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.

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

purgatory

“Longing to be spirit alive...

Though exalted our hopes
no less real shall they be;
in compassion faithfulness thrives.”

~ Spirit of God, by the Monks of Weston Priory

The grey-and-black satchel that I take with me to work every day has been at the foot of my desk at home for eight weeks. The flap stays folded open. It’s been grounded, as I’ve been fulfilling my work duties from home for two months and counting. During the weekend of the 14th and 15th of March, I had removed my journals, calendar, and pencil case as I would on any weekend. My satchel hasn’t been used since; it simply leans at the ready, its contents unchanged since its last time slung over my shoulder. I haven’t had the heart to unpack anything from it, but recently thumbed through the unfinished lesson plans, February newsletters, and forms related to travels that had to be cancelled. There are serial articles for lunch-hour reading, customer cards from a number of cafés and eateries, a pencil sharpener, my Charlie Card for the Boston transit system, a comb, and spare camera batteries. All dormant. As with my car that has a full tank of gas and a nice new inspection sticker, that satchel-shaped time capsule is still ready to be used- once there’s a place to go.

Certainly these recent weeks have been consumed with stabilization efforts in the wake of societal whiplash and enforced lockdown. I’d glance over at the open satchel with much the same disengaged attention with which I’ve been regarding the casualty numbers in the news. Yes, it’s there and this is so, but if I look too closely it’s going to be more difficult to deal with things that are immediately at hand. I believe many are stuffing their absorbed trauma. The urgency in the context of my responsibilities are matters of safety, health, continuing to work, meeting expenses, and finding ways to stay even-keeled. At the same time, I’ll admit to noticing things like my trusty satchel, my camera that has film in it, and the forms I was supposed to bring with me to the Bodleian Library for my return sojourn in Oxford. Everything has to wait. Waiting and endurance constitute the half-filled glass to counteract the void of maybe-never. Listening to widespread fears and frustrations, while combating those of my own, rotates around a core of longing. While we sense everything to be out of control, we long for the confidence to fairly expect the near future. Many are longing for people and places that cannot be visited. It is a longing for all that is gone from reach. In deprivation, pronouncedly noticing what is missing is itself a distraction that my instincts reflexively and defensively distract in order to keep going.

Living in lockdown is an exile, but in familiar confines. It is a purgatory of undetermined duration, but many of us prefer the idealism of assuring one another of see you later. Willing a finitude upon this indefinite crisis complements my intact satchel, loaded camera, and studies. My mother sent me a text message saying, “we will get through this,” and I am basing all my efforts upon this insistence. My apartment is a safe and sound sailboat on an ocean of polluted currents, and when I must moor myself to run errands I vigilantly disinfect upon returning aboard. I am quite far from a stereotypic germophobe, but all wise counsel informs me to take nothing for granted. Shortly before the lockdown began, a neighbor brought me homemade face masks, which get daily use. I have my “dirty shoes,” which stay outside in the hall, and “dirty gloves,” that are also part of my armor- especially for the weekly grocery errand, albeit stealthily done at 7am. A lot of spent energy, amidst a lot of wasted time.

Above: the dirty gloves and the dirty shoes, out in the hallway.

Sudden desolation has caught many by surprise. When the plague was called a “novel virus,” there seemed to be a media-promoted novelty in reporting how many households were beginning to operate in bunkered isolation. Whatever was novel wore off, as we’ve all seen spectacles of hoarding, profiteering, and inhumane cruelties. But there are also parallel threads of compassion in our midst. Among social, cultural, political, and even workplace dynamics, the present is an exaggerated version of life before March 2020. While the mean-spiritedness is cranked-up, displays of goodness are intensified. Ineptitudes have become severely hazardous, and kind gestures have become lifelines. Right before our eyes.

Amidst the present culture of extremes, there are understandable obsessions with reaching across time. Looking forward, or wishing to do so, is an affirmative in favor of life beyond this purgatory. But then there are the prognostications that I’ve learned to identify in the news: “at this rate, there could be,” “ a possible trajectory,” “if this happens, then that could happen,” “we could be seeing,” -all of which I’ve trained myself to detect. Yes, there are messages about the present, about what to be prudently aware of now, but resisting scattered predictions has become necessary. And then there’s the reaching back. Memory is a source of consolation for many. I witness this as I continue working as a professional archivist, I notice this in popular media, and I find myself doing the same with my own remembrances. Sports radio stations are playing vintage broadcasts of championship games. Past events are re-broadcast. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion that combines fondness that is often tinged with sadness about the past.

