Small things
Brace yourself, this one is going to be hardcore.
I woke up sad this morning mainly because of a recurring nightmare I have that always shows up when I experience some loss in my life. Even if the loss seems small when this nightmare occurs I realize it is deeper than I know and it’s almost like my consciousness is snapping its fingers at me to pay attention. You have to honour your losses as much as you honour your wins. The loss this time is of a premonition I had, which turned out to be false – sometimes this can be a project I’ve invested time in and that falls apart, other times it’s a new friendship that turns out to be built on lies, etc. The kind of thing that hurts just enough but that won’t take you out. I didn’t sit with it long because it’s actually almost impossible to mope when you have this face around:
And this face really needed to go out. So we got ready and went for a walk. And on my walk I listened to a beautiful podcast by Maya Angelou that my bestie sent to me, and her hypnotic voice lulled me and turned my sadness into gentle melancholy of the best kind, the kind that suddenly reveals all kinds of hidden beauty. Do you know what I mean by that? I don’t know if you necessarily need to be melancholic to get it but it helps – it is the melancholy of the type when there are no tears, just sharpened senses that let you experience more in your nearest surroundings. It’s as if there’s another lens on the world that adjusts itself for you, and out of the blue you notice things that you either take for granted or don’t notice as they are obscured by larger, louder things. These can be as accessible as stains on your leaky ceiling that turn into a story, or something like coming upon an unexpected pocket of nature, which is what happened to me this morning.
When I was a sometimes-emo child, I could entertain myself for hours trying to “pull out” faces and shapes out of wood grain patterns in our summer house, not to mention getting down to the ground to spy on bugs and ants in grass, and feeling weirdly privileged about having this “in” into their world.
I haven’t lost this ability as an adult but it’s hard to practice it where I live, which is a busy neighbourhood dissected by (barely functioning) streetcar lines, fumes, and construction. I used to have a sanctuary near my house – a stone beach I would go to first thing in the morning, a small forest and hills – before Doug Ford destroyed Ontario Place. It is exceptionally challenging to find small beauties in Toronto, at least where I live. And since I don’t have easy access to this secret world anymore, when I visit my parents’ place, I try to fill up with these moments as often as I can. I’m always astonished at how much I must miss. It’s humbling too, to realize that for the most part most of us are just stomping around, completely unaware of these realms. But when you tune in, adjust your lens, sharpen your senses, it’s all there. Having a dog smile his dog smile at you and boop the backs of your legs with his nose once in a while, is a good reminder too, to pay closer attention.
And I’m glad I did. As we were about to walk out of the park near my parents’ house, I saw a spider web hung between branches, right across our path. Were I to forge ahead, I’d tear it instantly. The spider in the middle was tiny and the anthropomorphizing child-me imagined he was hanging there feeling all proud of his hard work, unaware that all of it was about to be destroyed. I ducked under it and took a picture and kept walking. Grace: a silent agreement with the world that you’ll try not to crush what’s delicate, if you can help it.
Maya Angelou famously talked about how people will forget what you said, forget what you did, but never forget how you made them feel. I was thinking about that too, this morning, in relation to people, places, and animals, and mornings like this one. If you’re paying close enough attention, even a sad morning can make you feel deeply – much deeper than any nightmare. And not happy, or “healed” but somehow in the right place.
There is a godliness in small noticing and it’s a quiet, ordinary kind, just the way a spider builds and believes, or a dog trotting ahead, turns back to check you’re still there.
Lovely!