Earthworms

I’m enjoying seeing the robins proudly perching on my fence. The robins are enjoying seeing worms out on the grass -- and they’re very proud of their catches. The circle of life continues.

Some of my early childhood memories involve my older brother collecting buckets of worms for a fishing expedition. The image of these worms, pink and slimy, writhing around in the bucket, was disturbing. I didn’t like the worms, but I was sorry to think of them being fastened on hooks as bait for fish. The fish too were soon to die, of course. More circle of life stuff.

There are many ways in which worms can make one uncomfortable: the pallid, slimy look of them, the way they squiggle, their underground nature. Some therapists suggest that in dreams worms symbolize negative feelings of degradation or weakness. In everyday life, worms have unpleasant associations: when we die, we become food for worms; a difficult problem becomes a can of worms; unethical people worm information out of us, or worm their way into things. Wormy food is infested or damaged. Wormy people are weak, unpleasant or untrustworthy.

But recently I’ve encountered other ways of looking at worms. Gardeners delight in worms and have always known about their importance. Growers study composting techniques, and sometimes have been known to buy worms. You can buy them by the pound or inch at a store near you, or you can order online.

My friend Al McWilliam, a Vancouver artist, says “Worms are the ultimate transformers: they take waste and turn it into something valuable.” Inspired by the transformative contributions worms were making to his compost, Al took photographs of worms burrowing through his compost and made large prints of the results. These photographs have been shown io various settings and about five years ago they were turned into signs with the text “Development Permit Application,” under the auspices of Other Sights, as part of Vancouver Western Front’s multi-site exhibition called “Urgent Imagination:”

ttps://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/worms-inspire-mount-pleasant-art-exhibition-3020340

The exhibition encouraged viewers to reflect on what development means and to consider the kind of development that is taking place underground, not just the rapid development above. As part of the exhibition, Meredith Quartermain read a poem about worms called “How to Remember.” In it, she asks, “Earthworms who eat rotting leaves in temperate forests are invasive species, but Homo sapiens who burn down forests for hamburger farms are creating wealth?”

http://urgentimagination.front.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/How-To-Remember-Meredith-Quartermain.pdf

Al says he sees the worms as “kind of beautiful and elegant,” which would be a stretch for me, but I have to acknowledge that they do valuable work. In fact, as world-renowned Canadian scientist and humanitarian Ursula Franklin has pointed out, they present a useful model for social change and development:

“Social change will not come to us like an avalanche down the mountain,” she said. “It will come through seeds growing in well prepared soil – and it is we, like the earthworms, who prepare the soil. We also seed thoughts and knowledge and concern. We realize there are no guarantees as to what will come up. Yet we do know that without the seeds and prepared soil nothing will grow at all… we need more earthworming.” (For more on Ursula Franklin, read her book The Real World of Technology based on her CBC Massy Lectures.)

Maybe the pandemic has presented us with the critical need for earthworming, not just in the creation and cultivation of gardens, but in thinking about how we might prepare the soil for social change. What seeds of thought and knowledge and concern could we be planting as we emerge from our isolation? Like it or not, this is a time of change, so let’s keep up our earthworming, preparing the soil and choosing the seeds that matter.

Good Work

 Fifty years ago, E.F. Schumacher wrote a book called Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered. It combined thoughts about environmentalism and economics in a way that challenged what Schumacher called “gigantism” and the philosophy of “bigger is better.” In it, Schumacher proposed that the economic system was dehumanizing and that big organizations destroyed the satisfaction people could enjoy from good work. A number of Schumacher’s lectures were later summarized in Good Work, which was published after his death. 

During the 70’s, both books were hailed as influential and they prompted discussion about globalization and sustainability. At the same time, slogans such as “Zero Population growth,” and “Think Global, Act Local,” were popular. References to Schumacher’s writing declined in subsequent decades, but recently there has been a new interest in his ideas:

http://ceconforum.org/2019/02/18/reading-e-f-schumacher-in-2019/

https://centerforneweconomics.org/publications/e-f-schumacher-he-taught-us-to-build-bridges-and-plant-trees/

Although he would likely have been discouraged to see that the model of production has not changed and the profit motive has not lessened, Schumacher would certainly be pleased about the increased focus on the environment and he’d probably be delighted to see the interest in community gardening and home gardens. A recent study shows that the pandemic has caused many Canadians to create or expand home gardens: https://www.dal.ca/sites/agri-food/research/home-food-gardening-during-covid-19.html.

