Embracing the Absurd
Getting comfortable with the unexpected.
Poetry
Here’s Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much With Us.”
Journeying
Marian is a nonagenarian vegetarian (say that five times fast), who finds herself living in a cult disguised as a retirement home south Mexico City. During the course of a season, she and her elderly companions witness a murder, experience a cataclysmic earthquake, a new ice age, and the end of the world as they’ve come to know it. Marian survives it all and experiences a powerful renewing of herself in the process.
Marian is the protagonist in Leonora Carrington’s1 The Hearing Trumpet, a book I picked up in St. Paul, Minnesota during a recent college visit with my daughter. After reading it, I wanted to write about how Marian’s story gives me hope, how catastrophe creates space for possibility, how the end of one world is always the beginning of another, how if you’re willing to accept loss and continue to pay attention, your dreams might get realized, even in the most absurd and impossible conditions, even because of those conditions.
I love the absurd, what doesn’t fit or appear to belong: curtains that don’t match carpets, carpets that don’t match couches, plants that just keep coming up even though you think you’ve killed them, people who do what they want despite society’s rules. The illogical and nonsensical give me hope because they remind me that the unexpected happens all the time, and that everything is malleable. I really don’t know what’s going on, how the world will end, how I will end, what will happen on Tuesday. Historically, this not knowing has pitched me into paroxysms of anxiety and despair. But now, it’s a comfort and relief. I don’t know! Bad stuff could happen! Wonderful stuff could happen! Both probably will. This is the wisdom of the absurd.
I love The Hearing Trumpet because it is full of this kind of wisdom. At the close of the novel (this is not a spoiler, I couldn’t possibly spoil this book for you because the incredulous occurs on every page), her bizarre ordeal in some ways just begun, Marian offers a couple of insights for the road. The first is, “Ice ages pass, and although the world is frozen over we suppose someday grass and flowers will grow again. In the meantime, I keep a daily record on three wax tablets.” Marian looks around at the world encased in ice, which at best, makes life a struggle, at worst impossible, and she does not despair. Instead, she acknowledges her predicament and keeps a record. We all need something to do as we struggle to live with ourselves, with others, on our fragile, tenacious planet. I’m going to follow Miriam’s example: stay interested, pay attention, and write it down.
Marian’s second wise statement is, “If the Old Woman can’t go to Lapland, then Lapland must come to the Old Woman.” Miriam has dreamed of a visit to Lapland. Her readers (or this reader, anyway) think, “there’s no way she’s going to make it to Lapland. She’s ninety years old and stuck in a cult/retirement home.” Some dreams, some longings, don’t get realized after all. But then giant earthquakes ripple across the earth’s surface. Its axis and its poles shift. Mexico City becomes Lapland. Miriam dresses in heavy furs and thinks of teaching a pack of newly arrived wolves to pull a sled. Perhaps, where I live, what my childhood was like, whether I’ve chosen the right or wrong path have less power over the realizations of my dreams, the realization of myself, than the well-worn paths of my cerebrum indicate. Maybe I shouldn’t read the news and make up my mind about the future. Maybe I shouldn’t make up my mind about myself either. Instead, I could see the absurd for what it is, an invitation to dance with the unknown. I could take the hand of possibility and let it teach me the steps.
Gardening and Making/Mending
Here’s this week’s bit of garden wisdom. First, don’t ever plant wormwood. It’s right up there with mint (and slightly behind Kudzu, if you live in the southeastern U.S.) for invasiveness. I planted some in the yard of the house we just sold, and it grew into Jack’s beanstalk. I had to lop off large sections of it on a regular basis to keep it contained. And then, because I don’t learn from my mistakes, or perhaps, because I love the absurd, I planted more (a pretty, variegated variety) at the Airbnb last year. This new variety has sent up a carpet of suckers around the original plant. Next week, after the moving chaos has finally past, I plan to dig it up. Second, don’t ever plant garlic chives. The neighbor who used to own our Airbnb planted garlic chives in a corner bed against a tool shed. She asked me if I wanted some. I don’t turn down free plants, so I planted two clumps in the front yard at the “old” house. They multiplied. They multiplied there and in the backyard of my neighbor’s house that we eventually bought. Now, I have garlic chives for grass. I’m going to dig them up too.
In the meantime, though, I’m nursing the trumpet vine (when I was a kid, we called this plant “lady fingers” because the tubular blooms resemble long, slender fingers and fit nicely on our child-sized hands) that my sons mistake for a weed and mow over on a regular basis. Trumpet vines grow into impossible to eradicate ropes that can damage structures. I’ve planted mine on a fence to avoid this outcome, but I am both wary and excited about what it will become with a reprieve from the mower.
I’ve begun the second sock of the pair I’m knitting for my friend V, and I’ve finished a hat for my daughter. The hat is heavy with a fold over brim. It will keep her head warm this winter as she walks between classes at her college in Minnesota. I have a vest planned for her as well and have just ordered five balls of Faroese wool (from Faroe Island sheep) for the project. I can’t go to college with her. That wouldn’t be a good idea for either of us, but I can create garments of much warmth and little weight for her journey.
I can’t express enough how much I enjoyed the first Contemplative Reading. The thoughtful and vulnerable presence of the participants was a gift. I invite you to join us in this broad and welcoming space. The next Contemplative Reading is coming up May 17th. If you’re a paid subscriber you’ll receive the link in my next post. If you’re not a paid subscriber please click here to sign up, and I’ll send you the Zoom link.
How mad is this…I’m in an Airbnb we arrived at last night and The Hearing Trumpet is on the bookshelf here. I was looking at the spines of all the books this morning when drinking my coffee and that one was really standing out to me and I thought “I’m going to have a look at that later” and then I just read this!
Thank you for the book recommendation, Emily. Such wonderful wisdom that seems so hard to accept at times…to just accept , to welcome the absurd. I have learned over time, that to truly be in an accepting place, open to whatever may happen, is really the best place to be, just letting it all happen with no pretenses. But what is making the most lasting impression with me with this post is the picture of the hat you knitted for your daughter. The time, the effort, the love you poured into that hat will be with her wherever she may take it, wherever she may go. You’re with her, friend. I’ll try to make it this Saturday.