expectation

"My library is an archive of longings.”

~ Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980.

At the beginning of this month, perhaps to parallel the start of winter, a number of wire news services published an article* about disruptive discontent. A study based upon the responses of two thousand survey participants reported that nearly three-quarters of this group sleep poorly and awaken unhappily. Referring to “morning madness” and a general sense of irritation among respondents, a third of the surveyed group cited anxiety and stress disturbing both sleep and awakening. Indeed, the article caught my attention, as I’ve been an insomnia combatant for over a dozen years. Had I been surveyed, my responses would’ve looked similar to those of the article. Having become so accustomed to fractured nights of semi-sleep, portions of these silent hours are offset by journal writing, radio listening, and reading. Penciling ideas on notepads. Not necessarily solutions, but accompaniment.

So many thoughts to assuage. The canvasses elasticize between present, past, and the unknown future, projects and words, stability in the tentative, should’ve and could’ve, then and when. Just what a mind needs to relax! Walking around my darkened apartment, the clatter silences as I look at the books and papers on my desk- the open satchel at ease. The still-life calms, as my thoughts are diverted by the quieted tethers and tools. What is normally animate has become inanimate. There is scant ambient light and no traffic noise, in the liminal between night and morning.

Through the window, it is good to see the nearly motionless outside world. Thoughts turn to expectations. Do you ask yourself about what you’re expecting? I’ve always expected great things: dreams, fruition, breakthroughs, open doors. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve wished to live up to my potential, putting all I’ve learned to real use. It’s a longlived emotion that has haunted me all through the years of schooling and employment, toiling in the concealment of stockrooms, basements, warehouses, darkrooms, and clenched stacks. Beyond thirsting for natural light, fresh air, and artistic freedom is a wish for opportunities to fully apply my skills for the greater purpose that other souls can be inspired. Hopes, attempts, and denials seem to repeat a leapfrog-playing pattern. But there remains the not-yet, a spirit solid enough to support ideals and ambitions. Even now.

In Citadelle, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry observed, “Nothing have you to hope for if yours is the misfortune of being blind to that light which emanates not from things but from the meaning of things.” How things look and how things are- can be at contrasting ends. Blended in with clear-eyed expectations is an accompanying awareness of mirages. It is very easy to be fooled, a narrow margin dividing notions and facts. Social media certainly enhances the challenge to make these distinctions. About the first ten times I’d seen commercial articles, decorated with tropical seascapes, about “following your bliss,” my reactions were those of sarcastically looking on as an outsider and an unlucky have-not. These sorts of proliferating short pieces look like they emanate from people who can afford to blithely walk away from disappointing jobs. What about the rest of us that have to bite the metaphorical bullet? From a perspective that resists both cynicism and irresponsibility, I try to keep common sense in mind. Comprehension and aspiration are both highly complex dynamics. Turning away from self-defeat, and reaching for transcendence, Quaker author Rufus Jones wrote:

Every case of sense-perception is a case of self-transcendence. If we could not leap forward and grasp an object from beyond us, and know it as beyond us, all our experience would be doomed to be shut up in an inner subjective mirage. We could never have dealings and commerce with a real world beyond our inward seemings. We should forever remain victims of the ‘egocentric predicament.’ In a trembling flash, when we perceive things, we manage to leap beyond ourselves and know a reality that is not of us, but of a world beyond us. Nobody knows how we do it. It is another mystery- like sweetness and redness- but it is none the less a fact. The moment we know anything whatsoever we prove to be self-transcendent beings.
(Pathways to the Reality of God)

Another conundrum is the relationship between potential and fortune. Is one needed for the other? Can they exist independently of one another? I’m inclined to believe the latter: potential can be driven on the steel wheels of will. Good fortune is welcome, we can do plenty to draw it, but waiting around too long wastes precious time. Everyone has the potential to add positive significance to their places and times- perhaps beyond these contexts. I’ve always admired “unsung heroes” as I’ve made note of them in many spheres. They’re the ones who are consistently present, performing their good works away from spotlights and newsfeeds- or as it’s said in sports: doing the little things that contribute and make a difference. At hockey games, I like watching what’s going on at the defensive end- where the puck isn’t; this teaches me a lot about how the players work together in the flow of regulation time. I admire the ability of turning missed opportunities into fuel, and instances of tireless daring in order to realize potential.