This year, several people I know developed a new interest in gardening. Some who lack outdoor space have started growing plants on their balconies or patios. Others have expanded their gardens and also built greenhouses. Many say that gardening is what’s keeping them sane during increased Covid numbers, uncertainty, restrictions, and lockdowns. These gardeners seem to me to be the happiest people I know. And they don’t mind getting their hands dirty!

Which reminds me of a recent poem that inspires me:

Ode to Dirt

by Sharon Olds

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters—the plants
and animals and human animals.
It’s as if I had loved only the stars
and not the sky which gave them space
in which to shine. Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you’re our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials—
cousins of that first exploding from nothing—
in our intricate equation together. O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

 

Sharon Olds is an American poet who is worth reading Check out her website: https://www.sharonolds.net/biography

Many poets have written about the importance of gardening. Margaret Atwood is frequently quoted as saying, “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” May Sarton said, “Gardening is an instrument of grace.” Then there is 18^th century poet and artist Minnie Aumonier’s memorable line, “When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.” That seems particularly appropriate just now.

But, thinking of Schumacher’s writings and the need to recognize the beauty of a smaller world, I’m reminded of Voltaire’s Candide. Searching for the “best of all possible worlds,” Candide travels from country to country witnessing and experiencing horrendous hardship, misfortune, cruelty and painful disillusion. Finally, he settles on a small farm and sets to work. The final words of the novel are “il faut cultiver notre jardin" -- we must cultivate our garden.

It looks like a lot of people are doing just that. It’s hopeful!

Springing Up

 

It’s that time of year when everything seems to be springing up – daffodils, cherry blossoms, birds, vaccine dates, feelings of hope. Covid numbers are also springing up, and last week my heart rate decided to rise up… and down… and up even higher. In a highly irregular way.

So it was back to Emergency at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital for me last week, as was the case last summer. At that time, I had a cardio version procedure that served me well up until now. Again this year I had the same procedure and, once again, I’m feeling well. And very grateful to the professional staff who treated me so kindly, carefully and professionally. My nurse, Amanda, Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Lane, the respiratory assistant and other staff were helpful and efficient.

I know a few people who've had very different and extremely frustrating experiences at NRGH, but my own experience was positive. I felt lucky to receive such good care, especially during a pandemic with the additional challenges it brings. I wrote last year that hearts on windows and banging on pots could not begin to express what we owe to our health workers. That’s still true. I’m grateful to all of them. And thankful for the excellent Medicare programs provided by out federal and provincial governments. I feel fortunate.

It looks as though some things may soon begin to open up. Easter is traditionally a time to celebrate resilience and rebirth. Again, we hope for that.

But everything is different now. This Easter, most of us are emerging from one of the most challenging years we’ve known -- a year of uncertainty, isolation, apprehension and loneliness. Part of our resbirth will mean learning to live differently. It’s been a whole year of learning how to live carefully, which should help. It reminds me of an ee cummings poem about spring:

Spring is like a perhaps hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

Things will continue to change as we move through this spring, into summer, and into whatever is yet to come.

Let’s hope we can embrace all the changes carefully, “without breaking anything.”

And not only with care; acceptance is also needed.  I have to accept that my atrial fibrillation is such that it’s time for me to stop drinking. That’s not too hard. What will be harder, and just as necessary, is learning to accept that viruses have always been with us and that this one and its variants are here to stay.

Instead of fighting the virus, I want to learn to accept it. Farmers I know, and people who live by the water, have learned to accept mice and rats as part of their environment. Just another species. Part of the web of life.

If we can accept these viruses, maybe we can learn to live with them.

But we’ll have to keep being very careful.

 

 

 

Respecting Necessity

 

There’s an Italian saying I like: Bisogna andare quando il diavole e vella coda. The similar French saying is, Il faut marcher quand le diable est aux trousses; In English, it’s Needs must when the devil drives.

More simply, one might just say, I gotta do what I gotta do. No need to blame the devil.

It got me thinking about the word “need.” Reason not the need, King Lear said, when his daughters told him he no longer needed the number of servants to which he’d become accustomed. Lear tries to explain that people need more than the fundamental necessities of life if they are to be happy: Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life's as cheap as beast's:

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/lear.2.4.html

Lear is telling us that there's a deeper longing that lies below the experience of need. Something to do with humanity, dignity and survival.

I think those are the things that can always be within reach, when we are faced with necessity. Whether it’s about the end of a relationship, a reversal in health or finances, or the loss of a job, we have to acknowledge necessity and come to terms with it.

