fragments

“Truth comes from things, and our senses uncover it there...
There is no body, however small that cannot be broken up into countless parts.
But to know that any given body is multiple,
I must already have the notion of unity before I perceive it.
Neither bodies nor the senses can give me such an idea.
We cannot expect to find beneath reason
the source of the truths apprehended by reason.”

~ Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, p.16

1

Evidently, we’re informed by commentators that on the average, each of us processes about 55 gigabytes of data on a daily basis. Some reports refer to 74 gigabytes, others mention 8200 words, per day. We can barely imagine the equivalent in photo images. Ironically, the information is conveyed to us via digital media platforms. And those informational morsels are among hundreds of millions of terrabytes which are generated every day. That’s a daunting amount of rapid-fire fragments through which to navigate. Our days do not grow in their duration. When it comes to academic research, I’ve observed how the additive aspects of manual source-gathering gave way to the subtractive aspects of sharding away digital abundance- all to hopefully arrive at the substantial. Focus has become a disciplined effort in itself- nearly impossible for many.

But there can surely be fascination in a nurturing wholeness made of intricate fragments. Complex ideas and projects incorporate mosaics of modules. Getting away from the artifice that dominates our world of lit screens, I’m making sure to savour the season’s faceted colors. The chilled air is much more to my liking, and the autumn foliage strikes great contrasts against greying skies and ground. With enough wind gusts, leaves take flight as airborne confetti, serving as three-dimensional distractions from shrill newsfeeds. Spectra, from pale yellow to velvet red, change within the day in their intensities and textures. These fragments serve as time increments.

2

Shuffling through both newly-fallen and dry leaves up the street to the bus stop, all the more, fragments are the stuff of my work days. The driest and most embrittled foliage crackle as crumpled papers under pedestrians’ feet, and the sounds remain in mind while reading en route to the job. Archival collections are sums-of-parts, structured hierarchically into groupings and subgroupings- referred to as series. I’ve occasionally organized highly complex collections into sub-sub-subseries- as the substance, formats, and sources of the records warrant. The basis for arrangement may be how the documents and manuscripts were initially made and configured. Otherwise, this must be ascertained through analysis, understanding both sources and uses of the materials. Inevitably, the fragments are to be sensibly and consistently laid out and listed so each “branch” and “leaf” can be easily found for future uses. During early stages of configuration- especially with large and disparate documentation- critical sifting, research, and “boiling-down” must be done (archivists call this appraisal) to advance what emerges from the heaps into cohesive series and subseries. When it comes to making sense of thousands (sometimes exponentially more) of fragmented components, and interpreting them as needed, we use terms such as establishing order over the archives.

My discoveries occasionally reveal how documents were inventively brought together by their creators.

Applying such principles and their many practical derivatives, my thoughts turn to how Scholastic philosophers considered “order” as an indication for understanding divinity. Comprehending creation and knowledge may not be the same as arranging and describing archives, but the spirit is not far away. Generating compendia and indices for the sharing of information do connect philosophy and curation. In the analyses, I get to see how people value what they’ve produced, and how institutions structure (or don’t structure) themselves.

These items may not look alike, but they are part of a unified subseries.

3

“Everything is in everything, and partitions are only possible by abstractions,” wrote the French Dominican philosopher Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges in The Intellectual Life. Vaster and more complex than archival groupings are the pieces and thoughts of our days and years. Woven among physical formats that comprise pictures, words, and artifacts- are those of sense and recollection. Wafting leaves and their propelling air currents amount to a unity of form and counterform. Life fragments are in our midst, and buoyant. Like curators and readers, we can choose to comprehend our findings. Our accessions, random and scattered as they are, require our reckoning and processing, in our pursuits of understanding. Persevering intact through turbulent times demands more than continuity. One must have the metaphorical “ears to hear,” to prevent from becoming insensitive. Our unique individual contexts join together our experiential fragments. As we cultivate instincts and perspectives, our contexts become more discernible to us. Pondering these things on a day off, attending a church service, the liturgical sequence brought to mind collated fragments reverently brought together as commemoration and observance. Each portion held holy, but all in cohesive union. And my walked paces amidst the hues of autumn fragments continued through narthex, nave, and sanctuary- returning again albeit transformed to the outdoors.

forbearance

“The soul generates, nourishes, and increases:
generates as regards essence, nourishes as regards quality,
and increases as regards quantity.
By the sensitive power it apprehends sensible things,
retains what it has apprehended, combines and divides
what it has retained.”

~ Saint Bonaventure, The Breviloquium, ch. 9

Despite countless task-saving conveniences, we’re all navigating increasingly demanding paths. And it seems the manual projects and chores are made easier than before; the ramped-up, harder efforts involve the mind. Logistics and time-management require constantly adaptive abilities to rearrange priorities, even sharding away excesses. When it comes to intellectual and spiritual matters, the challenges of self-discipline only intensify.

