201118 "Not try to hold on"*
Quebec, September."Changes in lifestyle, aims and dreams, and those stemming from covid-19, have shaken up who I am: so much is new. But I feel more myself, not less: grounded; the earth has stopped shaking for a little while." That was two weeks ago (blog post 201105); then three days ago (201115) I said, "I am struggling, or perhaps falling; I can't find anything to hold on to, except K. I barely know myself."
On the fifth I called the shake-up "a perfect storm of existential review and change" and it felt like the earth had stopped shaking, temporarily. When I was a kid at our cottage on the Huron shore, thunderstorms seemed to move across the Bruce and circle back again for a second or even a third pass bringing more wind and rain and thunder. Now, this storm of self-discovery will doubtless circle around again. Selfhood is a progression of learning and adaptation that doesn't stop and though there may be times of certainty and solid ground, life will shift and the wind will pick up again. We get a glimpse of understanding and then it vanishes. It's hard to trust that it will return, or that it has not gone; it is still there, but unseeable, intangible, for now.
There is a moment in The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin, when the protagonist Shevek sees the unifying solution he is seeking. "It was revelation. It was the way clear, the way home, the light. ... The moment was gone; he saw it going. He did not try to hold on to it. He knew he was part of it, not it of him. He was in its keeping."*
It might be a forest and trees contradiction. We walk among the trees, the physical days and nights, busy navigating the tripping roots, the undergrowth of burrs and twigs, our minds intent on safe passage - only occasionally can we envision, comprehend, the entirety of the forest as world, as one entity. Every day there are tangled branches and flooded streams, life situations that are out of our control that we nevertheless must get through, fighting and waiting by turns, with strength or patience. All the while we continue to look for meaning and knowledge. I draw a breath and try not to panic in uncertainty.
How many times do I have to learn the same lesson? Or is it that one cannot step into the same river twice? It's not the same lesson.
The Missisquoi River, 375 million years old.
*****
Covid-19 has Hansel-and-Gretel'ed us. We are all wandering in a forest of dark uncertainty and fear. But time won't stop, and one way or another we will get through it. Shelter in place, stick to the paths you know. Help each other. Above all, be kind, and help each other.
*****
This morning there was a frosting of snow. Robin, Indre and I went to the Arctic, stomped in deep snow, skated across a river, saw bison huddled and caribou running. We returned home in time for school.
Mumma Yaga
* Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed, 1974, Avon Books, pp 225-6
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