For most of January I’ve been able to look out my office window and see a simplified, clarified world. Black and white. Horizontal and vertical. Stripped-down and still.
The only touches of color I see are the dark green of the bamboo fronds that grow up to my second-story window and the dusky red of the brick-front houses across the way.
“Take winter as you find him and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow with no nonsense in him,” wrote James Russell Lowell. “And tolerating none in you, which is a great comfort in the long run.”
I don’t like cold weather, but I haven’t minded our recent spate of it. I’m reminded of the way I felt when I lived through winters in more northern climes, which was strengthened and turned inward, more attuned to the essentials of life.
Last night in class we talked about Saint Thomas Aquinas and his grand synthesis, how he combined Aristotle’s metaphysics with Christian thought. Not only did Aquinas make it possible to believe in both faith and reason, but he also paved the way for the scientific revolution that would follow centuries later.
All week while I was reading about Aquinas, I thought about how such a synthesis would seem unnecessary now. We live in a secular age, with faith on one side and science on the other. The idea of synthesizing the two seems unnecessary at best and preposterous at worst.
When I expressed this idea in class, I was told to “hold that thought.” We’ll get to that in a month or two, the professor said.
I managed to avoid most of Monday’s news until midday Tuesday, when I braved the cold to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway. I brought it inside, holding it by its edge, as if it might be slightly radioactive, then in a burst of bravery pulled it from its plastic sleeve and took a glance.
My first impression was of a state funeral: the somber expressions, the black clothing. I began to read and felt my blood pressure rising. It was too early in the day to be upset, so I put the newspaper aside.
I accept the results of the 2024 election, the will of the people. I seldom discuss politics in this blog. But for me and for many, there is a very real problem. Well, there are many real problems, but the one I want to mention here is this one: What do I do about the news?
I’m a journalist by trade. For years we had two daily newspapers delivered to the house. We still have one, an indulgence that’s beginning to feel like a flagellation. I believe it is our duty as citizens to be informed about the workings of the country.
As usual, though, the devil is in the details: How informed? And by whom or what? I’ll figure this out eventually, I hope, but for now, all I have is a question: What do I do about the news?
Few parents will admit to having a favorite child, but who won’t come clean about a favorite chore? Mine is emptying the dishwasher. I just completed this task and am more than ready to sing its praises.
I open the machine early in the morning, as tea water comes to a boil. My first reaction is always surprise. How did the dishwasher do it? The buttery knives, eggy forks and food-caked bowls are shiny and clean, almost like new. The hard work is done. All that remains is to sort and stack — and that’s the fun part.
In a world of chaos and disarray what could be more pleasing that slipping spoons into their assigned spots in the little tray? Or stacking plates and sliding them into the cupboard? Or nesting bowls? In cabinets as old and small as mine, there is much nesting. All the more satisfying.
Today is the first full day of a new presidential administration. It’s 12 degrees outside. I have a ton of homework. But I just emptied the dishwasher, so the world looks a little bit brighter.
An article in the newspaper made me think about it, but it was a good day to think about it anyway. I’m talking about Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which he delivered 41 days before his assassination.
I just re-read the speech and am in awe, as I usually am when reading the words of our 16th president. It’s not just the morality of his message but also its economy. The address is just over 700 words.
Here’s how it ends: “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Lincoln said of it, “I expect it to wear as well — perhaps even better than anything I have produced.” As usual, he was right.
I’m an avid reader but a timid book buyer. These days I’m as likely to be reading a Kindle as a physical book. This is not because I’m digitally advanced. It’s because this practice holds down the accumulation of printed matter in my house.
Still, when the book piles on my floor reach tipping height, the time has come to invest in a new bookshelf. But what happens next? I’ve almost filled this new one, and wall space is limited.
I’m thinking that shelves are to books as roads are to cars. Just as additional highways worsen traffic, new bookshelves invite filling. Which is why, before I re-shelved books yesterday, I culled a few for resale and donation. Not even a shelf’s worth, but enough to leave a little wiggle room. Let’s see how long it takes me to fill it.