The recent decade attests to a continuous barrage of violence, conflict, pandemic, recession, displacement, disaster, and fractiousness. That short list encompasses the daily experience for too many, enough to overwhelm. Much as the horrific school shootings of 25 years ago prompted sociologists and officials to finally regard bullying as something to take seriously (and as a badly-bullied adolescent, I remember the commonplace dismissiveness too well), current studies are informing us about how anxious and worried we are. As if we needed to be reminded. A new study ties rampant anxiety with equally rampant obsessions with smartphones- particularly among teens. I interpret this, in a broader generational sense, as being swept into ubiquitous, sensationalized, and constant newsmedia feeds tapped into by all our networked devices. Evidently, we need to know, during all our waking moments. I’ve had to create my own version of the proverbial ten-foot-pole, tempering my connectivity, reminding myself to get outdoors and experience life first-hand. Despite the cautious vigilance, I’m also amidst the pressure to be confident in hopeless surroundings. Trust and worry stand in opposition to each other. Many among the faithful commonly profess that we should not worry, as most of us do what we can to restrain ourselves. But is faith enough, and is that all I’ve got? Apparently, a mustard seed’s worth suffices.

I heard a preacher say that life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% what you do about it. We may propose, but very few of us can even begin to dispose. With my granule of gumption, there are learned instincts to help me contend with obstacles. If anything, there is the cultivated skill of noting the limits- whether they are related to economics, practical logistics, or the behaviors of others. The discretionary tacks between forcing back the constrictions and steering around the incorrigibles. Unraveling the implications emanating from trust, my thoughts bring me to the healthful version of surrender. Parallel to persistently believing in finding better situations to fulfill what I’ve been built to accomplish, I’m also aware of immovable barriers. Thus I return to the vitality of trust- albeit in clouds of unknowing- all of which amounts to perseverance.

Perseverance needs a purpose. For what, or whose sake, do we persist with our efforts? Perhaps it’s to gain respect, or peace of mind, or to make an impression; perhaps it’s the fight-or-flight impulse to survive. Many among us are naturally competitive, driven to exceed, hoping to improve our situations. As with that “ninety percent” of the preacher’s comment, hardship can pry forth our ambitions. Beyond motivations to survive with strength, work, and housing- is to be convinced there is tangible cause for hope. Josemaría Escrivá, whose books have been mainstays in my daily bus commutes for two years, helps right my ship with his exhortations about living for the causes of service to others and devotion to God. “Think of nothing but of divine compassion,” he advised in The Forge, instructing preference for the pursuit of a life of generosity, over and above fear. “The immediate future is full of worries, if we stop seeing things in a supernatural way,” Escrivá added. Worry and anxiety can be motivators as much as detriments, though both are inevitably exhausting.

While responding to audience questions after a recent lecture, someone asked me “where do you get all that energy?” Not entirely a technical or theoretical question, I heard myself say something like, “There’s a lot that still needs to be done!” Creating archives often borrows the metaphor of bringing out sculptures that are within large stone blocks. Preservation and access resemble the nurture and promotion of a botanical garden. Very simply put, the energy comes from caring, and my forbearance incorporates stewardship and vision. Commitment to the profession’s many aspects is supremely important, wherever I’m working- and my hope is to continue improving. Many thoughts- perhaps too many- while working and seeking better work, have to do with the concept of “success.” How have definitions of success changed in the past decade (or two)? For whom is success necessary? Impressing my elders- whether parents, grandparents, or teachers- always meant a great deal; impressing friends was less of a priority, but impressing managers and prospective employers has been a longstanding matter of anxiety. Is sufficient the same as success? Having endured two layoffs in my working life, along with forbearance-testing threats and economic conditions, anxiety has long been tied to fears of the impending. Or perhaps not impending! That sort of tension can be formidable, as though a solid barrier. Years and years of trying, and very rarely succeeding, lend too easily to discouragement which must not obstruct a good future. Remembering what I heard myself say to that audience a couple of weeks ago, essentially in light of things and in spite of things, I have to just keep productively working. One who surely knew a rough life of fits-and-starts, Paul taught those in his midst- as well as his later readers- to insist upon gratitude and graciousness, and to “ let your forbearing spirit be known among all.” Fully agreeing with St. Bonaventure as quoted above, the soul must be nourished in order to be renewed and encouraging to others. Carefully-selected studies fuel my forbearance abilities, amounting to the most critical of life skills.

tranquility

“St. Augustine’s language is rich and colorful,
but often lacking in precision. His was not a didactic mind,
and preoccupations of scientific methodology
were foreign to his outlook.
He wrote giving free reign to his thought.”

