Growing Through the Cracks
Finding our way amidst instability
“What can memory be in these terrible times?
Only instruction. Not a dwelling.
Or if you must dwell:
The sweet smell of warm weeds then.
The sweet smell of warm weeds now.
An endurance. A standoff. A rest.”
~Diane Seuss
At some point this spring, I noticed that sparrows had built a nest inside the horizontal pipe that held up the traffic light on the corner of my block. I couldn’t see the nest itself, but a delicate adult sparrow hovered at the end of the pipe, sometimes perching on the edge, chirping in conversation with another bird, who was tucked inside. Since observing this clever pair, I started to see them everywhere—small birds darting in and out of the metal pipes that punctuate each city corner. I’m not sure how I’d never realized this before, but apparently sparrows make tiny homes in these pipes all around the city each spring. Nearly every traffic post seems to host a small family.
I’ve always been fascinated by the many ways urban wildlife finds to forge an improbable survival within the fundamentally inhospitable environment of concrete, steel, and asphalt that dominates New York’s ecosystem. In part, I marvel at the way so many creatures have managed to insist on surviving, despite our human tendency to always consider the needs of the natural world last. But I also find it moving in a more connective way, because I think we humans do this to ourselves as well. We make our own survival exceedingly difficult in so many ways, and yet we manage to persist. We find the small spaces within which we can make a home for ourselves and we fill these homes with our dreams, just as the sparrows do. We somehow carve out meaningful lives for ourselves, despite the obstacles that inevitably rise up in our paths and the chill of the concrete that surrounds us.
Two interconnected things happened this week, one very intimate and one very large in scale, that have me thinking about how we do this—how we survive in the most fundamental ways and how we create meaning in our lives, even when the circumstances seem to be at odds with both of those needs. On a personal level, a major and extremely unexpected rupture occurred in the organization where I’ve worked and loved working for the past three years, which led to profound and immediate destabilization for me and for all of my colleagues. On a much larger scale, a budget bill was passed that will surely destabilize a massive number of people’s ability to subsist and care for their families. In both my immediate circle of connections and the wider web of national wellbeing, this moment feels sharp and fragile and overwhelming.
So, what to do? How do we manage, in these periods of deep uncertainty, to keep our footing, to continue to care for ourselves and our loved ones, and to unearth any sense of meaning in all of it? I don’t have all the answers, and if you've been reading Notes on Hope for a while, you know that I don't believe in papering over difficult realities with false sliver linings. But I do think a first step, whenever we feel unmoored, is to seek out connection and company in the trenches.
I’ve started to do that, in part, by taking a different approach to this week’s note. Instead of my typical Sunday essay, I had a conversation with a dear friend, who has a significant personal understanding of navigating these ruptures in our lives, so we could try, together, to forge some meaning out of this moment, and so I could share that with you.
Meg Sullivan, who joined me in this conversation, went through a profoundly unstable period in her own life two years ago, when she lost both her job and her mom in the span of three months. As painful and frightening as that time in her life was, she moved through it with incredible grace and has emerged even wiser and more at peace. I hope our conversation provides some sense of validation and connection for those who might be experiencing similar instability now, as well as a window into the possibilities that the future can hold, even when the present feels impossible to conceptualize and navigate. Somehow, as Meg and the sparrows have done, we find a way forward.
If you are struggling right now, I hope this conversation offers you a measure of grounding and some small reassurance that you are not alone, even if you can’t see the way forward yet. And I hope it also inspires you, no matter your circumstances, to notice those around you and to lend an ear or offer a meal, or whatever else might be most helpful, where it could make a difference to someone else.
Wishing you care, courage, and peace,
Alicia
A few things I found helpful and hopeful this week...
- A Pep Talk from poet, Maggie Smith
- What Mr. Ramirez Taught Me by Charlotte Clymer
- These Women are raising endangered butterfly larvae from prison