Years ago, I worked with a psychologist who asked his patients to write sentences beginning with I can’t… I’m afraid to… and I need to… and then crossing them out and replacing them with I won’t…I’d like to…and I want to … It often made sense to me. Beneath “can’t,” there is often stubbornness, a failure to admit that it’s something we don’t want rather than anything we’re unable to do. Beneath fear, there can be an unexpressed wish to be more daring. Beneath “need,” there may lie the possibility of a deeper desire that has not yet have been acknowledged.

The last year has been one in which we were all facing necessity. A global pandemic forced us to accept a new reality. It is what it is, we said about being locked down, shuttered in our own homes. Having only Zoom and Netflix for companionship. Eating take-away meals, within our household, often alone, instead of going out for our usual dinners with friends. We had to learn how to suck it up.

Necessity is the mother of invention, is another old saying. When we’re forced to admit necessity, we’re challenged to dig deeper and to reach higher. And we did. We learned new ways of being and doing. We revised out notion of what we’d previously thought of as our needs, in order to accept a new reality. 

I’ve thought a lot about necessity over the past year. It’s been a time of digging into our deepest needs and reaching out to come up with new and creative ways to satisfy them.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an American poet and journalist of the early 20^th century, was a popular writer, best known for what are now trite lines like, Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone.” Her work isn't often quoted these days, but I was struck by her poem about necessity in which she claimed that without necessity, whom she’d "long considered a foe,” she never should have dug deep in my soul and found the mine of treasures hidden there.

http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/poems/pnecessi.htm

Yesterday I heard an epidemiologist describing the new Variants of Concern and referring to viruses as shapeshifters. Humans can also be shapeshifters. Shifting our shape might present a challenge for the viruses that are attacking us! 

We all possess potential and resources that are far greater than we realize, until we’re forced to discover them. Positive shifts are possible. In the past year, we’ve learned how to live carefully.

Maybe, years from now, when the pandemic is behind us, we’ll appreciate what it required us to find within ourselves.

We'll respect necessity.

 

 

Drooping Spirits

I think the term in French is l’esprit tombant.  Or maybe l’esprit triste. Or l'esprit embrouillé. Whatever it’s called, my spirits have been drooping these last few days.

It helps to know that many other people are affected with this condition as we enter the second year of restrictions. Sue Horner, an Ontario-based freelance writer who has a website called Get It Write, offers some useful suggestions that propose turning to creativity as a way of lifting one’s spirits.

https://getitwrite.ca/2020/10/02/spark-creativity/

I’ve tried all of her tips and they do help. It also helps to have a French term for these feelings. I like the French l’esprit for spirit, and I especially like the expression l’esprit d’escalier, the spirit of the staircase, which refers to the things you think you might have said once you are already on the way out and it’s too late. I know that as soon as I send this post out I will think of something clever that I should have said.

For the moment, though, it's enough to note that time passes, and my mood today is now more positive. Many people I love will receive vaccines this month. I will probably get one sometime in April. Things are looking up.

And, anyway, I can shame myself into lifting my own spirits by reading Lucinda Matlock’s sharp words in Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology:

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,

Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?

Degenerate sons and daughters,

Life is too strong for you —

It takes life to love Life.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45935/lucinda-matlock

The days are getting warmer and longer. The trees are showing that shimmer of green that lifts the spirit and brings new hope. And Lucinda Matlock always spurs me to press on.

However, I’ve just looked at my website and find that, since March of last year, I've sketched and written 52 posts on my blog, most of them referring to the pandemic.. It's now time to step back -- maybe step outdoors as well -- and reduce my blogging to every second week. Later, I might reduce it to once a month.

There’s lots to do, but only so much to say about it all. And maybe I won’t be needing blog therapy as much as I did over the past year.

Onwards! Happy March, dear blog-readers!

 REMINDER: People have told me they’ve sent replies to the Carol Matthews These Days emails but, for some reason, I don’t get them. They disappear into the stratosphere. If you would like to comment or reply, please email me directly: wayword@telus.net.

Grief

Last week I was writing about love.

This week, it’s grief and loss. The other side of the coin.

Nine years ago on February 25th, my husband died. He had spent 10 days in the acute ward of the hospital and 8 days in palliative care. It was sudden, quick, aggressive and, in one way, merciful. For him, maybe. But not for me.

I miss him every day -- and yet still feel his presence.

A few weeks ago, a man with whom I’d been friends for 50 years died, after a long illness. Since then, two other dear friends were rushed to hospitals in Victoria and Vancouver. Last week I learned that the wife of another long-time friend is in palliative care. Grief and loss are very much on my mind.

