Wisdom from Sue Bender's Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish

A line jumped out at me as I was reading Sue Bender's book this morning: "...I didn't have to choose between one part of me over another..."

That's a simple statement, but it hit me particularly hard. I realized I've been puzzling over how to reconcile different aspects of myself. I'm an introvert, but I want to serve and be helpful to others. I'm a writer who often doesn't feel like writing. I love playing games with my kids and grandkids, and I also love solitude. I'm a gardener and sometimes I'm tired of gardening. I'm a conservative religiously and a raging liberal politically. I've written before how I'm always torn, wanting to be at home when I'm at the church, and wanting to be at the church when I'm at home. I crave adventure, and I love curling up with a book and not moving for two days.

I can be all of those contradictions. I don't have to choose. My galloping mind can exist in a silently meditating body, both working together and existing simultaneously. Each serving a function. When I'm at home, I can be content at home, and when I'm at the church, I can be content at the church. I can be a traveler and a homebody. I can be every aspect of myself, abiding together.

Somehow that idea seems both ridiculously profound and startlingly simple. Could peace of mind be as basic as self-acceptance? Is "being in the moment" really just enjoying what and who I am at that moment?

Snowed In

It snowed for the past 30 hours or so, finally stopping late last night. We had high winds with it, so we have the phenomenon of three feet of snow on one side of the building and bare grass on the other. I kept venturing out to shovel periodically, brushing the snow off the windows, tunnelling out to the yard so Brio would have a place to go. A kind neighbour cleared my driveway mid-day with his plow, and I've been trying to keep on top of the snow ever since so he won't have to come dig me out again.

The snow is light and fluffy, sticking to everything, caking my boots. It's so cold it instantly freezes to whatever it touches. The light turns it into a glittering fondant rounding out everything.

I love this sort of weather. There's nowhere I have to go, I have a stack of books and puzzles, and the kitchen is well stocked. Today's tasks are checking how much propane I have left and trying to shovel the snow out of the back stairwell, so that when it all eventually melts, we don't end up with a minor flood. Fortunately I have my fancy-dancy flood door installed.

Hazel Prior's Penguin and Veronica books. Homemade pizza. Hot cake with black currant yogurt on top. Brio curled beside me. Hurdy-gurdy music playing on the laptop. What Sue Bender calls "splendid isolation." It doesn't get better than this.

Wendell Berry to the Rescue

"...with forethought of grief."

That's a line from Wendell Berry's poem "The Peace of Wild Things." And it punched me in the face today, because that's exactly what I got caught up in yesterday -- the anticipation of grief. All the things I am mourning haven't actually happened yet. I'm looking ahead at the loss, but I haven't yet lost those things today.

Today, I have a warm home with a strong roof. I have food on the shelf. I have my dog curled beside me. My grandchildren are safe and healthy. My country still stands. I need to savour and be grateful for those things today. Whatever tomorrow brings, I can still have joy today.

A timely reminder. Thank you, Mr. Berry.

Mourning

How quickly one's mood and outlook can change from one day to the next! The deluge of things happening in the news recently -- despite my attempts to keep it all from leaking through my filters -- has altered my tone. My tiny little local community may be holding together, but the world around us is shattering. People may think I'm over-reacting or being hyperbolic, but this post is going to be as honest as I can make it. I don't want to hurt feelings or stir up trouble. I just feel the need to express what I'm truly feeling. How I truly see the world as it is right now. And writing has always been the way I do that.

I believe it's only a matter of time before the online war and hurled remarks bloom into actual armed conflict for Canada. On the current trajectory, I don't see how it can end up anywhere else. I'm not the only one who sees this coming. Whether the alliances we've built with other countries will come to our aid, I don't know. The conflict is spread over too much of the planet to allow focus or effective response. I no longer feel that hope is a realistic option. I can measure the depths of my love for my chosen country by the amount of ferocity I feel about the whole situation.

I want to stay true to my values no matter the circumstances. I've always been a pacifist, but these days, defense of my home, community, way of life, and country may not allow me to be. I've written to my local armoury to see what someone my age could contribute. I'm looking at my emergency preparations with a new eye. I've started reaching out to key people I want in my circle. All the physical stuff, I can handle. Deprivation doesn't bother me. I can be creative and tough and solve problems. I know how I act under pressure or fear. Others have gone through conflict and come out the other side, and I know we can too. I try to be realistic and reason through my options.

It's the emotional part that's difficult.

Accepting that the peaceful old age I'd imagined for myself, contentedly puttering with my books and plants and yarn, may look very different. Recognizing that the financial foundation I've built for that future may dissolve, and the social supports I rely on might disappear. Fearing that I may not see my beautiful parents and siblings for a long time, if ever again. Letting go of hopes of ever again gazing at the wonderful mountains of my childhood. Dropping the dreams of travel and further education. Looking at my sweet little one-month-old granddaughter and worrying what her future will hold. Wondering if my children's plans and hopes for themselves, that they've worked so hard for, will ever happen.

