Twenty Years

I don't tend to believe in accidents. Things happen for a universal reason, and I suppose that reduces to a religious belief, because what else is God but a sense of universal reason? That probably reduces to a rather bleak world view, too, because it implies that we have no control over what happens to us, but to me, it's how we react to what happens to us that shapes us. Circumstances are nothing; perspective is everything.

Anyway, due to a belief in cosmic reason, I thought it significant that I finished reading Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer's story of Christopher McCandless and his starvation in the Alaska bush, on the anniversary of my mother's death. His story is the perfect metaphor for her addiction. Addiction is a simultaneous running away from and running toward: fleeing a life that's too disappointing, that somehow doesn't measure up while running toward some ideal of self or existence, running toward something that explains or negates your current reality.

McCandless was a brilliant young man, disillusioned with the world, taking journeys that left him feeling isolated and dislocated from society when he encountered it. He was loving and compassionate, generous with his feelings and his possessions, while at the same time excising his parents from his life with a cold, calculated gesture. That was my mother's story as well - a brilliant young woman whose journeys with alcohol and drugs left her too raw to function in day-to-day life and leading her to make more distance journeys into their realm. She gave freely of herself, worked tirelessly to help her students, and at the same time, lashed out in ways that left those of us closest to her with scars, both mental and physical.

Like the McCandless family, I struggled to understand what would compel someone to retreat in such a fashion, to reject what seemed so obvious, to search for something that seemed so elusive and fleeting. After twenty years, I still don't really have answers, don't understand why the life she had was so uncomfortable, why she seemed to move through the world with raw skin, or what drove her to leave us time and again for something that never seemed to comfort her for long. The story of addiction remains as alien and inexplicable to me as Chris's story. While I can intellectualize the individual decisions and choices, can rationalize the thought process at work, I can't seem to reach a place where the whole process comes into focus, where the parts fall into place and become equal to the sum.

Searching for meaning is a complex concept. It's occupied the minds of philosophers through the ages, and perhaps we're not any closer to an answer, because the answer is different for all of us. Some people don't seem to search; they seem to abhor the effort, to lead the unexamined life in the ignorance we're told is bliss. Some people seem to know exactly what they're looking for and exactly how to get it, while others stumble around for awhile and find contentment, sometimes genuine, sometimes just out of the awareness of the alternative of continuing to search. Some people seem to have a sense of where a path will lead, while others don't seem to care, blazing new trails heedless with both awesome and awful results.

At the end, I suppose it doesn't matter. Both Christopher McCandless and my mother ventured into a place fraught with danger, a place where their families could not reach them and a place they could not have been called back from anyway. I've learned that I can't explain the results. I can understand the motivation, the search, that set their feet on that journey, and I have to accept that the path led out of sight, through terrain I can't follow, through a thought process I can't reconstruction. To understand that initial need to search is all I have, and in the end, all possible human stories are reduced to the same process - seeking and finding or seeking and failing. The inherent joy and tragedy in both deserve respect. We only hope that at some undefined end the seekers find satisfaction. After all, we're seekers too, and we need to hold onto that belief - that our lives will make sense, if only to us.

Woohoo!

I've been struggling for words since last night, which seems odd, considering how many feelings I've been bombarded by in the last 24 hours.

I believe we've elected a president that I actually feel proud of. Not the guy that was just less terrible than the other guy, not the guy who won by default for lack of real opposition, not the guy with great policies but a messy personal life, but a guy that I believe in.

We've elected someone other than the traditional white male. And that's huge for African-Americans, huge in a way that I don't even think I can understand, but it's huge for white folks too. We've developed a picture of racism in our country, a picture of ourselves as people we needed to be ashamed of, and last night proved that wasn't true. We're not who we've been told we are, we might not even be who we thought we were.

I've heard someone in politics talk about honesty and unity and hard work and make me believe that he meant it. Last night, I didn't hear someone who was trying to tie himself to a past in order to lift himself, but someone who was trying to tie us to our own past in order to lift us.