~ Maurice de Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, vol. 1, ch. 38

Maybe we have it in common that for a long time people have been telling you not to work too hard. Perhaps you’ve also regularly shrugged it off, when those around you tell you to get rest, slow down, and- perish the thought- “don’t worry so much.” And my habitual dismissiveness is automatic and reflexive, similar to waving off a gnat. But suddenly, between strings of tasks and obligations, fatigue brings all those friendly observations to mind. During those pauses, it becomes evident how slowing-down can be daunting. Striving and reaching for a day off, the result is a kind of reverse-inertia: instead of efforts to get moving, it takes focused intention to be able to stop. Within the pausing are detectable elements of fear, especially as the distractions are insistently pared away. Perhaps “don’t work too hard” can be recast as “make sure you listen to your thoughts.”

Even as we cordon off our privacies- and especially so- there remains a universal need for healthful silence. This is to say settling those thoughts, and doing so without things purporting to be “smart” devices. It can be disarming, but I’ve found it to be worthwhile. The observation of contrasts serves as a good teacher, and in this case the classroom is aboard public transit. I saw the positive side of things during subway rides on the day of a downtown festival. Boarding an early Red Line, as usual with a book, the size of the crowd was noticeable. What was even more striking to me were the sounds of jovial chatting and laughter on the trains. Instead of siloed phone-fiddling, most of the riders were animatedly facing one another, many using their phones to take pictures. I really enjoyed seeing this. At my own destination, atop the Boston Athenaeum, I savoured both the celebratory commotion I witnessed earlier, along with the quiet of wafting treetops at terrace level. Reading and writing material in front of me, I still know to look around and just listen to my thoughts.

Nobody will dare us to be idle; we have to be self-aware enough to find opportunities around the busyness for tranquility. Finding opportunities means somehow finding parcels of time and making space. All too rare! But, essentially, the proliferation of resorts and spas demonstrates how so many crave some sort of therapeutic downtime- albeit at high costs. Valuable as stillness is, there needn’t be great expense to pause and reflect.

Being able to unplug the stimuli and simply air my thoughts allows me to perceive with a wider perspective. Before the pandemic, for many years I regularly made pilgrimage retreats, often twice a year. With the combination of compounded work commitments, being on a diminished staff, and various communities’ lodging limitations, I’ve had to be especially resourceful- sometimes succeeding to briefly get away to peaceful and contemplative surroundings. For the most part, aside from a few hours on a weekend, time to simply abide (as differentiated from the more active aspects of journaling my thoughts) happens between lines of reflective reading during my workday commutes. As philosophical historians go, de Wulf (quoted above) was much less admiring of Saint Augustine than Copleston. Well, I prefer Copleston- both as writer and historian. Admittedly, my own thinking is also much more speculative and metaphysical, and less mathematical. And I’ve never found Augustine to be “lacking in precision.” But I’ve still enjoyed de Wulf’s works nonetheless, and really relished his criticism of the great North African philosopher saint: “He wrote giving free reign to his thought.” This is indeed as the motto posted at the Maine Turnpike entrance affirms, “The Way Life Should Be.” Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t bother writing if I couldn’t give free reign to my thoughts!

I like to remind my philosophy students that we converge at the meeting-point of the ideal and the visible world, which is to say the conceptual and the physical. But in philosophy the ideal is solid in its own right. Giving free reign to our thoughts allows for understanding to accompany our perceptions. Let ideals be practical, even if simply in our musings. There’s more than enough to limit our aspirations; it’s for the individual to choose contemplative ways. Release the margins, as possible, and muse. Simply being is not so simple, as our scattered thoughts can over-occupy us, and need to be somehow directed. In his Breviloquium, Bonaventure described human capacity as “born to magnificently grasp great and numerous ideas.” With inspiration, grasp means we can calm them, too. Healthful silence serves to nourish, but we must each know to make the kind of space which is both physical and metaphorical. The Psalmist articulated the wish for a fully renewed heart and spirit. And the heart, Saint Gregory observed in the Philokalia, is the “shrine and chief intellectual organ of the body.” Not only can learning can reach our depths, in contemplative stillness, but as well our yearnings become most evident to us. “Less is more” surely has a spiritual application- if anything, as time and space fillers get cleared away in favor of unstructured attentiveness.

past and future

“How can the past and future be,
when the past no longer is,
and the future is not yet?
As for the present, if it were always present
and never moved on to become the past,
it would not be time, but eternity.”

~ Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book 11

The unrelenting marathon of professional life finds some redemption in the complexities of service and curatorial projects. Indeed, preferring productive and supportive work, I’m not in this for the palace intrigues or the ladder rungs. The prize at the unknown opening of the maze must lead to something much better. And the route has to tunnel beneath the careful consistency of relational and physical accomplishments. Holding firmly to my ethic of “bloom where you’re planted,” in addition to managing and facilitating a full-service department single-handedly, there is no shortage of projects. Just as well, the satisfaction in producing successions of positive results serves as both motivator and sanity factor. Josemaría Escrivá famously said that vocation is the greatest gift of grace, and a vocation surely has many related facets. I still strongly believe in the work I’m doing, bringing out unique archival materials that inform many- including me. In order to generate effective and accurate metadata, varying degrees of thoughtful analysis are needed- from basic verification, to skimming, to comparative reading. All the while, there’s always an eye on time-efficiency.

