During A War

We hiked to the peak, then down a tricky trail, pausing to appreciate wildflowers along the way. Then we sat along a grassy area with a view of coast and mountains so breathtakingly lovely, we all fell silent. It was a prolonged hush, unusual for a group of ten women who are pretty fond of talking, but I think we were overcome with awe and gratitude.

Oh, it’s true we might have simply been tired, because it had been a long trudge to get there, but mostly, we were just inhaling beauty. We saw how earth is sculpted into rugged rock and ridges, its grassy hills breathing, and how the Gaviota Coast curves into mist, illuminated by yellow mustard flowers to the south, and how the sea and sky merge, and we were somehow at the edge but embraced by it all.

Little by little, conversations resumed, quiet exchanges among ladies sitting side-by-side with their sandwiches and salads, and general comments shared with the group. We are never not-surprised to have landed here in this remarkable corner of the planet. Even Swiss Ida, who grew up trekking in more serious mountains, had to admit that what it lacks in alpine magnificence it makes up for in a nuanced kind of sweetness.

“There’s a war happening,” someone said.

It had to be acknowledged.

“There’s a real war right now, and people are suffering and dying. And we get to sit here.”

Variations of this fact have always been so, but lately the dissonance is more gruesomely apparent. Clearly, we drew the lucky hand. We inhabit a safe, detached compassion, although even our own safety feels less inviolable as brutal power casts its shadow across our interconnected world. We strive for a way to contain the knowledge of conflicting realities colliding constantly, of our privilege in the face of pain, of our good intentions and personal sorrows and feelings of helplessness, all overridden in this moment by the desire to simply sit on this ridge above the Gaviota Coast.

And there’s no harm in sitting on the ridge feeling grateful. I’ve been telling myself for a long time that when grace is offered, it is ungracious to decline, and when we have a moment to be present in the wonder, we should let that happen. It might even strengthen us and render us more useful.

I am haunted by this poem by Jane Hirshfield:

“Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.

“Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.

“Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.

“Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.

“Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.

“Let them say, as they must say something:

“A kerosene beauty.
It burned.

“Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.”

I don’t know if it was intended this way, but I think of this poem as a prayer. We are bearing witness, and may we not do nothing. Please, oh please, may we even somehow do enough. May it not be too late.

Can we warm ourselves with the beauty and read by its light and return with candles lit?

Let them say we did.