At this season, the month of Advent leads to the threshold of a new year. Lighting is needed earlier in the day. The anticipation in Advent’s shadowed steps is essentially an expectation. I still expect great things- even in the night watches of wakeful insomnia. The turn toward lengthened days begins during the longest nights. Years ago, when I made my living in the complete darkness of color-printing photo studios, I had a wise, older friend who managed the film department. A true artisan. To this day, I’m thankful for all our long talks in the damp, lightless film-developing room. From twenty feet away, with the benefit of the slight echo, his voice sounded three feet away. Above the sounds of the E-6 processor, he would say, “Don’t forget that God’s hand is always opening to you, always opening for you. You’re meant for way better than this.” My coworker had a terminal illness and passed away, much too young. His words and wit live on with me. They are filed with care, in my spiritual archives, with the treasures poised for future use. The past, admittedly, needn’t determine the future, but it can provide a useful repository of references. I fully expect to tap into the best of all that has been cultivated. It would be, in itself, a living gratitude for the gifts received and knowledge retained. More than an expectation, a goal.








*Article here.

almost real

“I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God sends His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird. In His good time!”

~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus.

almost

For personal causes of self-education, health, and post-work-week sanity, I made one of my usual monthly drives to Boston. There, I visit with friends, and enjoy a full day of study and writing at the Athenaeum. The drive from Portland divides in half: an hour to the Portsmouth area, followed by another hour which is mostly taken up with northeastern Massachusetts. As Interstate 95 merges with an infamous expressway known as 128, thoughtful drivers- including me- are brought to heighten all senses. I must defend against unpredictable right-side passers, tailgaters, and nonsignalers. At the Peabody split, I reflexively disengage cruise control. Committed to making the most of extremely valuable time off, I tune in to AM radio stations with road and traffic reports, ready to divert as needed so that I can get to Boston as efficiently as possible.

At the lower end of the kilohertz scale, my radio picked up one of those abundant money programmes on the airwaves. Another “financial expert,” from the syndicated world sounded very far away from New England, telling me about what I don’t have, and what I should do with that nonexistent pile of loot that I should have by now. Thanks a lot. After a short listen, I moved on to a station with a traffic update. My thoughts lingered a bit longer with the financial broadcaster’s words and yet another reason to acknowledge what has been unattainable. Surely, I know enough to look and listen askance at these market-driven programmes, aimed at a broad spectrum of potential buyers. Not all of us can buy. Notwithstanding, my thoughts accompanied me, beyond the Reading-Wakefield merge, onto I-93, and off through Medford Square. Dashes of autumn foliage helped to lighten my thoughts, diverting them away from my case of the almosts. I refer to my chronic recounting of how I nearly made better choices, and was almost hired for this-and-that job: Almost, but not quite catching the brass rings of my wishes. During a traffic light breather, I looked over at my typewriter on the back seat. Saturday, sunshine, library books, and Beacon Hill awaiting, surpassed my sighs.

temporal

Almosts have persistent ways of infiltrating streams of thought. Though I’m grateful for the gift of lucid, long-range memory, I’m also aware of the burden attached to razor-sharp recall. Remembering things I’ve almost accomplished, almost said, and ideas almost developed stirs my perspective into self-casting as a perennial underachiever. In a general sense, perhaps it is a human ache to desire to live up to one’s potential. In The Luminous Trail, Rufus Jones strikes a chord in his discourse about roads that evolve as we live:

“There is in most of us a vast acreage of our inner estate which has never been touched by the plow. It remains uncultivated. We are this; we have been this, but how much more we might be! Coming to ourself, our true self, and reaching out with divine help and the gift of Grace to win the whole of ourself is to be ‘spiritual-minded.’”

