Wallace
*The Overstory - Richard Powers
The Concept of Law - H.L.A. Hart
The Country Girls - Edna O’Brien
Black Leopard Red Wolf - Marlon James
Known and Strange Things - Teju Cole
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver
*Hadji Murad - Leo Tolstoy
Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Machado
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Munnu - Malik Sajad
Sula - Toni Morrison
The Mark of the Grizzly - Scott McMillion
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin
The Control of Nature - John McPhee
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
*War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy
What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia - Elizabeth Catte
In Search of Sir Thomas Browne - Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Imagined Communities - Benedict Anderson
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Circe - Madeline Miller
Sea Grapes - Derek Walcott
The Life and Death of King John - Shakespeare
Death and the Maiden - Ariel Dorfman
*Dopesick - Beth Macy
Five Moral Pieces - Umberto Eco
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
Reader, Come Home - Maryanne Wolf
Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Days - Salman Rushdie
Who Fears Death? - Nnedi Okorafor
Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare
States of Inquiry - Oz Frankel
*The Songs of Trees - David George Haskell
The Archivist Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order - Kate Eichhorn
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih
How to Do Nothing - Jenny Odell
The Stone Building and Other Places - Asli Erdogan
*The Dark Fantastic - Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

What will I be reading in 2020? Currently, I'm halfway through The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod, with The Science of Cheese and Underland on deck. My guiding selection principle for crafting a list of books to read is "books that are under 180 pages or over 500." It was only "under 180" until I realized that I need to read Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman this year, and the only way to get it on the list was re-drawing some inspired boundaries (or I guess I could have claimed that it was actually 5 180-page books in one volume, but I'm uneasy with universally applicable rules). Who knows? Maybe this will be the year that I finally read Gone with the Wind! I am still accepting suggestions for books under 180 pages, though if you've already mentioned one, it's already on my list.