Catch a Glimmer
Choosing to see beauty in the ordinary
Malaise. Or perhaps lassitude. A feeling of something stuck, deep inside, in the cavernous dark depths. Unsettling. Disquieting. It creeps in. Seeps in. ~LNB
I messaged a friend recently, to check in. I’ve been doing this regularly with people I haven’t heard from in a while. Connecting with people who have been missing from my life has been on my mind. So I’ve done something about it and reached out.
Perhaps it’s because the world is swirling with a strange kind of angst and fear. The never-ending news cycle of trauma and despair seeps in. A fog of impending horror. I’ve been almost too afraid of opening up a window to the news because to connect with the horror I cannot change drags me to the bottom of a pit that’s very dark and black.
What I want for this world is kindness. For more acceptance and less hatred. A world less black and white, and more technicoloured. A soft and gentle world where weapons don’t exist—words, guns, bombs, all melted back to their basic elements. Atoms that create soft things, warm things, nurturing things.
The soft action of reaching out, connecting with others, is a way of gently saying, “I care. You’re in my thoughts.” When I asked, “How are you?” I’ve been met with “Funny you should ask…(insert big feelings and happenings).” For many, it seems, shifts are happening. Movements in ways of being and seeing the world. Is this what happens when the news gets dark? Do some of us collectively shift our ways of being to a softer, more heart-centred way of living? Turning to the light?
It’s not ignoring the darkness in the world, but choosing light. Acknowledge the darkness exists but resist surrendering to the murky mess we have no control over. Appreciate the glimmers that appear. Look for them, even. We can control that much.
I’ve read two beautiful things this week - three if you include the book I’m reading.
The first is from Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian (although it wasn’t called this at first. Like all things, her regular newsletter morphed into something greater than she ever imagined and she had the grace to manage this change). For 17 years this newsletter has been a labour of love for her and she has kept track of things she has learned. Not a huge list, but 17 important things. One for each year of her newsletter’s existence.
It’s like Popova has reached into my soul/brain/life/body and extracted many of my own life’s lessons. For example, Number One: “Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.” The discomfort in saying “I don’t know” in a society wanting instant opinions can become a corralling of “us” and “them”. I learned to say “I don’t know” as a teacher. I’ve never pretended to have all the answers. Still, I was so very happy to start a collective search for answers with students—curiosity is a wonderful way to see the world and I’m sad to say that there’s been a considerable surprise from some students (particularly here in Finland) when I’ve admitted to not knowing.
Number Three: be generous. She writes, “Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.” For me, kindness is key. Being kind, even in conflict. The loving-kindness meditation I often turn to allows us time and space to be generous with our kindness and is something I turn to when the darkness seeps in.
I could write about each of the 17 life lessons but Number Six: presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity, and Number Fourteen: choose joy, for me, are intricately connected. There is joy in being present. The rewards are rich, deep, and life-long. By choosing to see the glimmers, the small moments when our biology is in a place of connection or regulation, cueing our nervous system to feel safe or calm, we are choosing presence.
I will return to this list. Perhaps I’ll even write it out, pin it up somewhere to remind myself that I’m not alone in choosing joy, in being present, in the thought that “everything is eventually recompensed, every effort of the heart eventually requited, though not always in the form you imagined or hoped for.”
In times of uncertainty, where the only thing I seem to be able to influence is my response to the world, the solidity of ideas written on a page can be a comfort.
A glimmer.
The second beautiful thing I read is by the amazing Nick Cave in The Red Hand Files:
As the scales fall from your eyes the world rushes into focus, presenting itself with a kind of vibrational eloquence that can, at first, be almost overwhelming. Everything shimmers, everything clarifies, everything wrestles for your attention. Trees feel super-real, their roots plunged into the earth, their branches stretching to the sky, birds are flesh and blood souls, fragile with life, the sky unfolds and rolls, the ocean crashes, people fascinate, books are beautiful, children are whirling dynamos of chaos, dogs bark and cats meow, flowers shout, your neighbour glows, and God runs like a helix through all things. The world awaits you, humming with meaning. You are alive with potential. You are not dead.
The woman he was responding to admitted she had attempted to take her own life. Cave’s response is beautiful. Blunt (“Stop fucking around and get your shit together. Get clean and don’t die.”) and beautiful. She wrote to him for a reason, and he’s given her a response filled with beauty to live for. Beauty in the small, the insignificant, the everyday things that carry magic if you open yourself to it.
Turning my face to the sky—the cloud cover is thick today—I choose the light, however grey it seems right now. I choose to see the beauty in the yellow leaves falling to the ground, the drops of water hanging from a branch, the red-pink granite cobblestones, slick with rain.
Stay well,
Lisa x
✨Northern Notes will always be about my writing, but we are so much more than one thing, aren’t we? My e-book is available for download and if you sign up on my website you’ll receive a different kind of newsletter. You’ll also know when I have other digital downloads available.
Beautiful, Lisa.
Amen! Love Maria Popova, love glimmers, good stuff Lisa.