Fragility

My friend Hilary came to visit. She talks softly, which makes me listen better, and she is slower and more deliberate in her motions these days, which shifts me down from my usual frenzy.  It’s been raining, and we drive to the edge of the mountains, which appear and disappear in the mist. We take each other’s pictures, looking wistful, maybe because we too are on the cusp of disappearing. We drift through the days, and rain blurs them together, and we venture out in the spaces between, with no agenda or goal, just being here together.

Hilary is a woodworker, and we visit a local friend, Tom, who’s a woodworker too, and although he is retired, he kindly shows us his shop, such as it is. There are a few tools and materials, a work bench and a table saw, pieces of lumber propped against a wall, and a long, smooth banister jutting across the table, awaiting its placement. He wears a cap, a soft corduroy jacket over a turtleneck shirt, still handsome nearing 80, and stands with his hands in his pockets, surveying his domain. On a desk beneath a window are family photos, a box of coins, a mug of pens, a calculator, and a book about the art of Rothko. There are letters and a butter knife to open them, and outside the window, a stand of cactus in silvery drizzle. I ask him if he still enjoys working with wood. “I still make some things,” he says, “but the romance is gone.”

I’m braced for the gone-ness of the romance when I embark upon my own projects and endeavors, but I still encounter its presence. I never had any tactile artisan skills, but I’m surprised by the satisfaction of playing with words on the page, and by the improvisational crafting of a day. Mostly, I’m surprised by the tenacity of wonder and by my incurable capacity to be surprised.

One afternoon, when the sky opens up into vivid post-storm blue and the clouds above the mountains are plump and majestic, my friend Kelley joins us and we walk through the streets of the neighborhood, marveling at the green of a golf course, and yellow leaves tossed by a wind, and a cocky hawk on a fence post who seems to be posing for us but flies off into a thicket of trees before I can get a picture. Rivers are rushing, white water roars over the rocks, a shaggy horse grazes in a muddy field. The light shifts to gold as dusk draws near, and there are many moments when we stand and hold our breath, astonished by the ferocious beauty of it all. We are passing through, aware of our own brevity, but grateful to bear witness.

On a different day, we stop for lunch at Highway Tacos, a roadside place selling Mexican food from an Airstream trailer. While we wait, we notice a grouping of small clay figurines in a classic Nativity scene set up on a metal table attached to the trailer. Kings and shepherds and a blue-shawled kneeling Mary with a missing hand are gathered around a manger that we notice with dismay is empty. Could someone have stolen baby Jesus? It’s hard to fathom.

“Jesus is missing!” we inform the owner, who takes it in stride—it’s just another mystery in this mysterious world. But it somehow seems like a metaphorical explanation for a lot of things that are going awry these days. So I have ordered a tiny Jesus that I found online, and I intend to go back and place that baby in the manger as soon as possible. I know it’s silly, but even at this trivial level, it’s so satisfying to close a loop, fill a gap, right a wrong, come full circle, finish a story. And in this case, maybe it’s a symbolic step toward repair and realignment on a greater scale.

The “news” continues to batter us. Exhausted and traumatized, we make our way forward, doing what we can. Updates from the Besties in our daily texts are peppered with tales of health concerns, older siblings in decline, the procession of anxieties in our heads at night as we try to fall asleep. We who were once so robust step carefully these days, fearing falls, accommodating weakness, aches, and stiffness, tiring more easily. I remember my friend Ralph, on his 88th birthday, saying, “I never believed I would get old, and now, look at me. I’m old.” 

I guess there is always an unexpectedness about it. We’re headed there, and conspicuously eroding, but it doesn’t seem real. In the meantime, we feel fragile, but we strive for grace and gratitude.

We brought Hilary to the train station in Santa Barbara; a classic old station built in 1905 with wooden benches and tile floors. The rains had passed, and it was a bright, rambunctious day, with cobalt blue sky and cinematic clouds above the palm trees and the mountains, ridiculously pretty. Our beautiful friend had come far to see us and has many miles of travel ahead. It takes some effort to stay connected, and I don’t know when we’ll maneuver this again, but it never isn’t worth it. Our time together was brief, but in its own way perfect.

Today I stood on a bridge and looked down at the river, and although present in the moment, I felt the weight of countless memories and stories. I could feel all the loss and all the love pressing upon me, and I was aware of my fragile current self, but at the same time, I keenly remembered how it felt to be a child. Life is lived in so many layers of time, all at once. So I stood there, heavy and weightless and in love with the light, keeping the romance alive.