Now I Am Here

“The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here.” - Autumn, Karl Ove Knausgaard

As a Social Studies teacher, a wide variety of courses get thrown your way - geography, sociology, law, psychology, history, economics - it depends on the school and course offerings, but most of the 'soft sciences' end up being something one might encounter along a career in the profession. In my 6th year of teaching, I took on human geography; the intersection of human culture and development with geography. The course itself is a distillation of social studies in a way - covering everything from linguistic development to demographics to agricultural systems.The cultural landscape is something I had never really considered deeply, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense and ultimately became one of my favorite classes to teach. Something that struck me most when beginning to study the subject in order to teach it was the influence of place on linguistic development. The native peoples of the Arctic Circle civilizations have many words for winter conditions that speak to not only what's coming out of the sky, but the conditions on the ground and whether or not said conditions are conducive to walking about. The perceptive abilities of humans will never be fully translate-able into verbal expression, but necessity can lead to amazing feats of human creation. 

Thinking about the interplay of humans and their environments, I hold an affinity toward extreme landscapes and often, those who come from them (or at least, the art they produce while in them). When the land itself is not welcoming to person or a people, it does something to their understanding of the world. So many Americans live in prefabricated neighborhoods and are entirely engulfed by the man-made as to never have to encounter the frightening vastness Earth has to offer. Since high school, I've personally wanted to see the Mojave Desert. The starkness of the desert biome has been likened to an extraterrestrial one many times; perhaps that's a deeply anthropocentric view. We did not create such vacancy; in fact, such traits are anathema to a social primate's instinctual desire for proximity and comfort, but that does not mean such landscapes do not belong here. Standing alone in a desert (hot or cold) surrounded for miles by emptiness would send anyone into an existential crisis after a while. Hell, it'd even make people want to live in Las Vegas just to avoid the uncomfortable nothingness. Humans are not so different from the  rhesus monkeys in Harlow's infamous psychology experiments. Primates, and likely many other animals, would give up actual nourishment for psychological comfort and security. Of course this might be a stretch of an analogy, but there is a degree of truth to why so many of us choose to live in less than ideal surroundings in exchange for the access to convenience of modern living, for the comfort of conformity with other members of our species.

For those who know me and have heard me fangirl over the epigraph's author, Karl Ove Knausgaard, you may also be aware that Norway is one of those places that calls to me. The extreme landscape has not only produced one of my all-time favorite writers, but also some of my favorite musicians. There is a conservative, Lutheran culture in Norway that I would venture to guess all of these artists have chafed against to produce their craft, a point that could be dissected in and of itself at length. What links the expressions that come from this environment is their reverence for the physical world that surrounds them. Even within the intense focus on his own mind for Knausgaard's six volume "autobiographical" novel,his writing has an expansiveness to it. Here we are, mining the depths of the mind of a middle aged man, and somehow we're faced with the unity of all of our own consciousnesses. Whether we want to admit it or not, we've all secretly scowled through meetings or cursed our friends or resented the existence of our most cherished. That internal struggle to be outwardly compassionate and inwardly curmudgeonly is not reserved for his experience. And although his work is not some sort of revelation in the sense that it's exactly saying something new, it does break through the confines of what we are supposed to publicly admit and feel about those whom with we share our lives.  

I've also been reading David Wojnarowicz's In the Shadow of the American Dream, which is a collection of his diaries from his teens through his fame and ultimate death from AIDS. There's something about the America he describes that reminds me of now; a brokenness or failure of culture that marginalizes those who do not fit in. The definition of who doesn't fit in is always shifting -that's the game. Sometimes marginalized groups are brought into the fold and a new "other" appears. Whomever the other is, however, within that marginalization there is a sort of freedom to create and be who you are. Although, on the other side, being persecuted for the exact same reasons comes along with those spaces. In final diaries, he's dying of AIDS-related complications, feeling as though his body has betrayed him but also that others have as well by continuing to live their mundane lives while he's thrust into the existential crisis of death. Living through a virus-caused pandemic right now, it's chilling to think about all of the parallels to the continued horrors of not knowing what the virus will do to a human host - Kaposi's sarcoma in young men? Blood clots that kill? We've lived this before. But death remains the ultimate "othering" - we shunt the dead and dying off into margins of our minds, even when they're the ones we love. The vastness of death is that existential desert we just can't bear to look at. 