As Edgar says in King Lear, Men must endure their going hence even as their coming hither. We must all endure the loss of those we love, and grief is the other side of love. As George Saunders said in a Five Dials (Number 10) tribute to his friend, David Foster Wallace, Grief is the bill that comes due for love.

For me, it feels like a lifelong mortgage that I’ll never be able to pay off.

I’m not one of those who often talk about the silver linings of the pandemic. I do think that we’re all learning a great deal and that many of us are connecting more, and with more people, than ever before. But I also know that there's a lot of grief and loss at this time.

It’s especially sad for those who, bereaved and grieving, are unable to have family and friends gather round. We aren’t able to participate in memorials to speak of those we have loved and lost. Nothing makes a deep loss go away, but some things make it even harder to bear.

What to do about it? The most poignant poem I know about grief is Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art, (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art). It’s well worth reading the whole poem. She writes about the many losses she has endured, noting that many were not too hard to master. Yet she acknowledges that others seem disastrous:

It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

When Bishop says (Write it!) ,I believe she’s speaking about the absolute need to give words to the loss.

As McDuff says in Macbeth, The grief that does not speak whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.

 We’re all suffering from grief and loss as a result of this pandemic. We know that we must endure whatever hardships it brings, but it’s essential that, at the same time, we express the grief and loss we’re feeling.

 Otherwise, our hearts will surely break.

 

 

 

Hearts and Flowers

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. A time of hearts and flowers.

Hearts and Flowers is the name of a song composed in 1893 by Theodore Moses-Tobani. It was frequently played as an accompaniment to silent movies and was later associated with melodrama, In 1954 Johnny Desmond referred to it in the title of his hit “Play Me Hearts and Flowers (I want to Cry).” The song was also referenced in Noel Coward’s “Family Affair” and in Amazing Spider Man #45. A sweetly sentimental song, at least one actor requested that it be played for her in order for her to be able to generate real tears!  There are many versions of the song on the internet, and I think this one is especially engaging in a poignant sort of way. Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnXOr8GvKcQ

People frequently give flowers to loved ones on Valentine’s Day. I have a potful of mixed spring bulbs coming into bloom in my living room -- a very nice thing on a snowy February day. Flowers lift our spirits and are sometimes seen as a symbol of romantic love. Because of this, florists often advise people to “say it with flowers.”

Hearts and flowers, hearts and love. I’ve been thinking about hearts lately, not just because of Valentine’s Day but also because I have a few friends who have been dealing with matters of the heart that required surgery. Thankfully, heart surgery is being performed expertly in our hospitals. Our hearts are in good hands in this province.

The association between hearts and love has a long history going back centuries to the Greeks and Romans. Marilyn Yalmon’s book, The Amorous Heart: An Unconventional History of Love, traces that history from ancient times through to the appearance of the heart emoji in 1973. Yalmon concludes that “The continued global popularity of the heart as a symbol for love offers us a small dose of hope, serving as a reminder of the ageless assumption that love can save us.”:

https://ideas.ted.com/how-did-the-human-heart-become-associated-with-love-and-how-did-it-turn-into-the-shape-we-know-today/

At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw a great many hearts on doors, windows and balconies as a symbol to recognize the dedication of our health care workers. Lately, I have seen far fewer. We’re all getting accustomed to the pandemic and are less panicky about it than we were at the start. But, a year later, the nurses, doctors and other essential workers are still risking their health as they turn up for work every day.

There have been many reports of just how deeply nurses and doctors are feeling the strain of the pandemic as they keep battling the virus day after day, month after month. I think we’re all conscious of the sacrifices that are being made by all our essential workers, but I’d like to see a greater appreciation being kept at the forefront. It was good to read in the Toronto Star that a new initiative of appreciation was initiated two weeks ago in several Ontario communities:

Hearts for Healthcare Workers initiative comes to Tudor and Cashel | The Star

I’m looking at hearts differently these days because I think if there is one message that has come from the pandemic, it's about love. I find myself thinking about Dylan Thomas’s poem, And Death Shall Have No Dominion: https://poets.org/poem/and-death-shall-have-no-dominion

P K Page, in Hologram (Brick Books, 1994), used Thomas’s poem as the basis for her wonderful glosa “Love’s Pavilion” and concludes

Though lovers be lost, love shall not.

Hand in hand we shall say Amen

And we shall dance and we shall sing

With Love, with Love for companion.

 

Page also refers to love at the end of her prescient story, Unless the Eye Catch Fire, when she says “We share one heart.”

 

That may be one of the lessons we are now learning.