We've elected someone out of hope instead of fear. We've been in a dark and hopeless place, and worse, everyone keeps telling us that it really isn't dark and hopeless. Finally, someone shows up, acknowledges the truth, but says that there's a way out, that together we'll find it, that it isn't going to be easy, but that it WILL happen.

Everything seems trite, but I just can't express how proud I am that so many people opted to believe in the process, to believe in hope, to believe that the world can be a better place. We can be the version of ourselves that we want to be and the version of ourselves that we believe we once were, and I think we're all ready to do the work.

The Process

Our tiny little backroads township hall was packed this morning. Before the polls opened, the parking lot was full and the line stretched the length of the building. One man said in thirty years of voting there, he'd never seen so many people. We all stood around in the dark and the cold, making conversation with people we didn't know, and as the sun started to come up across the fields, I couldn't help but get a little teary. It's an amazing process, this election business, and after all these years, it still works. Americans can be oblivious and self-absorbed, but when push comes to shove, when we really believe it matters, we still come out, stand in line and participate in an orderly process with surprisingly little direction.

I find that the polls always make me confront my assumptions. There are guys in jeans and quilted flannel, John Deere ballcaps, women dressed for factory work, guys in ties - people getting ready to head off in all possible directions for the day, white collar, blue collar, unemployed. That's the beauty of the American election, that everyone has opinions and they're not always what you'd expect or at least not always held by the people you'd expect.

You can't vote if you don't have hope, if you don't believe in the future. Voting means not only that you care, but that you believe that something can come of that caring. As jaded as we are, and after such a battle, it's hopeful just to know that so many people still believe. And yes, this is sappy and idealistic, but so is the belief that people everywhere will think and care and do their part if you give them the chance. Idealism is worth celebrating at least once every four years.

Downtime

Quiet few days in the midst of so much travel. We drive to Massachusetts on Thursday and drove back on Sunday, but the Deerfield show was lovely. I didn't see much I couldn't live with out, but I saw loads of beautiful things I'd like to live with. I don't know the first thing about art. My only art appreciation class was in eighth grade, and what I remember most is a cute student assistant, a charcoal portrait of myself from childhood, and the orderly joy of a drafting table. Still, I love paintings. I could cover every inch of wall space with art and still fill racks in storage. This would lead to conflicts as I also need flat wall space for bookshelves, so it's probably a blessing that my finances limit me.

We stayed at Purple Gables in Amherst, which was cozy and peaceful. I had my same regrets - that we stay in lovely places that we really just get to sleep in. Saturday, we left around 9:00 a.m. and returned around 10:30 p.m.... And we got to see friends, and had popovers at Judie's. What more could you want from a whirlwind trip?

And I love traveling with my husband. I love that he talks and that he's quiet, I love that he can stop for all sorts of entertainment or ride for 13 hours to make it all the way home in one day. I love that he will drive 15 miles out of the way for local pizza of unknown quality or just grab a muffin at Starbucks and keep moving. His innate ability to be whatever the situation requires makes going places with him a joy. And I love driving. Driving has always been my healthiest form of avoidance. You feel like you're moving forward, leaving worries behind you. I always have a feeling of self-reliance when we travel; just the two of us with maps and no plans, free to wander and stop and look and talk and be silent. Of course, Andrew still laughs at me when I tie my head to the seat so I can sleep, but otherwise, we're quite companionable travelers.

Tonight, we have a charity auction, tomorrow an antiques show, and then in two weeks we're off to Delaware for a few days. We return home to a downhill slide to auctions and holidays and shopping, but right now, I'm sitting contentedly in the eye of the hurricane, which is a feat in itself. Normally, I can only dread what I know is coming, but I've achieved a Zen-like level of Now, drinking tea, finishing novels and indulging cats. For just a few seconds, the wisdom of the ages makes sense, and I can believe that there really isn't anything else - nothing exists but right now, and it's already gone.