Early into this pandemic, there was a moment where Americans really did seem to be at the precipice of an awakening to being more accepting of the unknown. People were spending more time outside, driving less, consuming less. As the pandemic has worn on and become more and more a politicized weapon, whatever desire for change has faded not because people care less but because they are made to suppress their desire for revolution. The pull of modern life plays on our desire for comfort and provides emotional shelter from mortality. Constant talk about returning to life as we knew it forms a sort of nostalgia for the old (even if it only mere months ago). Covid deaths continue to climb; we tend to understand the threat less and less, as the numbers become more and more abstract the higher they go. Similarly, the environmental crisis that looms in our near future has also kept us from dealing directly with the problem. The problem is our way of life. We must change, not the environment. We are part of the environment and must remember all of the times it has humbled us - even if one hasn't ever seen a town laid to waste by a tornado or hurricane, maybe a beautiful sunset gave pause, or a giant clap of thunder rattled one's brain. 

Sojourning through a desert for years on end in search of answers isn't a reasonable expectation for most to have. However, opening one's self to accept the existential expanse that is all around us is feasible even within the confines of a suburban hellscape. 

Musical Epilogue:
 
Although they're not Norwegian, American greats Mastodon have encapsulated this vastness perfectly in the song below....

On Play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
― Fred Rogers

For nearly four months, playgrounds have been closed. My four year old daughter cried for a half hour straight the day her favorite playground had caution tape over the gated entry. After reality set in that this might be for the long haul, she became accustomed to waving to "Gazebo Park" from afar and wondering aloud whether or not the birds and squirrels were appreciating the slides and swings while children took a break from it all. My in-laws immediately offered to buy her a play set for the backyard. I had one as a kid and have fond memories of playing on it - but my adult backyard is an awkward shape without as much open space for the set. Plus, once quarantining is over, the idea of being confined to our own property with our own things....? It's safe to say everyone's had enough of that.

So what's a kid to do in this environment? Well, we began to make new explorations part of our daily routine. Instead of the trip to a designated park where we generally knew what to expect, we would set off on our walks with a different goal in mind; these goals varied from taking pictures to observing insects (and especially ladybugs) to finding sea glass. The attempt has been to find the extraordinary in the ordinary - to focus on what we usually walk right by. When I walked with her, on a whim, to a hundred-plus year old stone bridge in the neighboring town, it awakened an obsession with travelling there a few times a week. Zillow gave us an excuse to walk by interesting homes that we'd already viewed the insides of online. The mini-polaroid camera also provided a new way of looking at things - framing pictures just right to capture the shot she wanted to bring home to "show Dad." 

This week we walked along a fishing pier in the neighboring town, paying close attention to a group of teenage fishermen who had successfully caught a fluke (though were unsuccessfully relieving it of the hook in its mouth without serious damage to the poor thing). On the expanse of beach below the pier that continues to stretch down the bay to the ocean, I watched her scramble up large cement slabs covered in algae without concern for her hands or clothing. She slipped a few times as I looked on. not asking me for help but becoming more insistent that I let her climb even deeper into the rubble so she could "explore." Watching without intervening is hard sometimes, because I worry she will hurt herself, but I also think to the types of risks I took as a child - riding my bike where I was expressly told not to go, taken the shady old trail down through the woods with my all female crew - and know making these sorts of decisions is important for her to experience too. While the playground is missed, I do wonder what is missed when we make that our sole destination. A few years ago, I read about British risk playgrounds that have been designed with these choices in mind -to push small children into making choices about what risks are manageable and which aren't for their ability level. 

Beyond physical endurance and spatial cognizance, the beach-as-playground also allowed for organic discussion about what we were experiencing in the here and now. There were questions about tides, clouds and boats. She inquired why we shouldn't walk into the dune grass and even got to see the birds hopping in and out of the tall blades. She opined that an old tire didn't belong on said beach and wondered how/why someone would dump it there. We examined shells and and dead blue crabs and investigated whether or not two beached horseshoe crabs were indeed alive (one was, one was decidedly not). Seeing life or the remains of life taught her in real time about the cycle we're all in through a much gentler way than a relative or pet dying. These creatures showed her that death was natural and observable at all times, something most Americans avoid acknowledging at all costs. 