In that Grace is the ability to be unfettered by defeatism. In defeatism, I refer much more easily to unaccomplished ventures, than to vanquished waters long under the bridge. Navigating the turbidity of almost has the added afflication of the indefinite. This kind of wilderness has undefined limits; the traveller cannot see the end. The pilgrimage is accompanied by thirst, by longing for a satisfying stability and permanence. Living a long succession of almosts is wearying, as is the vigilance of keeping watch for an arrival into fulfillment. But even our most established days are temporal at best. Many of us know about fleeting moments in a theoretical sense, but very few apply that awareness as practical knowledge. How much sensible theory has become lived practice? Perhaps the core of each almost reveals the temporariness of what seems solid to our mortal senses.

holding pattern

An unending chain of almosts, combined with short-range visibility, makes for a provisional view of life in all its dimensions. Athletes experiencing their version of almosts are prone to exclaim “wait ‘til next year,” having the advantage of an off-season during which they can recondition before re-entering their respective arenas. That is surely not how most of us live. If “offseasons” are preparatory spans of time, the average working person must intertwine active, vigilant forays with short and intermittent respites. I’ve learned to do this with occasional retreats. Tirelessly working, while waiting for my fortunes to improve, seems like a life spent in preparation for tailwinds that do not manifest. With undetectable boundaries, the provisional is undefined.

Pursuing a preparatory path is safely familiar, and not altogether without achievement. My student days, primarily dedicated to postgraduate life and employment has continued on with scholarship as intense as my job adventures and related searches. Scholarly life is inherently preparatory. Studies and research anticipate application. Critical reads, note taking, and indexing bridge discovery with future reference. Looking forward through the temporal can lose the present, relegating life to a perpetual holding pattern.

Living in a constant state of preparation is its own form of almost. In a continuity of those turbulent and tentative student years, renting my home and keeping my living simple, makes it easier to uproot as opportunities arise. Parallel to that, I have not ceased in my quest for better and more stable work. Living portably awaits the fulfillment of the almosts. Putting away money for the future reflects thirst to bring the temporal into port.

“real”

The provisional should be just as it says, and not a permanent condition of unease. Over time, there develops a sense of the overdue, and at worst, the too-late. The latter becomes something to avoid and to be feared. Another pitfall to beware of is the notion of rehearsing for the real thing. Perceiving the present and continuing to do so, as treading water, devalues the voyage. Banking up energy, resources, and knowledge may be wise and prudent, but if it’s in anticipation of the real thing, there comes the question of whether there is a real and an almost real. Is the unsatisfactory ephemeral as real as any other circumstance? Perhaps it is more real, existing in the amenable present, and compared to the anticipated which does not exist yet. As unsuitable as it may be, present and temporal conditions are as real as foreshadows of hoped-for reality.

From this lookout, straining ahead for improved reality to materialize, and struggling with the ill-fitting aspects of the present, there remains a reckoning with the past. As in archival processing, there are arrangements and descriptions of life’s chapters, based upon their points of origin and provenance. Are the organized documents through time’s continuum informative artifacts, or evidentiary references for condemnation? Commenting on our developing understanding of history, the philosopher Ortega y Gasset observed that our changes in thinking do not negate timeless truths, but rather that we change as we see truths anew that we hadn’t previously seen. He wrote about a progress in modern historiography that departed from the 18th century penchant for “cataloguing failures.” Like Gasset, I’m less interested in a sense of exoneration, and more drawn to redeeming my remaining time. Assurance of heading in a worthy direction would inform me that I am not obstructing my own progress. As surely as I write these words, the story continues to be composed.

beacon hill

“The reach must always exceed the grasp.
The heart must forever be throbbing for an attainment
that lies beyond any present consummation.
It is the ‘glory of going on,’
the joy of discovering unwon territory
beyond the margin of each
spiritual conquest.”

~ Rufus Jones, The Inner Life


Each day is unique and should be a fresh start. This morning’s front page is not yesterday’s. But do we have distinguishable news items, and is it fair to expect and find ameliorations to our daily stories? Yes, it is; and it is also well worth cultivating a discipline of observation. The way to work has only so many variations on the basic route. But in a real sense, just as the day is unique, it is not the same way through the same places. During the lunch hour of noting words in my journal, I chose an old familiar perch. But the day varies context and backdrop. From the second floor window of the coffeehouse, sheltered from the rain, pedestrians’ umbrellas appeared as twirling spoked mushroom caps. Varying my vantage point permits perception practice. The street below revealed textures I hadn’t noticed at ground level. Looking north between office buildings, I recognized a steeple four neighborhoods away, standing at the horizon.

