have words

“A human is not any inborn image of itself,
but many images coming in from the outside.”

~ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 15th c. (quoted in Ymage of Love, 1532)

The wilderness of this pandemic is now entering its eleventh month. While the end is not in sight, the beginning is long out of view, and the passage of time generates its own mirages about progress. It’s too easy to be fooled by distances covered and changes in seasons, thinking all will be resolved soon. Joining the popular parlance has been the expression “covid fatigue,” and it speaks for the weariness of many. This kind of exhaustion can deceive anyone into thinking the nightmare will end as a film does when the credits roll and the house lights come up again. But a global pandemic is not quickly resolved- even if it materialized as a rip tide. Yet in the midst of chaos and misery, the imperative to keep working and responsibly run a tight ship remains. Admittedly, there are many instances at which I stop in my tracks, in the middle of a work day, and feel the subtly deep-seated grief of these times. It’s difficult to have something with which to compare this. I often go to my street-facing windows, looking for signs of life such as pedestrian humanity and a tempo that exceeds that of my apartment. Very many recollections have heartbreaking undertones, as I remember casually traveling to visit interesting places of beauty and intricacy, seeing friends, and enjoying savoury meals. I remember the suddenness of closures last March, known in my thoughts as “when the curtain came down.” Right away, I struggled with boredom and tedium. Far too many struggle with much worse. Indeed, the entire world is in crisis. These are grievously sad times. Perhaps these things get to you, too. When humanity finally traverses this wilderness, there will be many notes to compare in person.


noting the words

Ever the observer- even through quarantine life- and always writing and photographing, I continue to notice the words of this era. Documenting these times, I’ve made note of the strangeness of such terms as social distancing, self-isolating, masking-up, contact tracing, curve-flattening, covidiots, doomscrolling, and the quickly overused unprecedented. Then there are cultural expressions of dismay. Of course many are shocked at what has been transpiring before our eyes; so am I. We can express it, or we can say, “I have no words.” Of course you have words. There are always words, especially in a language as pinpont specific as ours. Just reach for the words. We can be as elaborate or as concise as we choose- but it takes a bit of thought to dodge the clichés and assert observing and inventive words of our own. Another verbal response of incredulity is now to say, “this is not what we are.” There are variations, such as “this is not who we are,” and “this is not what we’re about.” The spirit of this expression is understandable enough, but why not be more direct and responsible and say something like, “we know better than to do this,” or “that was not right and we were wrong.” As actions so often speak louder than words, saying “this is not what we are,” is actually saying “look at what we are.” Yes, these are words, but they are also determinants of our convictions.


having words and having minds

Navigating and surviving the pandemic brings most of us into a lot more solitude than we’ve previously known. Liking one’s own company can help a great deal. Amidst the suddenness of all the closures and curfews, even in the shock-response, I noticed myself immediately tapping into practices I learned in monastic life. Although pandemic quarantining has tensions and anxious undertones that do not resemble contemplative solitude, I’ve been trying to redeem this exile-like continuum in employment and “downtime.” The ora et labora adopted from my Benedictine friends manifests daily with the divine hours and journaling threaded through my self-propelled work days. Whether in professional communications, online teaching, or personal writing, words and inflection have greater implications than they had before the covid era. Our powers of expression and presentation have become more tightly funneled through verbal applications. Expression means saying what one is moved to say. Presentation demands the discipline of selective restraint, appropriate to the situation. It takes patience, as well, and necessary isolation seems to be forcing that all-too-forgotten virtue upon us.

Along with the challenge to flex those articulation muscles, cultivating the healthful during daunting stretches of silence is equally a test of mindfulness. Both spheres make demands of an individual’s intentions, but both must also give way to unstructured musing. If I am the sole proponent of puttering, the lone such voice that crieth in the wilderness, then so be it. Perhaps by reading this, you may be inspired to your own recollective puttering around your living space. Paradoxically, by scattering the contents of my desk, I inevitably gather my thoughts. And though I haven’t got a mind anything like Albert Einstein’s, I undoubtedly comprehend his sentiment about loosening the valves of thought. Einstein wrote about how he would “think [about something] ninety-nine times and find nothing. Then I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”