It isn't fair. It isn't right. I'm furious to the point of blind rage that someone else has chosen to ruin all of this for us. I am gaining a growing appreciation for those who have dealt with war -- who are currently dealing with it -- and who have somehow learned to move forward. It isn't the path they planned or wanted. But it's the one before them, and they're taking action in the best ways they know how. How did they let go of all that anticipating and dreaming and find the strength to deal with the present moment?

I've always had a sense that global warming and dwindling resources would impact my hopes for the future. The earth is on its own trajectory, and at some point I knew there would be a bill to pay. That life would grow increasingly tougher. But I've been blindsided by how rapidly everything has disintegrated, and it's not because of our long-suffering planet, as I presumed. It's because some people have chosen to rip apart other people's lives, out of greed and a puffed-up sense of entitlement. I hear myself muttering "It isn't fair," and realize how much I've always depended on fairness and justice prevailing. It isn't going to this time. That's a difficult pill to swallow. It's hard to get to the point where you actually acknowledge you have to let go of hope for a solution and just focus on response.

Over everything, pervading everything, I'm just sad. It didn't have to end up this way.

Celebrating Abundance and Community

I'm currently reading a beautiful little book called The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She's also the author of Braiding Sweetgrass.

The theme of the book is the gifting economy and how natural systems share abundance and cooperate for mutual benefit. In contrast, financially-based economies are all about scarcity and competition, as that's what drives up prices.

I read a post this morning by someone who clearly thinks the goal of life is to accumulate wealth, and there is no other more important value or principle to live by. He stated right out that he's willing to give up everything else in his life, including his country, for monetary benefit. While I understand that someone without financial security may feel that way in the moment, I don't think this person was coming from a position of extreme poverty. The contrast between these two mindsets was jarring. I know which appeals to me most. I'd far rather live with a mindset of abundance and cooperation.

If you agree with me, I think we can each have a role in combatting the idea that wealth is everything by doing simple things: Invite neighbours to dinner. Put some books in a little free library. Hold a swap meet or join a freecycling group. Set usable items at the curb for people to help themselves. Give of your time and labour to help someone else. Take your surplus to a donation centre. All these little daily actions remind us of what's really important to us. Celebrate community and kindness. Money really can't buy happiness, especially not if you've given up more important things to acquire it.

Starting the New Year with a ChatGPT Conversation...

I just watched a short video on Youtube where a man had a "discussion" with ChatGPT about, essentially, how to keep AI from overtaking our lives. ChatGPT suggested that people should "do the hard thing." Write the first draft themselves. Take the less optimal path. Stop correcting and feeding AI, because when we do those things, the quicker it will replace us. It said AI is sold to us as a convenience, but the goal of it is compliance, complacency, acquiescence. Mediocrity. (my words. I can't recall the exact ones, but that's the gist). It summarized by saying the system's route is the path of least resistance. Don't walk it.

This rang true to me, to tell the truth. AI may be developing rapidly, but it's human choice to use it. If it replaces us, it's because employers choose to let it. Because consumers support it with their purchasing power or by giving it attention.

That phrase "Don't walk it" excites me. I seem to be all about resistance these days. I want to live differently, authentically. Up close and personal, with my hands in the middle of it. To weave, to sew, to garden, to have tactile experiences, to grow food and cook it, to walk instead of drive, to let technology into my life only so far and not past that. It just feels better to me, lighter, happier. I think it's important to see the tangible produce of your own hands, to have a part (even if just a small one) in providing the essentials for your life. A nicely-woven towel or a hand-carved wooden crochet hook gives me so much more pleasure than purchased plastic or random 1s and 0s on a computer. I want to revive the Arts and Crafts movement, the Slow Food movement.

I guess it's what Thoreau had in mind when he said he wanted to live life deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. It's to peel things down to the basic core, with nothing extraneous, to get to the real value inherent in them. If, as he says, the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it, then the slow-crafted things are of great value.

This year is going to be about seeking light, fresh air, and authenticity. To let go of the goals and just focus on a joyful journey. 

A Magical Start to the Day

At five o'clock this morning, I heard an odd yipping sound outside, followed by a high-pitched howl. Oooh! Instant recognition. I hurried to the window and saw a coyote in the front yard, walking through our Japanese garden. The yipping and howling was coming from farther away, though, and as I watched, the coyote was joined by three others. They came trotting from the north, one from across the street and two from down the road. They all appeared to be adults, the size of German Shepherds, with one being just slightly smaller. Reunited, all four turned and briskly trotted down the sidewalk toward our local park (one stopping to pee on our fence post first. Brio will find that intriguing in the morning). There is a wooded area by the park, where they were probably headed.

How cool is that? I've seen the occasional coyote before, but never four at once, and I've never heard their howl that close by. I feel like today will be special, with that pre-dawn invocation.