A project I pulled to the fore, amidst my complete overhaul of the archives I’ve most recently created (having set up archives throughout the State, over the years) is a large array of rare, local serial collections. As much as researchers love them, the service end of things is replete with indifference about newspapers and periodicals. I happen to really enjoy the writing styles and advertising graphics of eras past. To me, the materials are captivating- essentially history in real time. For each time I bring out digitized ephemera, I hear from grateful audiences who devour the contents. And with the researchers, I’m fascinated to see what was, leafing up to later dates, then back to earlier years and decades. Through all my inventorying and indexing, I’m better able to connect people with information. And it happens. About two months ago, I sought out and processed a unique run of a cultural periodical, printed on newsprint, from the 1970s. It had been locally warehoused. Shortly afterwards, a visiting researcher asked whether I knew of that exact title, as she and her mother had both published in it. Bringing out the alkaline boxes of flattened papers, my guest was elated. This sort of serendipity is not uncommon. I can merely glance heavenwards, wink, and keep up the good work (and the good instincts).

While in the throes of sifting and sorting piles of antique newspapers which had been migrated from one library building’s attic to another’s basement, I found several items that I knew would fit perfectly in another city’s archives. It so happens I had created their archives more than twenty years ago, and remember their contents very well. Eager to deliver the gems, I carefully reinforced the 19th century broadsheets in a portfolio, and made a daytrip of my errand. En route, it occurred to me that while I had maintained some contact with that particular library, I hadn’t been inside the place in a long time. A life of continuous, hard work leaves very thin margins for respite. Trying to offset exhaustion with journaling and unstructured Sundays have provided ways to continue puddle-jumping, refraining from looking too far. Indeed, I brought the historic items to grateful recipients I’d never met before, in a building I hadn’t visited in twenty-three years. The place still looked the same, and it was heartening to see the calligraphed sign still displayed which I had made for them back in 2000. The last time I’d been in the place, I had completed major projects; it was shortly after my completion of graduate school. This time, I crossed their threshold after having achieved and endured numerous professional scenarios and challenges. My impression of this brief visit wasn’t an experience I expected- at the same time both strange and familiar. After quietly leaving the building, I walked to a nearby church to reflect, knowing the doors were open.

Again, I thought of Escrivá’s words- whose books I’ve known only in recent years- and how he told his readers to ask themselves who they sought when they approached the Sacrament. He said, “Are you seeking yourself, or are you seeking God?” That hour of contemplative intention, immediately following my strange visit with a past place of employment, was just the right instinctual balance. As much as archival work serves here-and-now access, and conservation for future use, the interpreting of raw material magnetizes our compasses toward the past. This week’s projects send me back to earlier projects in earlier places quite easily. All the jobs we’ve had, with our schools, communities, our various adventures dotting our timelines- good and bad- illustrate each of our personal histories. These stages along our pilgrimages form our perspectives. An individual is essentially a living time-capsule, replete with ethereal archives. Life and art mirroring each other amidst my wakeful hours, I wonder at the human version of deaccession and preservation. Tireless work makes for tireless thinking about work, especially all the pending projects. Insomnia tangles with my strategizing of the department I manage, and that slides into when I report to work, so that I can implement the ideas. And with my cultivated and critical senses and skills, the work always gets done.

Integral to the processing of historic serials is their preparation for longterm storage, retrieval, and future digitization. I’ve been doing all of these things, including a lot of the scanning, after flattening and even very gently repairing torn newsprint. No matter how disciplined my adherence to tasks-at-hand, it’s impossible to avoid reading from my discoveries. Indeed, the more informed I am of the content, the better my analyses for researchers’ queries. And, admittedly, the narratives and illustrations of bygone eras- be it the 1990s or the 1790s- are compelling in their vocabularies. Newspapers, in particular, are frozen moments with commentary. The paper strata themselves have distinctive stories, in their very ingredients and manufacturing. Handling and reading really go together.