Discovery isn’t simply finding something entirely unfamiliar: it’s also noticing newness in the usual. Surely terra incognita is immediately in our midst. Perhaps you, too, can pinpoint some of your own historic realizations. Our discoveries are for us to store in our hearts and fuel our fires. Last week I enjoyed the double-privilege of residing with the Quaker community in the Beacon Hill Friends House and studying the 17th century works of Richard Baxter at the Boston Athenaeum nearby. The Friends live in the same building as their sanctuary. When I had my first look at the space, with sunlight and verdant colors streaming in from the back garden, my impression halted my steps. I was immediately reminded of my first-ever visit to Taizé, France- which followed two days of traveling, preceded by months of planning: from dusty summerbaked roads, I entered the Taizé monastery’s church and was swept by the combination of beautiful colors, the ambience of the space itself, and the fact that I had really arrived. Discovery has ways of finding us. The Friends’ environment has a similar eloquent simplicity, however in a much smaller and purposefully unadorned space. A new lived experience in a very familiar place.

A week of new horizons in well-known worlds provided respite and insight alike. Between daily visits to the Athenaeum I could stroll the hilly streets unencumbered, having a neighborhood place to leave bags, books, and typewriter. And I could visit with friends, without calculating a same-day return to Maine. There was plenty of time to listen well. Even my handwriting slowed down. The Athenaeum’s rare books room, open only on weekdays, was yet another place of discovery in a library I’ve known for a dozen years. After reading all I could borrow of Baxter’s in circulating collections, it was time to meet the treasures he published in his own lifetime. Requesting to use the special reading room paralleled my query for staying with the Quakers.

More occasions of quiet wonder, with tomes opened for me by scrupulous curators revealing pages printed more than 350 years ago. From the London printer Thomas Parkhurst’s hands to mine, a 21st century bookbinder from Maine, I could barely imagine the readers in between. And could those writers have imagined what New England would become? How about a Quaker Meeting House sharing a neighborhood with Congregational, Catholic, and Episcopal churches- and a synagogue? All this, and a separation of church and state. Baxter would’ve marveled at that. The books- and a 17th century style of protracted-sentenced English- filled many of my daytime hours. I took numerous notes in permissible pencil. A few of these books are also accessible in scanned form, but I found the originals so much easier to navigate. I could glance quickly between prefatory notes and texts. The paper itself gently reflects light. Another area of fascination is the marginalia; little markers to confirm steps in the forest.

Serendipity manifests in ways such as when we realize new acquaintances share similar friends and affinities. Simultaneously our worlds draw nearer while doors open. The serendipitous can also find its way into the bookbindings of printed words. After a solid week of Baxter’s writing- and sensing more of the spirit in the words- I signaled for the last of the books I’d requested. Recognizing the tome as being a bound collection of pamphlets, I looked for the contents list as a finding-aid for the volume. On my way to the Baxter item, in this bundle of random 17th century items, the item immediately preceding Baxter caught my eye. It was a captivating polemic by one John Alexander, something I’d never have found if not for the serendipity of perusing books. With special permission, I photographed the title page. In fact, Alexander’s words, along with how I began imagining Alexander as a person, upstaged the last Baxter piece, and my last few hours were absorbed by this personal discovery.

Time passes astonishingly quickly on sojourns like these. It seems there is a special time zone we inhabit when we are enthralled, and it runs quite opposite to the ones that prevail in schools and employment. As the week drew to a close, I brought a mutual friend of the Beacon Hill Friends House to visit me there, and another mutual friend back in contact with the Athenaeum. And I took a good long walk, finally away from Beacon Hill, my thoughts filled with all I’d intensely read. Back Bay, the Public Gardens, Copley Square, and Commonwealth Avenue- all well-trodden by my old steps- were suddenly easier to enjoy with my leisurely paces.

Beacon Hill has sent me back to the fray with some new strength. I’ve learned how Valley Street can wend up to higher ground. Places of respite are way-stations. These are places in which it is possible to stop, gather, and rejuvenate so that the pilgrimage of trust on earth may be taken up again. Intermissions seem all-too-brief, but it is consoling to know of many refuges that are easy to reach. Last week reminded me to notice discoveries in all forms. The Quaker community, through many spirited conversations, reminded me of kindred spirits. When you think you may have become as jaded as this culture appears to be, you can discover that it is still possible to experience wonder, and that is helped by seeing wonder in others around you. I’ve found myself reading and writing in silence more than before- and to write more slowly. On the northbound return train, my thoughts turned to friendships, newness and excavated finds in the old and familiar. New directions on the old way home.