There are a few things I have been wanting to write about on here.
First, a very recent incident.
It is night. I am sitting on the step on the porch outside my front door. I am thinking about how the depth of my relationships at home are quite different from other relationships. I am thinking about how these suburbs tend to create an energy of lifelessness. I feel almost lonely without the stars to comfort me at night. I feel unprotected without any mountains or trees surrounding me. It just feels lifeless. I sit a little more, still looking at the sky. I hear noises behind me on the porch near the light. I look and there is beetle the size of teaspoon crawling around, moths chasing each other, and tiny creatures of all disgusting shapes and sizes congregating beneath the buzzing light. Life! I look away. My eyes catch movement in the dirt in the garden next to me. A worm slides in and out of the soil. Life, movement, breath. Ahhh! Joy. I take a deep breath. How could I have forgotten the tiny creatures and even the organisms? I am looking at a beautifully crafted spider web running from the leaves and branches of the shrub next to me to the wall of the house to another lamp hanging from the house. I think how spiders are such fantastic creatures. I look down and a nose and two beady eyes make contact with my two (probably also beady) eyes. The opossum skitters away with equal surprise and fear that causes me to jump to my feet. We were not expecting to meet one another here! I softly offer an apology to the opossum if he can hear me still, and head inside. I get it. That's enough for tonight.
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Another also recent incident. A lesson on violence:
I like animals a lot. Well, that doesn't really suffice. I am enchanted, intrigued, and nearly always in awe of the life and sentience of the animals around me. For the first time in several years, I am fishing on a boat with my dad and brother. I have a reel and rod in hand, and I'm ready to go. In the past, I have despised fishing. I get antsy sitting around waiting. I get frustrated because I feel like I am not doing it right and I don't understand it. And the worst part, I rarely catch any fish. But, this time is different. I am determined to enjoy fishing. I am not antsy. I am prepared to sit around and wait. I think of things differently. I get to enjoy nature, the water, the trees, maybe a good chance to try to learn the different birds in the area. I look at it as a learning experience. (This means a lot of questions from me--sorry dad). So the reel and rod in hand. Now I need bait. The worms. I used to love this when I was little. I would stick my hand in the bucket and catch a minnow and help put it on the hook. It was so fun. Why have things changed? I open the plastic container and choose the worm that will forcefully be offering his life as a sacrifice for...well probably nothing, because I probably won't catch a darn thing. I offer my apologies to him before I turn him on his back and prick the metal point through his skin, into his body, and out the other side. ouch. I toss out the line. Okay, I can do this. Phew. Sigh. "Whit, you have a bite!" Ah, okay. Tug, spin the thingamabobber, keep it tight, you got it. Okay, it's out of the water. Oh, it's beautiful. The bluegill with its lovely yellow belly. Okay, what do I do? Uh, Dad...you touch it! The hook, it look like it hurts! Oh, he swallowed it. I turn my head, I feel the hook in my stomach too, I groan and moan. Ah, it's been out of the water too long. Ah, the hook shouldn't be in his stomach. I'm so sorry. There is blood. I made him bleed. He is back in the water. I'm so sorry. So sorry.
I sit in silence for a few seconds. Breath. Sigh. No tears (but close). I think Sheesh that was violent. Then I think Why can't a just be like everyone else and just catch the damn fish and throw it back? Fishing is not supposed to make me feel this many emotions.
So, I try to be like everyone else. I keep tossing out a line for the next couple hours. I catch several more fish. No more hooks in the stomach, no more blood. A few torn mouths.
I like sitting in the boat. I like watching the birds and listening to their songs. I liked watching that Musky snag the Bluegill from the line. I liked watching the fish jump in and out of the water in a [violent(...yet not necessarily bad violence)] fury of feeding. I like the sun and the clouds. But, I don't think I like killing the worms over and over again. And I don't think I like tricking the fish just to put them right back where I took them from. (I might like it a little more if I was trying to catch my dinner.) There's too much life to just fool around with it...at least for me.
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One more thing I've been wanting to write about. Hope.
About a year and a half ago, I was spending several hours by myself (for lack of a better word) in Yosemite Valley. It was January and I wanted to see the bottom of lower Yosemite Falls as I had never seen them at this time of year. There are no other people on the trail until I get to the bridge in front of the falls. There is a young girl on the bridge and she looks at me curiously as I watch the falls. I keep walking and as I pass her she says the letters "H-O-P-E." I look at her and I say, "excuse me?" thinking I had misunderstood her. She said, "Hope! I said hope." Then she smiled at me kind of smugly then ran off in the opposite direction. I stood there kind of taken aback. I found a nice spot near the stream for the next couple hours. My interaction with that girl has been haunting me for the past year and a half. I guess I am trying to figure out what it means, but I don't want to make it more than it was. However, it is undeniable that the idea of hope has been and continues to run through my mind continuously.
The past couple days, I have been thinking about some of my thoughts regarding hope currently.
Wendell Berry sums up the meaning of hope (or lack of ) for me in the past few months:
Yes, though hope is our duty,
let us live a while without it
to show ourselves we can.
Let us see that, without hope,
we are still well. Let hopelessness
shrink us to our proper size.
Without it we are half as large
as yesterday, and the world
is twice as large. My small
place grows immense as I walk
upon it without hope.
Our springtime rue anemones
as I walk among them, hoping
not even to live, are beautiful
as Eden, and I their kinsman
am immortal in their moment.
I have been taught that hope is necessary, that without it there is no reason to live, no reason for joy. However, I am beginning to think that perhaps hope leads away from living presently to a state that denies who and where we are right now toward something imaginary. We have no agency, power, control over the future. I don't hope that my thirst will be quenched and I can go on living and yet never drink water. I just do it, I drink water. By realizing that we do have power, we do not have to simply "hope." We can do something and we should do something about what we love. And a loss of hope does not make life bad or unbearable. Life is good. We are complex creatures and can hold several emotions at once. As Wendell says, a wonderful thing happens when you give up on hope. You realize you never really needed it.
[a disclaimer: Everything I write is mere jibber-jabber, thoughts, meanderings. I am a hypocrite. Perhaps, and hopefully ;) I will turn my meager philosophies into action once I muster up the courage and get rid of some fear]
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