There are embossed textures in pre-1840 cotton rag content paper, retaining an impressive amount of strength. Latter 19th and early 20th century newspapers were largely very cheaply made, using bleached wood pulp, resulting in thin and highly acidic surfaces. Depending upon how the paper has been stored, I’ve seen darkening that has the appearance of having been burnt. Scanning this type of material saves the content. Rewrapping the deteriorated pages, with enormous care, the telltale rattling sound attests to the papers’ embrittlement. The other day, while checking my work, it occurred to me how a computer screen can give digitized, antiquated text a similar look to present-day electronic text. Past and present become easily juxtaposed this way, but the genuine article has the intrinsic aspects of authenticity. Artifacts carry memorable content, but also the physical objects also have memory. Among my regular patrons is a researcher who writes about religious communities and biographies. Having just flattened, repaired, boxed, and inventoried a run of regional newspapers beginning in 1822, I brought him several early issues as a sampling for perusal. He was clearly impressed and inspired, spontaneously reading various paragraphs to me, from the cotton-based 200 year-old newspaper, in surprisingly good condition. We took turns reading to each other, talking about what we read as archaisms. A moment worth remembering in the life of doing this work. This fellow was astonished at how close these unique papers were to being discarded. Past is pulled to present, and projected ahead to future endeavors, in the search for knowledge and context.

collecting thoughts

“There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us:
observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation.

Observation collects facts; reflection combines them;
experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound,
and our experiments exact.
We rarely see these three means combined;
and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common”.

~ Denis Diderot, On the Interpretation of Nature, no. 15 (1753).


1

With year after year of completed projects under the bridge, with more in progress and up ahead, there remain personal goals yet unfulfilled. Amidst achievements and recognition thus far, I particularly cherish a remark in the Comments section on my 2nd grade report card, from Public School Number 13, in New York City. Rating 6-year-old me, Mrs. Berger wrote: “He daydreams too much in class.” I think that comment was meant as a scolding, and certainly my parents were not impressed. I remember feeling embarrassed, but characteristically undeterred by the reproach. Gazing through windows is something compellingly natural to me, and whatever was interesting below on 94th Street was surely upstaging whatever was being taught at the front of the classroom. I’m actually proud of that remark. And I’ve grown to appreciate that, perhaps inadvertently, Mrs. Berger implied that a bit of requisite daydreaming was permissible- but not too much. For artists and all other creative thinkers, musing is essential. Untethered contemplation is a surer way to make sense of life, than to swish away at a smartphone.

By observation, we can really grapple and reckon with insights, in order to advance to our subsequent steps. Too much precious energy and time get squandered in wheelspinning ruts. Peaceful and uncluttered headspace is neither freely given, nor valued, in this culture of competitive perpetual motion. But the daunting side of an intermission is in the awkwardness of decompressing- worthwhile as it is- to be better able to recollect. Significant respite time away from the job continues to be practically impossible, so I cobble what I can when it’s possible, noticing the difficulty of turning my off-duty thoughts away from the workplace. Decades of diligence and industriousness have kept me employed, but a compounded effort is needed to remain artistically and intellectually fit for creativity. Good thing for daydreaming too much in class. I recommend it.

aperch at the window, College Club of Boston

2

Hopeful and constructive dreaming goes a very long way in the direction of bringing goodness to fruition. If you needed yet another reason to write daily in a journal, now you have this. And write manually, keeping in mind the untethered and focused aspects of musing and aspiring! While in the liminality of overburdened undercapacity, I’m egging on those musing traits with writing, photography, and dreaming of better days. If anything, this helps my frame of mind, dealing with the here-and-now. All such pursuits are enveloped in the all-comprising everyday life of the spirit, which also includes contemplative reading.

Pursuing my studies in philosophy is replete with discoveries, and I’m further encouraged as I teach some of these topics to students. The readings for my personal explorations are selected with personal development in mind. In turn, because I’m often studying such rare materials, I produce my own annotated indexes. These are very useful as references which I later share, and the notebooks themselves are great for me to read. Indeed, and true to my profession, I also digitize my indexes and notebooks; these are my “preservation backups,” as well as searchable. These personal studies are entirely fueled by my own interests and discerned needs; philosophy consoles, as Boethius knew very well. In Love Enkindled, Saint Bonaventure wrote about how contemplation brings us to the spark of discernment, which he called synderesis scintilla. This comes to mind, when I’m conscious about redirecting my thoughts. Conscience is awakened, Bonaventure wrote, by moving from error to consideration of the human condition, to meditating upon what is good. Finding ways through hardships, I’ve kept to these studies, as well as spiritual health, staying intellectually active and away from burning out.

a floricultural cabinet

Among the many ways to identify my full-time work, I most often think of day-to-day torchbearing and pouring-out; preserving and explicating. Essentially, this is the joining of words with readers. Visitors, researchers, and classes think of archives as cabinets of curiosity. In this sense, cabinet as a synthesizing, thematic compendium. Perhaps they are, increasingly standing out in contrast to the electronics that promote content over substance. And this isn’t to denounce literacy’s numerous formats; I use and present them all. Indeed, my preference continues for the reflective surfaces of imprints and manuscripts. The physical items themselves have stories. As a conservator I’m acquainted with how they’re made, and as an archivist I’m making comparative references and metadata for all manner of seekers. My role also takes the form of inadvertent confessor: patrons from teenage to old age tell me about how they favor real books and want to handwrite. Well, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you. I’ll often ask, “Do you keep a journal?” Muse away and expand your mind. Be that person getting seated on a bus with a book or a journal, instead of catatonically fiddling with a phone. As you glance between daydreaming out the window toward the streets and reading, notice the gawking expressions as the entranced stare into their devices. The side of me that is still a skeptical little kid at P.S. 13 says, “I don’t want to be like that.” If your musing and observing is bold enough, you’ll be better able to make fun of your self.


