A Smaller Life

 

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to have “a big life.” I’ve heard other people saying that they either wanted or were proud to have a big life. Why, I wondered, isn’t it challenge enough just to have a life? Must it be big?

I’m a physically large person and my size sometimes troubles me.  I feel I’m taking up too much room. I remember seeing a T-shirt message that read, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” That’s me, I thought.

Big lives often take up too much space, especially if they involve very frequent long flights for very brief vacations. If they involve excessive consumption of unnecessary possessions. If enough is never enough.

I was inspired by reading Steven Heighton’s recent article in The Toronto Star: On Hope and Embracing the Smallest Life You Can Love, in which he writes about the relief he felt after the Covid-imposed shutdown in his city resulted in a reduction of traffic, of construction, of the noise created by constant expansion. Like so many, he appreciates the slowing down which has him planting a garden.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2020/09/19/steven-heighton-on-hope-and-embracing-the-smallest-life-you-can-love.html?fbclid=IwAR0t0kvnVhV7cEFR9ubw67R3YFspMdP3mj1WaPNkAsNfc-1wCeb2KhQUFmk

Many people are celebrating the slow-down -- the Pause that is allowing them to reflect on what is really important to them. As I wrote in an earlier blog, the caesura, in music and in literature is the space that helps us to catch our breath, appreciate the present moment, and perhaps move forward into positive changes. The Covid Caesura.

The Covid shrinking of our lives is allowing us to see more clearly what is very close to home, which is what Blake encourages us to do at the start of Auguries of Innocence:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

In this poem, Blake goes on to encourage us to look at contrasts and extremes within a framework which suggests that beauty can be found in common places and that what is at hand, and in the moment, can contain vastness. The whole poem invites us to re-read and reflect upon it. And it proposes that a smaller life can be a good life.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence

I’m glad Heighton notes that it’s possible for a life to be too small. Some people are enduring lives in which their basic needs are not met and those lives are not loveable. It’s incumbent on the rest of us to chip in, to help out, and to vote for better allocations in government spending in order to reduce poverty and homelessness. Basic Income would be a good start.

If more of us learn to love the small life, perhaps more people’s lives can become loveable. It will require some of us to shrink our appetites and use smaller plates so we can provide more space and make room for others.

  

To See or Not to See

 

Because of the virus, many of us are spending an unusual amount of time on Zoom and have found ourselves gazing at our own reflections. It’s not pleasant. Where did those wrinkles and wattles, extra chins, age spots and skin tags come from? When did they appear? Who knew?

Everyone but oneself, apparently.

I think of Robert Burns’ lines: O, wad some Power the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us! The gods listened, and Zoom gave us that gift.

It’s never been a good idea to look at ourselves in the mirror for too long or too often. Remember what happened to Snow White’s evil stepmother?

Fortunately, the gods not only giveth but they can also taketh away.  When my granddaughter showed me how to “Hide Self View,” it took care of one of my problems. I no longer see myself, which is a good thing.

But there remains the problem of seeing others and making eye contact. I’ve been told that I should always look directly at the camera so as to create the impression that I’m looking at the viewer. If I actually look at the person who is talking, I appear to be looking away from them. It’s a conundrum.

There’s no way to really connect on Zoom, no way to have actual eye contact, the thing that Meleau-Ponty once described as “mutually enfolding glances”: https://www.mic.com/p/the-bizarre-intimacy-of-zoom-meetings-22684781

That said, I feel a lot of gratitude for the ways in which technology allows us to see our loved ones, to take courses, enjoy discussions and learn new things in different ways while still maintaining safe distances and following Covid procedures.

Years ago, when I worked as a social worker in a psychiatric setting, some therapists encouraged us to work in pairs in order to experience long sessions of silent eye contact. I remember being partnered with a very perceptive young schizophrenic man who quickly observed, “You’re not very good at this, are you?”

He was right. Back then I wasn’t a fan of extensive eye contact with strangers, but now I miss it.

However, as happens so frequently in these Covid times, “there’s a silver lining” – an expression we hear more and more often. A friend of mine was recently in a waiting room at the hospital for several hours, and for most of that time was sitting across from a young woman to whom she never spoke. Nonetheless, they formed a strong connection. Both masked, they glanced at each other – “mutually enfolding glances,” it seems – as they responded to the long wait as people came and went around them. The two of them were able, non-verbally, to communicate humour, frustration, boredom and, eventually, relief. My friend later said, “I will never forget that young woman’s eyes.”

In the early days of the virus, masks seemed alien. Now we’re able to lift up our eyes and we’re beginning to see each other in new ways.

 

Cornucopia

I like Thanksgiving and I’ve always had many reasons to feel thankful, but never more than this year. In the midst of widespread misery, misfortune, pain and suffering, how could I not feel grateful for my comfortable circumstances? 