Wales

Philosopher Martin Heidegger famously said that language is the house of being. This is to say it is where the soul lives. Indeed worth considering while attempting to rise to the level of one’s own uniqueness, each one of us. Another overused word in the past year is resilience. It’s actually quite a good and useful word, made of the Latin assemblage of re-seliens, or “the act of rebounding” (the action of continually leaping ahead). Good words can be worn down into background noise, but its spirit can still inform and take shape. I can be resilient without using the word, finding other ways to describe being persuaded to persevere. The need to be inventively originative is especially enhanced in these times. The pandemic has scattered physical communities and muffled the arts, but that needn’t cause our creative minds to become dormant. We’re capable of finding ways to encourage one another, and we still have the potential to better our minds. We have words and we have minds.

At the author's request, I provided this cover photo.

Earlier this month, my principal mentor and advisor from my undergrad years in college passed away. He was a well-published poet, as well as an inspiring and challenging educator. Brilliant in words and deeds. I studied writing, literature, poetry, and drama (including analysis of cinema) in Professor Aldrich’s memorable classes. Among the written arts, poetry in particular allows for the assemblage of words without the added constraints of sentence structure. Of course it is a craft of its own, just as essay-writing is also a distinct art form. A poet’s choices of words and their arrangements are the cutting edges for the expression of the artistic message. For me, there is no master as compelling as Dylan Thomas, whom I’ve loved since childhood, and whose configurations of words defy the rigidities of any predictable meter. Thomas was known to say that the sound of a word is as vital as its meaning; and it shows in his work. His written lines are filled with imagery. During my decade as a professor of photography, I regularly read Dylan Thomas to my classes- right before we would critique visual works. I would say, “Dylan’s words are giving us images, now we’re going to look at the images you see on the walls and provide some words.” Doing this always, always, always broke the ice that would be oh-so-typical in college art critiquing. When he wrote:

See, on gravel paths under the harpstrung trees
He steps so near the water that a swan’s wing
Might play upon his lank locks with its wind...*

Dylan gave us a self-portrait, just as we photographers do when we set off the timers on our tripodded cameras for just long enough so that we can enter the picture. An opportunity of a lifetime became possible when I was invited to live in the Thomas’ home, in Wales, immerse in Dylan’s native colors, and write. Swansea and its region really did resemble the imagery I found in his words. The whole experience was profoundly meaningful in every way for me, encouraging my continuation of bonding images and words. No doubt, upon returning home to Maine, I visited with Aldrich and described some of these adventures while we were catching up. It was also a chance to express my gratitude for his encouragement. May I recommend that you cultivate your words; don’t say you have no words, because you do. It’s like when someone calls me and says, “Can I ask you a question?” In so doing, you’ve done so. Ask that question. Have those words.

So shall he step till summer loosens its hold
On the canvas sky, and all hot colours melt
Into the browns of autumn and the sharp whites of winter,
And so complain,
In a vain voice,
to the stars.*

I had the supreme honor of calling this place home.

__ * Poet: 1935, by Dylan Thomas

gift words

“the word spoken by angels
was steadfast.”

~ Hebrews, chapter 2

Swirls of words swarm our days. Screens, phones, printed media, and spoken directives inform and distract. For the most part, the information is excessive, and the distractions tend to derail. Through barrages of verbiage and clichés, the mind is astonishingly able to extract key words. Amazingly, we are as capable of sifting and sorting, as we are prone to missing the point. Words formulate assemblages of letters and sounds that connect souls to concepts, and ignite our responses. Communicated and internalized words carry potential as pivot-points toward our gratitude as well as to our fears. Indeed, what is comprehended either in writing or by voice conveys a message. The words themselves are ethereal structures, yet they may have their own iconographic properties. What is the worth of a word, as a value denominator?

Rather than to look at the broader subject of words in general, my thoughts turn to the word as gift. Holy Scripture phrases universally encompassing magnitude as God speaks life into being. Before all things that live and generate, there shone the Word, the uncreated logos, all at once both ancient of days and ever new. From the panoramic expanse of creation to the humility of human hands, an affirmative word signifies action. Yet still, without physical dimensions, gratefully received words can be cherished as artifactual treasures. In a mystery that is uniquely human, this is possible. The spiritual gift of memory is able to retain more than words themselves, but their contexts, and the tones of the soothing spoken voices that first accompanied those words. With careful curatorial cultivation of the soul’s archives, our highly personal gift-words can be at the ready when we need them. Gift words represent needed strength to sustain the soul through dark times and to make strides in fair weather.