The real world is a scary place as we all know. We do our best to manage the risks it presents as adults. When we expose our children to environments outside of the means-tested, well-cultivated ones, we help them to be more prepared for what the real world can throw at them. As a teacher of young adults, I find their exasperation at the myriad current situations understandable - the padded table corners and exclusive playgroups do not translate to these times. They don't buy that everything will go back to normal and be "as it was" because the "as it was" was...well, bullshit. There were always risks, whether or not the adults in their world wanted to expose their children to them or even basically acknowledge their existence. And of course, certain populations have had to grapple with this all along - parents of black and brown teenagers have to have these talks, parents of girls and LGBTQ+ teens as well. To not mention that there might be a bias against your child simply because of their skin color, sexuality or gender would do those children a disservice that could lead to their death (and even with those warnings, it could happen anyhow). 

To resist Fear-based parenting not only recognizes are child are people independent of ourselves, it also allows them the ability to begin to see the world outside the ones we've provided for them as safe spaces to be themselves. It encourages them to 

We live as we dream - alone....?

"It is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream — alone…" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

I don't sleep well - or a lot? It's a toss up of which on whatever night. Every morning is particularly painful because I just want to fucking sleep, but never can. Either I can't logistically (hello, very awake small child) or emotionally (which is to say there's a nagging feeling that, "I'll sleep when I die," when I lay in bed). It's a sort of "fomo" - fear of missing out - though it's more of a "fear of missing life," however mundane that life may actually be. Because I like living, but I am wracked with anxiety about actually living. Living/existence is hard when you're fully conscious of the fact you're mortal. In fact, I really understand the whole, "eternal life- Jesus Saves!" sort of mentality, but I'm too cynical to commit to believing wholeheartedly in anything of the sort.

There are certain people we come across in our lives that serve a purpose of "seeing us." Simply offering corroborating evidence that another living-breathing-thinking-feeling human being acknowledges our existence. Sometimes that "bearing witness" plays  role in saving our lives, too. And I don't necessarily mean that in a literal sense per say, although it can most definitely be the case. In moments of great stressors, in times of anguish, a nod toward another person can mean much more than either could imagine, which is why the meme "check on your friends, even the happy ones," get shared so often in social media spaces.

So it's rate and odd and special when I share moments of total, "we're fucked" mentality on even a low key level with another person. It's like a mutual nod to the fact that we're gonna be dead at some point - and it's normal and OK, but still absolutely terrifying on some level (tangentially, this is also how I view "loud" music, as in live or at least a fully immersive headphones experience. There's a degree of terror in being subsumed into the vibrations, but also a massive release of control- kinda sexual. Which, I suppose, music is for many. Repetitive, undulating, throbbing. All ways I'd describe the rhythm sections of my favorite bands, and also a pleasurable sexual experience ;) ) . So when I meet people that I feel have the same insight into life, appreciate gallows' humor, and maybe even share that feeling like they're barely functioning as a sane being under the surface, et al, it's hard for me to want to be without them. And that in itself is terrifying too because one day that will be true for any sort of partnership- familial, romantic or otherwise.

Recently, I finished the first season? (stand-alone?) of the series, Russian Doll. In it, two main characters grapple with repeatedly dying and being reanimated until they figure out the path their lives should have/could have taken to ensure their survival. Though it's relayed through quite a bit of dark humor, in the end, both characters realize the person who saw them as they were - not as a projection of what someone wanted them to be - and who continued to care about their existence was the one most important to them in that moment of turmoil. A true friend.

Unlike those characters, we do not have the luxury to live over; there's no opportunity to try and try again. When someone reaches out a hand toward you, either looking for help or trying to help you, don't refuse it. It's easy to recoil and resist, to "go it alone." Take the stoic way out - make no contacts, have no strings attached - it seems a lot easier and "cleaner" than dealing with the potential of loss and heartbreak.

Despite my love for and belief in the existential essence of the epigraph at the beginning of this post, on a practical level, it's not true. We aren't alone. Our lives are our own to experience in the way that we do. However, once you notice that someone else "sees you,"  it's difficult to accept that we're ever truly alone, or even meant to be.