Nostalgia can also reach the depths of grief. Again, I see it, hear it, and experience it myself. While organizing some local history and providing some healthy distraction for my library patrons, I wrote an article about hometown hockey. Careful to get the archival photos accurately captioned and aligning names and dates, I thought I’d add some appropriate audio. The old Stompin’ Tom Connors song about the “good ol’ hockey game” came to mind, and I added the footage-illustrated video. Proofreading the essay, I re-watched the video and listened to the familiar song that I’ve heard countless times at hockey arenas. Well, this time the sights and sounds filled my eyes with tears. That was unexpected, and I needed to just dig back into the work, being “on the clock.” Apparently, I had to reckon with a few more shocks. A few days later, continuing to work on the major digital archives project I created, but now logged in from my dining table, I assembled scans I made of negatives shot in the early 1940s. The pictures showed Christmas shoppers on Congress Street (Portland’s major thoroughfare). For the archival descriptive notes I identified the stores and coördinates, recognizing the buildings that still exist. But the moments frozen by the photographer back in 1941 captured the bustling sidewalks, the chatting pedestrians, the seasonal weather, and even the trolley cars. Prepping the scans, I was swept into these compelling images. Even though I’ve been curating these pictures daily for a decade, these images suddenly looked different to me. There were the gestures, the time of year, how close everyone was on those walkways, and that I know these corners and streets from my own times. I needed to stand away and walk around my apartment, finding this strangely overwhelming. Then I dug back into the work. My employers need statistics, which means I need to continue being productive. I am certain this state of purgatory has affected my sense of time; perhaps yours, too.

Below 3 images: Holiday shoppers on busy Congress Street:
Portland, Maine in 1941.

In this imposed immobility, I am consciously grateful for the travels I’ve been able to make through the years. Thus far, says the optimist within. Surviving this crucible means there will continue to be pilgrimages and more opportunities. But first to live to see that other end of this trial, to emerge from the danger of exile. And while dreaming ahead, my lurking hope is that time isn’t being wasted. My gratitude extends these days to the small personal library I’ve assembled over the years, as well as the reams of notes I’ve made through dozens of research sojourns. All the quotations, annotations, and references are now transcribed and searchable- built for present and future uses. Much of this resourcing has been to help me as a teacher; my repository of scholarly notes has become a ready archive of inspiration. Years of savouring the discoveries I’ve made in the manuscript rooms and rare books libraries of my travels, I’ve somehow created my own version of “strategic reserves” which are feeding me now.

My own scratch-built annotated index to Saint Augustine’s Civitate Dei, helps me continue mining gems out of that great work. In book 11, chapter 27, the great philosopher of Thagaste (north Africa) wrote that we desire much more than to merely exist, but to comprehend. Augustine said that human beings would sooner choose sanity even if it makes us sad, than insanity even if it makes us glad. He asserted that we are repulsed at the prospect of annihilation, even during times of misfortune. Then he broadened his observations to include all living beings- that all creation really does long to live:

“Why, even irrational animals, with no mind to make such reflections, moving to avoid destruction, can, in some sense, be said to guard their own existence from the greatest serpents to the tiniest worms, show in every movement they can make that they long to live and escape destruction. Even trees and plants move to guarantee sustenance. They attach their roots deep into the earth in order to thrust forth their branches safe into the air... seeking the place where they can best exist in accordance with their nature.”

With those trees and plants, I am attaching my roots and reaching upward, stretching for the life of the Civitate Dei. As yet, it is uncertain as to how this time will alter my composition. In their liminality my satchel, tools, and car stand by, intact, for good reason. I’m finding out one can sow and construct during the purgatory of confinement and impairment. We cannot fully know the mystery of our own cultivation. The inward journey becomes the principal pilgrim road.

Same window view: April 2020 above; May 2020 below.

just for now

“Our transitory burden of suffering is achieving for us above measure
exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at things seen, but things unseen;
for things seen are temporary, but things unseen are eternal.”

2nd Corinthians 4:17-18.

Among some old habits of mine is that of keeping a few bandages in my wallet. Through my adventures in art school, studios- and as a bookbinder- I’ve had to provide my own ready supply. Foraging enough with lacerated fingers, through remote and sparsely-stocked first aid kits, taught me to be self sufficient. Most of the time, the band-aids are for my own immediate patching-up, but I’ve given many of these away as needed. In such situations, the most effective cure is the most instantaneous. The cuts and scrapes can be revisited and redressed, beyond the momentary and stabilizing remedy. Rather like temporary, low-speed spare tires that allow us to retake the road en route to safety and more enduring solutions. It is the instantaneous aspect of a short-throw response that lingers so meaningfully. I believe this also holds true, when it comes to timely and thoughtful words that represent generous intentions. As with the small bandages, lightweight tires, splicing tape, binder clips, lengths of fishing line, and plastic tarps, consoling words do not necessarily solve problems: but they may act as vital stop-gaps. The idea of such triage is to reach the next step intact.