3

aboard a trawler, in winter

Integral to doing everything I can manage in order to stay mentally healthy is perseverance in seeking and exploring ideas. Yes, there’s the musing I’ve mentioned here. Plants need water and natural light to keep growing. My observing intuitively turns to words and imagery. Often, both turn up during a good stroll. An expression of mine from my teen years, which I still use when taking up a camera on the way out the door, is “I’m going out to look for photographs.” There are few things more sensible to me. Noticing the trawlers docked along the Portland waterfront reminds me of how I wind up pulling ideas from the depths. The nets on those boats drag down deep and far enough to bring up all kinds of shellfish and groundfish. Maybe our minds have their own microscopic versions of trawling pulleys. Similarly, I trawl for ideas- unforced and all quite naturally. Something seems always to remind me of something else. Moving through the day are gleanings of thoughts. Bus and train rides, lunch breaks, and laundromats provide scenarios for the culling and recording of ideas. Part of that is my making sense of changes, disappointed expectations, hopes, and things I witness. And ironies. As I’ve done for many years, the idea jottings are in pencil, and the elaborated thoughts get their due in pen-and-ink. Navigating by instinct implies a certain amount of individual roadbuilding. The voyage is not an end, but surely a means. Creativity, learning, and helping others learn broadly serves as an itinerary.

trawlers and ideas

consoling angels

“I and Pangur Bán my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill...

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his...”

~ Medieval Irish poem, ca.9th century,
The Scholar and his Cat, Pangur Bán.


mutuality and friendship

Gradually familiarizing myself with the newer apartment and neighborhood, after two years of housing instability, the recent weeks have been very much about taking stock. Indeed and also without doubt, even in a spartan building with a longer commute, peacefulness far outweighs inconvenience; as well, the place is more affordable and larger. No regrets. What was endured has somehow been survived. Glancing back at journal entries, essays, and photos from 2022 through early 2024, I’m astonished at the daily reality against which I had to function. Now on incrementally higher ground, I’m slowly rebuilding my physical and spiritual reserves, amidst fulltime work. Many things are still packed, albeit in familiar and carefully-labeled boxes. It’s been only eight weeks; healing takes time.

All the while, this region’s severe housing crisis remains in front of me. I continue to witness homelessness in my midst, and I continue listening to my neighbors’ stories- occasionally offering referrals gleaned from my two years of apartment-scavenging and countless conversations. Early this month, I was featured on a local radio programme, promoting the concept of networking neighbors-helping-neighbors, for a variety of community-reinforcing purposes. I’m hoping to be the sort of person I needed to meet during that agonizingly protracted time during which I met with far too much dismissive reticence. To really improve conditions, there would have to be a serious group of human-sized grains of leaven. I broadened the radio discussion to include more than networking housing referrals, and connecting those in need with supportive hands to assist with chores. Among the limits many of us contend with, encouragement is in short supply. Who will be compassionate?


compassion

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, lingering beyond the physical health risks is what the U.S. Surgeon General calls “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” We adapted so well to quarantining and isolating that much of our human continuum dissolved. My experience included dispersion as colleagues, neighbors, businesses, and parishes left the area- chiefly replaced with remote-economy and short-term arrivals, largely inhabiting elite and gated housing. How friendships and communities now manifest is fluid. How shall we define friendship? Are each of your social media friends actually people you know? Do we know the souls within the names of our contact lists? Will we step up for those we call friends, and will they step up for us? Perhaps there are levels, imitating such service industries as travel, subscriptions, and various tiered “products.” Maybe there are economy-class friends, or gold-card inner-circle communities. In elementary school we counted our friends and best-friends; by high school it was friends and acquaintances. Alas, there were enemies, too. Bullying and fickleness have been around since time immemorial, long before the term unfriending existed. Let us treasure our loved ones, make it known what gems they are, and invest in those connections.

As encouragement is a form of compassion, so compassion is in the expression of consolation. How well do we know to be tactful consolers for those within our reach? Heartfelt reassurance expresses divinity; the Holy Spirit is also known as the Consoler. Petitionary prayers are essentially for consolation, for comfort, for mercy. We wish for this ourselves, as well as to be conduits for others. The gospel recounts how Jesus endured torment and provocation in the desert; as evil departed in defeat, consoling angels appeared. We cannot predict our times as consolers, or when consolation comes to us.


those who console

Arriving at the previous apartment and narrowly avoiding eviction, the intensity of distress combined with that loud and cramped space, filled with heaped personal effects, the mealtime seat was outside on the front steps. There was no place to sit comfortably indoors for at least a month. I naturally looked to the skies, just to see wide open space. In my sorrow about being in that demoralizing place, after losing my home, I’d tearfully pray for better days. In a few weeks’ time, a neighbor’s cat found me on that front stoop. Boo was the friendliest neighbor and consoling angel throughout that difficult time in the East End.