It’s true that the coronavirus has caused most of us to experience some small hardships, but what do these minor inconveniences matter at a time when over 10,000 people in our province have contacted the virus, almost 180,000 in Canada. and over 37 million around the world, and with over a million deaths from this disease so far this year? Living on Vancouver Island at this time is fortunate. 

Celebrations of thankfulness have a long history. Medieval communities in Europe held festivals to express thanks for the fruits and vegetables that were harvested each autumn. In many places, Lammas Day celebrated the first fruits of the earth with a loaf made from the new crop being blessed in church. Pagan communities offered up fruits of the harvest to the gods in thankfulness and held ceremonies that involved games, feasting, dancing and pilgrimages. The cornucopia or “horn of plenty” was an important symbol for these celebrations. 

Thanksgiving was originally declared a holiday in Canada on November 6th, 1879. Of course, Indigenous peoples in Canada have a history of having held feasts to celebrate the fall harvest for thousands of years before any European settlers arrived on their land. And, although settler society chooses just this one day as a time for offering thanks, I’ve been told that Indigenous peoples include the giving of thanks in all their ceremonies. We might learn from this example and include gratitude routinely in our daily lives. 

This Thanksgiving, I’m trying to express gratitude to everyone I encounter: people in grocery stores, coffee shops, banks, and so forth. All the people who turn up to work as usual, despite the virus. On Sunday, I’ll toast and appreciate friends and family, near and far. Some dear friends from Ottawa sent me seasonal greetings along with seven carefully-pressed, colourful Eastern maple leaves of various sizes. We’ll have these leaves decorating our Thanksgiving table, just as my friends always did when I was with them for Thanksgiving in past years. 

When I reflect on the cornucopia of abundance that is in my life, I think of the beauty of all the trees that surround us, the forests that we must work to preserve. I’m reminded of Wendell Berry’s wonderful poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front: Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. 

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/manifesto-the-mad-farmer-liberation-front/ 

The poem concludes: Practice resurrection. 

And so, to some friends and family who are close at hand this Thanksgiving, I’m practicing resurrection by giving them a few bulbs to plant as a way of marking 2020 and anticipating the flowers that will bloom in the spring of 2021. I’m also planting some myself. 

I think it’s a good occasion for us to feel the earth in our hands – as indeed it is. 

A time to hope and plant for the future. 

A time to dig deep.

Octopus Teachers

 

 

I’ve always loved octopi, and have spent long sessions at aquariums watching and talking to them.

Everything about the octopi fascinates me: the smooth, graceful approaches, the slow undulations of their many tentacles, and the swift shape-shifting retreats. I’ve heard that they can recognize and become friends with humans and, on a holiday to Tacoma many years ago, I became convinced that a large octopus in the aquarium at Point Defiance Park knew and liked me. “Look,” I said to my husband. “See how he rushes up to the glass when I come close. He changes colour and folds and unfolds his tentacles.”

My husband was unconvinced. “No,” he said, “It’s anger that changes his colour. He’s racing towards you because he wants to break through the glass and strangle you.”

Nonetheless, my infatuation continued and I had yearnings, like those of Ringo Starr, to be under the sea in an octopus’s garden. I frequently sang along with Ringo: We would shout, And swim about, The coral that lies beneath the waves.

My infatuation returned when I watched Netflix’s extraordinarily beautiful documentary, My Octopus Teacher. It’s a film we need right now, not just for its poignant love story but also for real lessons that might help us in coping with the pandemic.

In this film, I was fascinated when the diver and director Craig Foster hesitantly extends one arm and the octopus slowly unfolds her own, reaching out to touch his hand and stroke his arm. Tears came to my eyes and I felt a wave of shock at the encounter, one which was similar to that described by Annie Dillard in her brilliant essay Living Like Weasels: https://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/dillard_weasel.htm

It seems we experience something positive and transformational when we’re confronted with what is foreign and frightening. And maybe such encounters can change how we perceive the world and how we live in it.

The underwater world is dangerous. Foster decides not to intervene when a predator shark follows the octopus. At first, the little octopus hides under a rock but the shark manages to get close enough to bite off a limb, leaving the creature bleeding and seriously weakened. Yet, after a while, she recovers and soon a tiny tentacle appears. Her regenerative powers have produced a new limb.

Later in the film, we watch the octopus cleverly dodge a predator shark. She faces the danger directly, jumping onto the shark’s back, hanging on, and holding fast until the situation changes and she’s able to escape.

We’ve all suffered painful amputations over the past six months. Humans can’t grow new limbs but, like the octopus, we can find ways to rebound and to experience renewal. Remembering that the octopus was an important symbol in Ancient Rome, I find myself thinking of the Latin words resilio and renovo. Rebound. Renew.

By being smart and hanging on.

And holding fast until things change.