The new year is off to a start that too closely resembles the old year. Indeed, a calendar page’s turn does not automatically change our living standards. Road signs inform us about our direction; their purpose is not to tell is how enjoyably we’re travelling. The passage of time is about my only detectable progress. Apparently, the list of those who meteorically rise in flashy success is short. For me, the pace has more of the resemblance of a forest tree. True to a northern New Englander’s colors, seasons are stark and rapid. Roots anchor deeply, and whatever is above the surface must endure battering elements for some ten months per year. Seedlings evidently need a lot of time, accumulating forces and building some requisite ballast. The process, as least for this mortal, is excruciatingly slow. Fruition cannot manifest soon enough.

But what to do, when the ground trembles at every turn and foundations are endangered? Planning ahead and projecting only go so far in front of closed doors and locked gates. Now that surely needn’t negate composing wish lists. Instability demands a closer focus upon the present- even taking stock to appreciate the temporal. A wise friend once told me about “split seconds;” as anyone might do, catching their breath to regain composure and be able to stand at ease. A change of perspective is to sense my immediate context, and leave the far future for later- even if just as an experiment not to overthink. To me, a split-second regathering is a restorative moment, a stabilizing and portable respite.

Pondering this, through the tentativeness of unaffordable housing and difficult employment, my sense of momentary consolation is put to the test. There remains much to appreciate, but it requires creating some space in the chaos to be better able to savor what is life-giving. Appreciation must be an active observation. Don’t just admire that perfect cup of coffee; drink it before it gets cold. Just the other day, it came to me, as I was reassuring an anxious colleague. I heard myself say, “this is just for now.” Somehow those few and small words alleviated stress, pointing to the fleeting nature of a present oppression. The storm will pass and dissipate. Just for now. Later on, through the week, I noticed that I was occasionally repeating this to myself. Even the typographic "J4N" has been appearing in my journal entries.

But an active mind always aspires for more, especially as sources are discovered and tapped. And the motivation for supply is the demand. While just for now helps soothe the soreness of defeat, the memory of a long-ago “split second” has recently returned to me. Way back when I played hockey, the teacher that coordinated and watched over us did his job with fierceness and with the vigilant eye of a mentor. We were unruly kids, yet we followed our leader. Amidst our rambunctious collisions and adrenaline, he’d say to any one of us, “[are] you all right?” -or “you okay?”- in an understated tone of voice. Channeling this memory of sound, I’ve claimed this as another momentary respite: You all right? You okay? In an imagined response, I’ll say, sure; all right, and instantly resume whatever task I’d interrupted with that very brief pause.

Those split-seconds’ worth of resuscitation are punctuation marks in seamless streams of verbiage and shifting surfaces. Not solutions in themselves, but they are stepping stones in the days’ traversals- small yet vital bandages at the ready. Just for now is both grasp and release. In recent years, my experiences have comprised a voyage of survival, requiring a development of momentary consolations. The salve of just for now may be in response to difficult days, or weeks, deadlines, of crises of varied duration. The “time being” of a just for now might be a long time.

The relationship of time and memory amounts to yet another dimension in the human odyssey. As with any reactive remedy, just for now exists in real time. Retrospective observations are not about now, but about then. “Somehow, I pulled through,” or “I nearly didn’t survive,” are both statements that look back. Intrinsically, administering an instant cure is pointed toward the future- yet it is the present that is stabilized. A fleeting pause may be an eye in a storm, buying a tiny bit of time to find some bearing, take stock of the present, and look ahead.

Memory makes demands that are not unlike looking forward: as progress is intently expected, so memory expects time to stand still. In a sensation very similar to how we anticipate, we are often incredulous with the ways things change from past to present. As an archivist, I notice this daily among my clientele. Passing by places with which I have lengthy and vivid personal histories, it’s easy to be astonished at how they have changed over the years- irrationality notwithstanding. Memory iconographically freezes objects and people in place, registering images as a camera might on film. For example, my mind’s eye recognizes a school, a house, or a past workplace, but none of the people now are familiar to me, and I am merely an observer with a memory. Missing a person, a place, or a situation amounts to much more than people and physical surroundings, but what they represent for us. Remembrance revisits deeply registered pictures and footage, intensifying contrasts between past and present. It is often a reluctant realization that prized and enshrined memories were also fleeting instances of just for now. Still, we continue to preserve, to expect, and to be startled. Bereavement, another example, is a just for now of undefined duration, and the losses are of those who should have been permanent and unchanging. Of course that’s unreasonable, however real the pains and wishes can be. Just for now cannot be more than temporal- and paradoxically the just for now is integral to healing and continuity.

regather

“There’s a time to throw stones and a time to regather
There’s a time to embrace and for distances
There’s a time to seek and a time to lose
A time to keep and to cast away.”

~ John Michael Talbot, There’s a Time [from Ecclesiastes 3].