Indeed, Boo has a family and a home on a nearby street, though he liked to roam around among various other neighborhood cats. Some neighbors would pet Boo, or cause him to dart away, but Boo and I reciprocated an extraordinary bond of friendship. Beginning with feeding him bits from my plate, I later bought proper cat treats, ironically called Temptations, which he loved. In fact, Boo received treats every single time he’d come visit. Ordinarily, I’m allergic to most cats- but not to Boo; we were very companionable. Perching outside in all weather, I was always easy for him to find: I was regularly escaping claustrophobia and the bombast of upstairs neighbors, and Boo seemed to like the familiarity of a gentle friend with treats. Boo soon figured out when I’d commute back from work in the evenings, and he’d wait at the door for me to arrive- always polite and never imperious.

Above: Boo often waited at the door for me to return from work.
Below: We shared our tastes in philosophy and seafood.

Being a longtime insomniac, I’d admire how Boo could simply curl up, fold in his legs like retracted landing-gear on an airplane, and simply sleep. Just like that. I’ve tried imitating Boo. When Boo would jump onto my lap and sleep, I’d ponder what a dear soul he is, and that Saint Francis of Assisi sent Boo to my lonely stoop. “You’re such a good, good cat,” I would say to Boo. He really was a consoling angel, and I was sure to make that known; his cat-mother was appreciative. No doubt, he is greatly missed, but in my gratitude I’m glad he has a home, and I have dozens upon dozens of photos of Boo to treasure. In this example, a sweet consolation emerged in contrast to a bad situation. In the depths of despondence, it is vital to keep from desensitizing.

Above: Boo demonstrating expert napping skills.
Below: No matter what Loretta Tupper said in those old commercials, Boo kept his paws on my Parker.

The souls that cross paths with ours, especially friends, and no matter our age, profoundly affect how we live and perceive. Losing a close friend, not because of moving away but due to their passing, intensifies my sense of esteem and their great value. Saint Bonaventure wrote about how we are mimetic by nature, and that we do well to mimic our mentors. I recently lost a friend and role model of more than twenty-four years. My acquaintance with Maddy began when she hired me to organize, process, and conserve the archives of her forebears- Maine’s Gannett family, whose innovations in journalism, publishing, and broadcasting in this state began in the 19th century. The project was a real success, I published some of the results, and Maddy and I became friends for life. Over the years, she connected me with two wonderful unprocessed sources which I brought to equally successful archival fruition: the Children’s Theatre of Maine (her favorite cause) Archives, and the Gannett newspaper photographic negatives (which required my salvaging hundreds of thousands of pieces of film from a gutted building). Painstaking labors of love, to be sure. Through the years, we were both colleagues and friends. She would regularly call me with archival and research queries, and I would call her for wise advice. Maddy was so popularly loved, due to her unpretentiousness and great spirit. We always had interesting things to talk about. She introduced me to many friends, and my permanent gratitude also includes diverting me from my housing misery with tea visits at her home on Littlejohn Island. Healthy distractions, a bit as with Boo the cat. Within my gratitude is the occasional ability to recognize the consoling angels in my midst, and the remembrance becomes all the more vital in their physical absence.

Above: Keeping watch from a cold-weather blanket nest.
Below: Boo is truly a Magnifi Cat, and I'm forever grateful.

healing takes time

“In remembering, there is always present to the soul
the result of some past operation, and the soul acts on that result,
as on a new object. The soul has its being in eternity, but lives in time;
and the ideas of past and future are not derived from the relation
of the facts of memory to the soul,
but from the relation of those facts among themselves.”

~ William Batchelder Greene, The Doctrine of Life (1843)

Three weeks ago, I made my second relocation in the last nineteen months, all the while working full time. The August 2022 move had to be made, under the duress of the evacuation of the abruptly sold building I’d lived in for 37 years. The recent move had to be made, under the duress of intensely oppressive conditions which were unaffordable. The region continues to be plagued by the misery of a protracted housing crisis. My search essentially took two years of scouring, answering ads, pleading for leads, and traipsing through dozens of hovels. I’ve also been trying to assist others in similar straits. I’ve seen for myself that southern Maine is replete with community leaders and officials who cannot (and will not) relate to the obvious crises reported every day in the news. It’s been a continuing adventure through a paralytic universe of tone-deafness. Now I’m trying to connect my better contacts into some sort of helpful and needed community network. I’ve learned how the able are unwilling and the willing are unable.

Above: The old place had a miniscule patch of outdoors, underneath exterior stairs.