Nothing to Read

I occasionally suffer from the syndrome of full closet and nothing to wear. This is my own fault. I shop at Goodwill and tend to purchase discount sweatshirts, and when the time comes to donate to Goodwill, I tend to pillage my husband's ratty dress shirts. (This is useful - the sleeves are long, so if I button the cuffs, I can tuck my thumbs through the cuff slits and have gloved hands in the winter. I'm thinking ahead!) I don't buy dress clothes often, and as a result, when I do it's with a complete abandon and utter disregard for anything but aesthetics. I have a nice selection of beautiful things that do not "go" with any of the other beautiful things. Anyway, a problem of my own making.

Which is why I was astounded today to discover this problem with books! Let me be clear - we are not short on books around here. The built-in shelves we designed were the first project we finished after we moved in - they're an impractical 11' high by a staggering 17' wide, and they stay full, despite my best effort to carve out some small spaces for decorative odds and ends. We have a database, so I can say with certainty that the number of books in this house tends to hover around 1400-1500. We have advanced reader copies tucked into every nook and cranny, and we "distill" our books regularly at Half-Price Books, converting four or five small boxes of books into just four or five books. And they know who I am at both local libraries.

For months now, I've been looking at the shelves (and windowsills) and thinking, "I'm falling behind! I'll never get all these books read!" And then all of a sudden, just yesterday, I couldn't find a single thing that fit. I had to resort to "trying" books on, retiring to bed with a large stack with everything from pop culture (Linda Fairstein) to the literary (Margaret Atwood) to the academic (Laurel Thatcher Ulrich). I like trying on books about as much as I like trying on clothes; I just want something to fit, and everything that doesn't fit makes me feel bad about myself. ("Too tight? Too fat!" becomes "Too weighty? Too stupid!") Still, at the end of the day, shopping for books is still better than shopping for dress pants!

Animal Magnetism

The first sure sign of cold weather is that I begin to sprout furry, purring, cat-sized tumors. They grow on my head when I'm sleeping, in my lap when I'm working, and I often even have a sweaty cat fur glove on my left hand when I'm reading. I wake in the middle of the night to discover fuzzy growths under either arm and on the tops of my feet, and while their locations may change, they never detach.

And it's not just cats that I attract. Of course, every insect in the free world has discovered the weakness of our defenses - worn sills, old caulking, paper-thin weatherstripping - locating a crack, crevice, nook or cranny to sneak in. Fruit flies, who ignored us all summer, now seem aware of their brief lives and have mounted an assault on three spotted bananas and a bowl of tomatoes with a vengeance. Spiders have set up housekeeping on every glue block in the place, leaving the floor around the furniture legs littered with carcasses and carnage. The skunk pillaging my compost bin has stepped up his efforts, and a mouse has set up camp in an eggshell half, probably consoled not only by the convenience of snacks but also by the warmth of rot. And then, there was the nest of baby snakes in the dryer vent.

Honestly, this might be a case of being careful what you wish for. I feel like my teenage wishes for popularity are being visited on me now, and I should have been careful to specify what kind of popularity. General popularity with the universe has its drawbacks vis a vis dryer vent snakes.

Fresh Eyes

My house is getting new windows! Well, not really new, since we wanted to preserve the original ones, but they are getting scraped clean and fresh white glazing is being tucked in everywhere. Primer and paint to follow!

It's really transformed the house, and with the blinds up so that we could remove all the storm windows, this place is flooded with light. Of course, with 8 4' by 7' windows, that's probably to be expected. Cats are writhing around on the rugs, delighted by the proliferation of sunspots.

I hadn't realized how much I'd avoided looking at the windows in the past two years. I'm always looking out, but that's really looking through instead of looking at. With dead bugs, flaking paint, and duct tape (The former owner was a big fan of three things: pneumatic staple guns, duct tape and stripping screws.), it wasn't exactly inspirational. But now, with fresh eyes for me and the house, it's a delight to go around from window to window.

Now, if we can get the sash weights reconnected, I will have windows that are a.) transparent and b.) open! What novelty!