Now, What?

            Tuesday night of Election Day, the result far from clear, Kim asked me, “What are you going to do if he loses?” Good question, whoever the “he” refers to.

 

            My answer, spoken from a position of privilege that I have only recently come to understand, appreciate, and feel guilty for not seeing before:

 

·      Rake leaves.

·      Shovel snow.

·      Dry the dishes.

·      Feed the birds.

·      Read novels.

·      Enjoy my second cup of coffee in the morning.

·      Enjoy an evening cocktail while watching something on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

·      Greet Kim each morning with a lingering hug.

·      Say goodnight with a kiss.

·      Contribute a few dollars to environmental organizations.

·      Contribute a few dollars to political organizations.

·      Speak and listen to people who disagree with me politically.

 

Let me insert a true story here. A friend of ours, let’s call her Beth, a single lady, was waiting in line in a grocery store when she noticed the woman behind her, standing close, was not wearing a mask. Beth was able to break down in tears and confront the maskless woman.

            “My husband is in the hospital, dying of Covid (sob)! And I am very susceptible to it! And here you are, standing so close, and without a mask! I feel so vulnerable – how could you do this to me?”

            It worked. The lady apologized and put on her mask. Sometimes you have to operate one person at a time.

 

·      Plant trees.

·      Vacuum.

·      Gather cool stones from the beach while the weather holds (above freezing).

·      Eat.

 

Or as the Zen saying goes: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

 

            But there is more. Matthew Arnold’s beautiful poem, “Dover Beach” the speaker notes, in the cadence of the waves, “the eternal note of sadness,” hearing “its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” which echoes what the tragedies of Sophocles saw as “the turbid ebb and flow/ Of human misery.”

 

            The poem concludes:

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

            You might not share Arnold’s gloomy assessment of the world – though if you were on the losing side of the election, you might feel that way. In any case, with all that’s going on in the world, how can anyone disagree with “Ah, love, let us be true to one another!” I should note that the “one another” does not necessarily refer to a romantic relationship. It could be friendship. It could be family. Good advice, whether you won or lost.

            Here’s the entire poem, which some of you may find better written than my summary:

 

Dover Beach 

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

 

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

 

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

                                                                --Matthew Arnold