Below: How a bookbinder relocates.

Amidst such anxious times, there’s a shelter in the storm for which to be grateful. Discovering a place and quickly moving in winter amounts to an unusual scenario for this area. My elation at finding a good way out of a bad situation generated its own traction gear, powering me through muscling the move and deep-cleaning both the newer and the former apartments. The season-that-was lasted nineteen excruciating months, devouring more than two-thirds of my earnings. There was nothing else to be found at the time. Now that episode is past; enough said here about numbers. Through the crucible, I could not have guessed at its duration, having to depend upon a housing market as feeble and fickle as the job outlook. But surely I know enough to be thankful. I mailed my first rent check in a thank-you note.

a new perch

All along, I knew enough and was determined to hasten the end of the previous tenure, and by grace I did it. Now in the aftermath, I’ve observed in my journal entries that healing takes time. It cannot be hurried, no matter the need and the eagerness. My tendency, especially with work projects, is to pursue conundrums and deadlines until appropriately vanquished and tested. Healing is quite a different matter: it must run a natural course. Acclimating to a different living space (is it presumptuously daring to say “home?”), the crosstown neighborhood, and a new commute, cause me to reconsider the meaning and worth of temporal things. The previous space was so forbiddingly cramped and loud, I unpacked only books and clothing, leaving the rest in transparent totes I carefully labeled that were stacked around me. Now, I’m gingerly unwrapping possessions I haven’t seen since packing them up two years ago in the West End. This is the unearthing of buried and migrated treasure.

Accompanying the nostalgia of again wearing knitted scarves made for me by my grandmother, and sipping coffee from bowls I’ve carried back from Paris, the new place is coincidentally around the corner from where I lived as an art college student. “Rejoined” with a familiar neighborhood which I’ve always appreciated, I’m amusingly making note of various items I’d had with me during those school years which have “returned” with me. As examples, my desk and my bicycle have “been here before.” Revisiting these streets, I’m effortlessly remembering people and places I knew back in the 1980s, with impressions that have lived on to this day. Indeed, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Yet, still, I speaketh much like I didst when I was eighteen years old. Out on a neighborhood stroll, one recent evening, I mused about what would transpire if my present-day self met my undergrad-student self on this shared intersection. Cause for great conversation, but it will have to suffice as journal entries across time.

“Are you really me, sir?”

“I think so, man. In fact, I think I still look like you.”

The new bus stop is canopied. No more being pelted while standing in mud and slush!

Oh, the trouble from which I could’ve saved myself. Continuing my walking, I remember businesses that used to be in some of these luxurified storefronts. The street patterns are as I left them. I’m now becoming acquainted with the No.9A and No.9B bus drivers, after a year-and-a-half with the Congress Street No.1 bus drivers. More new people I’m inviting to the library. “How you doin’, Mister Archivist? Find anything good today?” Always. Between the lurching bus rides and the work shifts, there are plenty of interesting reminders for me, right nearby. How temporal is this residency? I’m noticing myself shrugging off such thoughts, knowing how much effort and expense went into this move. Now out of the former place, it continues to astonish me to realize how egregious it was, and how thankful I am to have survived. There wasn’t a single evening of peace in there. But now it’s past. Let the healing really take effect.

Felix the Cat, warmed from the zero temps, gets to ride up front.

After moving all I could with my car and a rented van, I hired professional movers for the heavy boxes of books and the furniture, to complete the job. One of my former neighbors saw the big vehicle beeping its reverse motion, and asked me the obvious: “Moving day today?” “Better than that,” I replied, “it’s Liberation Day.” True to my word in these pages, my childhood Felix the Cat rode shotgun with me for one of the last carload runs across town. As promised, I found a better place. And I thanked my praying friends at the Saint Anthony Shrine, in Boston. The building here has a wide front porch that nobody else uses. It’s ideal for writing, studying, and fresh air; a great perch for increments of healing.

I’m reminded of the one episode, back in 2015, when I had to deal with a serious back injury. The severity of the pain was such that each motion I’d previously taken for granted was accompanied by wincing and gasping. I made as many medical and therapeutic appointments as possible, tenaciously intent to be done with pain so disruptive I had to tie my shoes while lying on my back. The healing process could not be hurried, so I was told, and took about two months. On the first day without any noticeable pain, I elatedly took a meandering bicycle ride. It was amazing to me. Naturally, I returned to taking my flexibility for granted, though since then I’ve become adept at healthful stretching- not to mention wise ways to move heavy objects! The new dwelling place is in an old, creaky building- but it’s tidy, quiet, and gets a lot of sunlight. My general sense is that of a restart. Between work commitments, I’m enjoying the porch as much as I can, and look forward to the more verdant months. Healing is taking time, but I know where all the totes are that house my writing materials. Everything is labeled and ready for use.

the final night in the compartment. of course I wrote about it.