I have always found words when I needed them.
To send condolences and birthday good wishes and “thinking of you” notes. To steer the owner of a lovely historic bungalow toward National Register listing. To craft a press release that would entice the local TV station to a Head Start open house. To fashion agency annual reports. To tell you of my year in “Winter Letters.” To berate a careless federal agency on their blithe disregard for federal preservation laws. Or to bluff that same agency into complying. To “talk” with Dave every night for years after he died. To construct a compelling resume. To slyly defeat a debate opponent with just the needed verbiage.
Where artists use paints and carpenters wood and bridge builders concrete and steel, I’ve employed words throughout my life for the designs that I wanted to execute. I listened early for a panoply of words—from my well-spoken parents, from erudite ministers, from good teachers, from a constant stream of library books. I’ve been fortunate to hear an incredible array of English language eloquence: in my cousin Gary’s correspondence, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg and his second inaugural addresses, in poetry, in Ian Tyson and Rodney Crowell’s song lyrics. I breathe words right after I take in air.
How is it, then, that I am so wordless—so speechless—now. Now, when I need my best, most powerful, most perfect words to change minds. To shake the Montana congressional delegation out of their blind loyalty to narcissistic puppets. Or better yet, to write some letter—some essay—so dazzling in logic, so beautiful in phrasing that I might send it off to our local paper. Or in an ideal world, to the New York Times – and have MAGA readers say: oh, I was wrong—now I understand the error of my ways—how could I have been hoodwinked before.
I try. I persist—at least in frequent notes to our senators and our representatives. I choose the best Facebook posts I can find. But my words feel weak, bloated, flimsy. When I focus on the Trump-Musk-Vance patsies, the alphabet letters in my mouth—however cleverly arranged–seem to hit an impenetrable wall. To splat against a reason-proof barrier and slide down into sodden heaps. Likely not even noticed on the far side. I so desperately want a battering ram of paragraphs and seem to be left, instead, with a fistful, a mind full of noodles.
So I remain disheartened, powerless—impotent. My mind wheels about– uneasy, terrified. Too troubled at times to tackle even household tasks. Too troubled to lose myself in chick-lit or bad reality shows. Craving both power and oblivion.
It’s taken a long time to figure out what helps. To see and feel what brings me balance, back to myself. Burying my face in Tiger Tiger’s incomparably soft fur soothes. So does absorbing sun on my arm and the Big Belt’s snow dazzle in eyes. Commiserating and laughing with friends delivers a special wholeness.
But even more than comfort, what I’ve needed is perspective—long views—a way to get beyond the tangle, the traps of this moment.
To time and stars, to flora and fauna, to geology and oceanography. And this week I struck gold in reading Loren Eiseley and Charles Darwin and Marie Popova. In watching films of life in the deep ocean and of light in deep space. To seeking and packing away a fistful of statistics that stretch my imagination as far as it will go.
To learning, for instance:
- That the largest star we know is UY Scuti, a red supergiant that has a radius of 738 million miles. Five billion suns could fit inside it. And it’s almost 10,000 light years away from us.
- That there are at least 200 billion trillion stars in the observable universe.
- That the oldest life on earth is 3.7 billion years old based on fossil evidence of microbes found in rocks from Quebec, Canada.
- That there are 400,000 known plant species on Earth and somewhere between 5.3 million and 1 trillion animal species here.
- That the earth itself is 4 to 4.5 billion years old
- That parts of the ocean are almost 7 miles deep.
Sitting quietly with that information—asking my mind to reach out and try to absorb and fathom those unfathomable realities—puts so much in place. Renders these days, this year, the brutal, craven men in charge . . .ordinary, small. Not unimportant. Not inconsequential. Certainly wicked enough to cause suffering beyond my comprehension. But ordinary—familiar adversaries, known windmills against which to tilt. Across the farthest reaches of time, adversaries like this legion of insane, bloodthirsty despots and villains and power-and-land -hungry rulers have thought themselves immortal and invincible. And time and circumstance proved them so wrong. They are the weak, ephemeral caricatures dancing against the immense drama of time.
That long view does not bequeath me perfect words – or a magic armory of dazzling sentences. That reality doesn’t make our battles or my own efforts easy or effective or guaranteed to slay these current monsters. But the perspective of long time recalls me—not to once-and-done grand gestures. But to my opportunity—the only opportunity that there is, in fact–to add small words, a steady soft voice of respect and sanity and foresight and common sense to this milieu. If nothing else, those birthday and thank you notes. A long overdue email. But at least to try—even if the helpless, dark days return periodically.
Late in the week, I found the same message in Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem.” The reminder that the horrors we witness now have come to humankind over and over again. And that our charge—our responsibility—is not to single-handedly vanquish them. But to do our part. To offer what we can. To watch for the small opportunities. The flickers of light. To forget any perfect offering. Instead, to ring the bells we can. To create and share whatever it is we can. For me, the words I am able to summon. ©
Anthem
The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah, and the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see
I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in Songwriter: Leonard Cohen