As it admittedly happens, during a rambling church service my attention turned to my palm-sized New Testament which I keep handy for such eventualities. The tiny book is filled with years of my own pencilled notations. Opening it to Hebrews, my favorite biblical section, the words faced up to me as the gifts they are. Each assuring word, and it happened to be the second chapter, reminded me of a weathered yet shining inheritance. Pearls of greatest price have landed in my hands as the brightest orange autumn leaves, wafting through open air to nestle precisely where I can receive them. Then I thought of the ways I restore documents and books, as a paper conservator preserving the written word. Even the bindings and flyleaves have histories to tell. Yet I returned again to the strength of spirit undergirding those tiny, thinly-printed words in my small book. There are many millions of these editions in the world, but this snowflake reached my hands as though authored and printed expressly for me.

For those of us who consider, construct, and comprehend with words, there is an added sensitivity to the verbal message. If we seek, we notice. What makes a word a gift, even something that points to the wellsprings of life? One aspect that comes to mind is that gift words are those pointed directly at me- fashioned especially for me, and spoken to my very condition. Another aspect is how my re-recital of these life-giving words effectively rekindles their intentions. But we sense far more than we can see, and I’ve come to believe that longings surface long after they have been rooted within. Part of this mystery is a longing for good words that reinforce, yet catch us by surprise. Words from our friends that know us best are often the messages that are most striking to our hearts.

The Spirit assures as well as alarms. Two personal examples which I never talk about have their places in this reflection. Very late one night, back when I was 18, I was interrupted from studying at my desk. I was living on a quiet street with large spaces between houses, and was very much awake while the rest of house was asleep. From outside my nearest window, I heard my name, called out several times in a brass-sharp tone. It sounded close to my windowsill. Of course, I went to the window to see who wanted me at that odd hour. Living on the ground floor, I ran quickly outside. Nobody was there. No footsteps, no vehicle, and not a subsequent sound. Just the night sky.

On another occasion, much later and in a very different place, there was a similar shock of an experience. Walking across a plaza in Boston, a section of pavement gave way underfoot and I fell through. I remember the pedestrian directly ahead of me was a blind man with a guide dog. It was an abrupt fall that I hadn’t a split-second to break, and the impact effectively shut out my lights. Long after the rescue, the bandaging, and the recovery, two aspects would not leave my thoughts: firstly, I wanted to know how long I had been unconscious, and secondly I wanted to make sense of something I “saw” during however long that span had been. I would return to the accident scene, bordered with yellow tape, and wonder about how long it took the medics to arrive. I had been reading Saint Augustine’s “City of God” on the subway, and I later had to clean my bloodstain off the cover. The book had been picked up and put on the stretcher with me. But I saw something, and I can describe it precisely. On a black background I saw two words, centered and all capitals in white: “IT’S YOURS.” It took a few years to comprehend something so unusual for so completely sober a person as myself. But the meaning came to me, and it remains to remind me that the life I have has been given to me. Though unknown and without influence or wealth, the gift of living can yet thrive. Several years ago, while running the footpath around Portland’s Back Cove, I looked to the sky above Casco Bay. The “It’s Yours” that had come to me became my “It’s Yours” that I suddenly understood to give back. Sprinting along the salt marshes, I said, “my life, God, it’s Yours- all of it.” The gift of “it’s yours” is to be given constantly.

What I "saw" when unconscious looked very much like this.

As much as words received can be traced back to their points of emanation, that which we internalize will draw us to our sources. Gift words do bring us to the sources of what strengthens us, and what gives each of us our own historic context. Consider how we find our ways through our days with symbols and words, noticing the nutrients as we seek them out. Indeed and realistically so, not every word and message will nourish. The gift words are the rarities that tend to be exceptions to the rules, yet surely not impossible or limited to few. Such words and sequences that enliven are discovered as they emerge. We notice as we seek, and we seek as we notice. Gift words, either spoken or in letter form, provide turns in the road that divert away from meditating upon miseries. Perhaps you, too, have your reference archive of gift words or even musical accompaniments, calling forth your truest self- that which is historic, evolving, and rooted.