A great many souls in this world recognize these as especially difficult times. The present-day strife is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. In the briefest terms, the overt anguish and anger manifest as social, as cultural, as political, as relational. The impression of collective distress is as widespread as the weariness of media overexposure. In profound ways, intensified darkness is ushered toward the crepuscule of winter.

What is a creative, well-intending, productive soul to do? If the general din of struggle and water-treading wasn’t more than enough to manage, dark waves lash and threaten still more hardship. Over the years, I’ve learned that hardships are inevitable, but misery is optional. Pendula will swing, and that is out of my power. What is within my ability is to maintain a healthful level of inspiration. I’ve also learned to do that, over the years, through some considerable desolation. Amidst my formative and extensive experiences in Benedictine monasticism is the concept of recollection. In this context, the word recollection refers to a contemplative practice. It requires a measure of solitude, within which there must be silence to settle straying thoughts- and in that quiet a bare contemplation of the Divine presence. In recollection comes a remembrance of God’s presence, a simple awareness of providence and consolation. As the ancient Psalmist wrote, look and be lightened.

Recollection is surely easier said than done, particularly for those who want this to occur to them as a natural matter of course. Even after years of discipline, this does not always come to mind right away for me. What does somehow, and quite effortlessly, is to write journal entries. Journaling seems to connect busyness with contemplation. Another is to talk with friends and to help encourage them. A few days ago, I spoke to a church congregation about Malakhi the Prophet, and how his name means “divine messenger.” His message included warnings and consequences about dangerous times, but also strong reminders to take stock of the good and the eternal. Taking stock is another thoughtful way to look forward. Subconsciously I found myself doing this in the past week, as I transcribed my two recent chapbooks into a searchable, digital file. Re-reading pages and pages of handwritten study notes I made at Oxford permitted me to relive portions of the inspiring sources I had pored over during my term there. Doing this turns out to be a regathering of personal forces. Rereading concepts that had left my more recent thoughts helped me to remember having gotten through- even surmounting- hard times in years past. The immediate tends to make us forgetful. Recollection helps to recall what is good.

At my first opportunity to take a day off, I made for the Boston Athenaeum, an oasis of many years. The library provides inspiring writing spaces, surrounded by vast and deep literary collections. Even there, writing did not come easily to me. But I can find some traction by visiting the levels upon levels of books. My steps instantly went to philosophy and philology, noticing and perusing old reliable- yet challenging- favorites, while looking for new ideas and words. Names and titles on spine backings on the shelves are in themselves an assuring presence, even before opening the books. Then I remembered the brilliant Boston educator and abolitionist James Freeman Clarke, whose words I discovered at the Athenaeum. In the turmoil of the mid-19th century, he wrote about learning to see beauty within a chaotic world. In his heartening book about how we can teach ourselves, called Self Culture (which is how I relate to the Athenaeum), I had transcribed this into one of my chapbooks:

“We educate the imagination by creating good things and beautiful things. Every man is an artist who tries to do his work perfectly, for its own sake, and not merely because of what he can get by it. He gets a great deal more this way than he will in any other. Every man can turn his life into poetry, romance, art, by living according to an ideal standard. He may be a day-laborer, a mechanic, a sweeper of street-crossings; but if he puts his soul into his work, his work becomes a fine art. No one may notice it, but he notices it himself, and I think that God and the angels notice it also.”

In the same book, Clarke wrote that by not living according to an ideal standard, we endanger becoming “automatons and drudges.” I completely agree, and am amazed to consider how current this sounds.

Appreciating the necessity of “getting out of my self,” I balanced the recollective solitude with teaching and the company of friends. Within the recent week, I’ve enjoyed the diverting occasions of leading a philosophy forum, teaching a creative writing class, providing music for a church service, and presenting at a statewide professional conference. In these situations, my thoughts are turned outward, to make sure all in attendance are encouraged. The only self-considerations have to do with being prepared to instruct and provide. Among friends, I’m able to benefit from exchanges of insights and stories, reminding me that I’m not entirely alone.

While driving to and from the conference, which was in a location two hours from my home, the road trip provided for some thinking time. I saw leafless late-autumn forests under somber skies. Western Maine has a strange combination of both ramshackle and luxurious homes, small riverside towns and strip malls. Not fitting into any of this, peering from my steering wheel, I’d shake my head with “I don’t know.” I honestly don’t know. Pondering this culture of distrust and this violent world: I don’t know. Just about everything generates a lingering I don’t know. On the drive home, as I saw nightfall at a startlingly early 4:30pm, I remembered Thomas Merton’s assertion: “I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.” That passage, from his Thoughts in Solitude unfolded into a petitionary prayer, ending with a statement of undaunted trust despite his wavering sense of direction. As for me, I can merely continue along darkened, barren roads, despite refrains of I don’t know. Indeed, I do know to recollect, and not to stop in the middle of a highway. Perhaps by trust, I will know by continuing to move ahead.