Pop 89: Unforeseen Vistas
By Madonna Hamel
Sometimes wisdom lies in knowing what we cannot do, what we are not able to absorb. We may be accused by others of “living in denial,” but denial often serves a purpose. Too much truth all at once can be a harsh blow.
Twelve-step programs are famous for their handy life-preserver acronyms, and one of my favourites for ‘denial’ is: “Don’t Even (K)now I Am Lying.” Over time, I have come to believe that: “to everything there is a season.” In this moment I may be confused or frightened, but “all will be revealed in due time.”
Then there are those moments when you can no longer bluff, bluster or push your way through. You just face the reality of the moment or suffer the consequences. Your entire being is hollering for you to accept the boundaries of your life. I experienced this on a snorkelling expedition on a tropical isle, when I apparently gave the instructor the impression that I knew what I was doing. He pointed to an underwater cave and suggested I follow him as he dove down and out the other side of the cave through a smaller opening.
I hesitated. I really wanted to do it, and maybe twenty years ago, I would have. But at 61 and a few pounds heavier, I became terrified at the prospect of getting my butt stuck in the cave and drowning right there at the bottom of The Caribbean.
When I consider the prospect of realizing my limits, I often think of the story of the novelist Graham Green. He became a Catholic convert later in life and was transfixed by the story of Padre Pio, the Italian priest who received stigmata and was reported to have appeared before WWII pilots, warning them to fly back to base when enemies were near. Greene went to great lengths to get an audience with the padre, but when he finally received it, flew to a village in Italy to meet the man, he suddenly backed off. He wrote later that he could not keep the appointment because he was not prepared for how meeting Padre Pio would change his life.
Hanging out with my brother Doug, whose life has been turned upside down by a stroke and all the attendant changes he is forced to make, each one of them a big fat Unknown, we’ve been looking to spiritual and psychological writings for solace and direction. While I turn to the mystics, he turns to his beloved Carl Jung.
Recently, we came across a story about Jung’s travels in Italy. “I have travelled a great deal in my life,” wrote Jung. “And I should very much have liked to go to Rome, but I felt that I was not really up to the impression the city would have made upon me. Pompeii alone was more than enough; the impressions very nearly exceeded my powers of receptivity. I was able to visit Pompeii only after I had acquired some insight into the psychology of classical antiquity.
“In 1912, I was on a ship sailing from Genoa to Naples.
As the vessel neared the latitude of Rome, I stood at the railing. Out there lay Rome, the still smoking and fiery hearth from which ancient cultures had spread, enclosed in the tangled root-work of the Christian and Occidental Middle Ages. There classical antiquity still lived in all its splendor and ruthlessness.
“I always wonder about people who go to Rome as they might go, for example, to Paris or to London. Certainly, Rome, as well as these other cities, can be enjoyed esthetically, but if you are affected to the depths of your being at every step by the spirit that broods there, if a remnant of a wall here and a column there gaze upon you with a face instantly recognized, then it becomes another matter entirely.
“Even in Pompeii, unforeseen vistas opened, unexpected things became conscious, and questions were posed that were beyond my powers to handle.”
In 1949, Jung was finally ready to take on Rome. But then, while buying his ticket, he fainted. After that, any plans for a trip to Rome were once and for all laid aside.
After spending days visiting doctors, therapists and hyperbaric chambers, after long nights of tossing and turning and ceaseless praying, it occurs to me that Jung’s description of classical antiquity applies to the here and now as well: Life, with its “unforeseen vistas,” is full of “splendor and ruthlessness” and we need to advocate in our own favour for more splendour, less ruthless.
There is nothing harder than watching a loved one in pain. All I can do is speak on behalf of simple pleasures. This morning, we will check out a local diner we passed on a country road on our way to my brother’s appointment. Tonight, we will go back to a pub where the waitress has the same name as one of our sisters. I will soak in a hot bath.
The last thing I want to do is speak of gratitude when I am angry at the circumstances before us, and yet, treasuring what we do have eases the grief in our hearts. It also makes us accurately aware of the suffering of others. It is unfathomable to imagine going through these trials alone. Ultimately, we will have to broach the final hurdle and the last unforeseen vistas by ourselves. But for now, I am grateful for our big and close family.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the generations of rural families who live within 40km of each other. While urban folk may joke about the preponderance of cousins and “inter-marriage,” the truth is, staying close makes more sense. Even nomads travel in groups, in family units. Nothing can replace the sanity and solace of life-long friends and having family close by. Nothing replaces company when the unexpected becomes conscious, vistas open, and the hidden becomes known.