I want to hibernate. I want to gather myself a pile of good books--upbeat or reflective books, not a tough critique of the human condition at present filled with lots of violence and anger. No rage bait--Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year. The sky is one huge, undifferentiated cloud, which makes me feel lost. What's up? What's far away? My sense of perspective struggles. The world is reduced to black and white--which is of course false. The world right now is anything but black and white. Yet maybe black and white is a simplicity I'd like to occupy for a while. I'll gather up some hand piecing in cheerful colours and patterns. I'll worry a little less about whether things match and more about whether they vibrate. I want to sit in front of the Christmas tree with nothing but my task light on and read, reflect, and piece. I want to spend time making something beautiful and useful or immersed in words that someone has crafted into a fresh and illuminating beauty.
It's been a tough year for me. It's been an even tougher year for the world, as I am well aware; that fact has kept self-pity in check--along with the fact that focusing on one's misery eats up perfectly good time. The "leader of the free world" is a vengeful toddler with little focus except for his grievances. There are wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan where little in the way of human wisdom is being brought to bear. No sense of what's reasonable; no empathy. Could we call this "the year of the guy"? Angry young men supporting Trump; the masked faced of ICE; Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu guided by nothing but their own survival and their pile of loot--like Smaug. Twice in the last couple of days when a car wasn't quick off the mark at a light--it's too slippery to be quick!--other cars honked. What's that all about? Two seconds makes a difference exactly how? People don't realize that it's their own impatience that makes them miserable, that steals their equanimity, not someone else's incompetence.
Then Krista Tippett sent out her year-end email that began with this sentence: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Those words have been variously credited to Plato, Philo of Alexandria, or the Scottish Reverend John Wilson. Do they give you goosebumps like they did me? I have long loved Henry James's wisdom: "Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is...to be kind." I think it's the image of the "great battle," in Krista's quotation that deeply moved me. The planet is in the midst of a great battle against our assumption she's there for us to use. We don't need to change our lives or adjust our values; tech will get us out of climate change. Refugees are battling for their existence, with any idea of well-being a distant mist. My wonderful sister-in-law, Gloria, ended her great battle in the middle of November. We saw only the outer signs, but these intimated that there was a great inner battle as well, out of which she fashioned a rich and kind life full of music and families (some of them adopted) manifested in a church that was full for her funeral.
You've got a great battle too. Maybe it's with a co-worker you can't connect with, the little digs and slights that arise, their righteous lack of cooperation. Maybe it's a child you don't understand, in spite of the fact that understanding people is your forte. Maybe it's a relationship strained to breaking by...what? You can't put your finger on precisely where it broke. Maybe that great battle is with yourself, with your sense of failure to quit smoking or eat less chocolate, to spend less time doom-scrolling. Your inability to write your next poem or begin a painting you can't quite see. Or you're trying to start something you know will make your life better, but you can't quite get it to work into your life. I really need to get back to my strength training and my balance exercises, but some days I can barely find the energy to finish making dinner. Yet if I don't get going, everything will be harder, beginning with those exercises I stopped doing in mid-November.
Or maybe your battle is more ineffable. A memory that tortures you but that you can't let go of. Grief, which has its own timeline. A mood you can't explain. Or a mood you can explain but that you can't fix or change. Our inner great battles are made more difficult this time of year, by the fact that the solstice darkness and Christmas light intermingle. They certainly aren't helped by the intransigence of the men who have grasped power and won't let it go until they have killed enough people or ruined enough lives. It's hard to believe in humanity when the yahoos are in charge. The cold and the grey skies don't help.
But because you are fighting a great battle, you should be the first beneficiary. Smile inwardly to yourself, with kind feelings in your eyes, remembering how you basked in gratitude or smiled at a stranger as you opened a door. Then turn to the person in front of you or off to the side. Smile. If you know them, reach out a hand or give a hug. Could we make "kind" into a verb, the way we've done with "nice," when we say that we've "niced" a difficult person and thus gotten them to cooperate? We can "kind" people and have them help us with the collective challenge of fighting our great battles.
The photograph is of an appliqued Christmas quilt I made some years ago.
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