Yesterday I ventured out to walk beyond the neighborhood. The big snow was more than a week ago, so I felt confident that most icy patches would be gone.
I was wrong. Icy patches were plentiful on the walk I took around Lake Anne, snow packed and hardened into slickness. But there was plenty of pavement, too, enough to make me continue.
Enter the mincing step. This is when you walk so slowly and gingerly that an observer might think you weren’t moving at all. This is when you throw caution aside and hobble unabashedly like a little old lady.
This is what I did yesterday, did it several times in fact. On the minus side, I walked so slowly that my toes felt like lumps of ice. On the plus side, I didn’t fall. An excellent tradeoff, I think.
This time of year a walk through my neighborhood has two distinct contours. When I leave the house well-bundled against the cold, I think at first that it’s not bad — not exactly warm but not bitter, either.
That feeling quickly vanishes at the midpoint of my stroll, when I turn to trudge back the way I came. It’s those prevailing westerlies, you see, and all the frosty air they bring with them this time of year.
The air makes a mockery of the headband I wear over my ears. It blusters right into my hood, almost blowing it off my head. It makes me ball up my fingers inside my gloves. Most of all, it makes me pick up my pace. It’s no surprise that I run part of the way home.
I could always turn right instead of left at the end of my street and reverse the temperature and tempo of my hikes. But it makes more sense to warm up first. The only way around this reality is to take another route, but given the unplowed status of most nearby trails, that won’t happen anytime soon.
So for the next few days, at least, these two-temp walks are what I have. At least they keep things interesting.
I’ve broken through a reluctance to write in my books, scribbling happily in review copies and textbooks. But last night I felt similarly compelled to mark up a magazine article. There were just too many passages I wanted to ponder, so I pulled out a pen.
The article was “The Anti-Social Century” in the February Atlantic, which discusses how Americans are spending more time alone than ever before. Riffing on the famous “Bowling Alone” work of Robert Putnam, the article explores the effect of social media, ordering takeout and the lingering effects of the pandemic, among other causes of isolation.
Like any writing that offers aha moments, this article hits on truths I’ve experienced in my own life. For instance, when I enrolled in a graduate program I wanted only to meet in person. But many classes met online. At first I actively avoided them, but now I seek them out. I choose what’s easiest in the short-term rather than what’s better in the long-term. (Though I may complain about the traffic, I enjoy in-person classes the most.)
But it’s the way author Derek Thompson explores the topic that made me highlight sentences and paragraphs. What we’re missing, he says, is not the inner ring of companionship — we are in closer touch with family and friends than ever before, given our technological tethers — or the outer ring of social media contacts —which connect us to our tribe. What’s missing is the middle zone, the village, our neighbors and acquaintances. “Families teach us love, and tribes teach us loyalty. The village teaches us tolerance.”
Social isolation has a price, and we are paying it, as Thompson explains. According to one analysis a “five-percentage-point increase in alone time was associated with about the same decline in life satisfaction as was a 10 percent lower household income.”
With journalism like this it’s no wonder that the Atlantic has returned to 12-month-a-year print circulation after 20 years of a reduced schedule. It’s the rare print success story, and good news for “printophiles” like me. Now I have two more issues a year to mark and underline.
A crisp blue sky today but I keep my eyes on the ground, on the ghostly traces of slurried salt, the feeble fist we shake against winter. Today is cold but clear, snow contained but not yet melted. It feels as if we might win this battle.
But I look closer, see the rimed crust of last week’s skirmishes, recall the slick side streets. We’re only where we are because the weather has cooperated.
What struck me on this morning’s walk was the beauty of whitened cracks in the pavement, what’s left from last week’s treated roads. The residue is most visible along the shoulders and in crevices once hidden, now outlined in white. It ought to be ugly, but is not. It reminds me of the vulnerability of the modern world, of how, despite our bluster, we fumble and we fail. And there is beauty in the failure.
