alignment
#34
15 June 2025
Dear Jana,
We, at long last, have met. It was like meeting an old friend, you said, and I agreed heartily. Now we’ve both settled back home again, divided by lakes and fields, brimming with all we’ve seen and felt and discovered on the journey, ready to sow the word-hoard our cupped hands received. Here I am looking at the blank page again, wondering what to tend.
A plumbing inspection was carried out while I was gone, and now we await the estimate before we decide whether to get another for comparison’s sake. More loads of wood were stacked. The grass was mown and is overgrown again. Past the skeleton of an ash, trees obscure my view of the horizon on all sides. I have to go out to the road to inspect the furrowed beanfields, and even the outbuildings are swallowed in foliage. Fountains of burdock sprout everywhere, so innocently green. The spruce grove has shot up like a forest. Monarchs flutter to milkweed. Clover crowds every spare inch. I’m cloistered in these acres with my coffee grinder, treasurer reports, feathered fledgelings, the last of the asparagus, and a single sprig of rhubarb that I neglected to weed all spring. The Ragamuffin Gospel is beside me, on top of Giant and The Habit of Being and a pile of children’s picture books meant as baby shower gifts. I need to write inscriptions and wrap them up to mail. What books would you give to new parents? An oriole sling hangs low in the silver maple, and the lullabies of nesting birds comfort me throughout the day. I try not to scratch the mosquito bites on my legs. On Friday my mother-in-law and I crafted baskets and I am considering where to hang mine and what to put in it. The weather is cool for the moment, good for writing.
But my thoughts are ajumble and cannot center on any topic. The last two Letters came swift and easy, after thirty-some weeks of strain. Brett bore the brunt of my weekly anguish, and now he endures my doubts and disbelief as to the phenomenon’s continuance. Every week I start writing on Tuesday and hope to have a decent draft by Thursday. My frustration rises to a frenzy as Sunday looms. I grow more and more eager for the end of this substack marathon. Like any steep climb or slick slog, it is doing a robust good in me. My lungs and legs burn. Hours or years later, all that will remain is joy.
Effort is not the mark of virtue, we were reminded at the retreat. Rather, virtue is to be in alignment with reality. Sometimes I practice alignment by writing. Other times by asking for and resting in forgiveness. And once in a while, by sowing zinnias the week before midsummer and stepping back to watch what happens next.
So much loveliness here! From your lyrical words to the fuzzy chicks, there is a real reality in each letter. (Does that make sense?) I would love to hear more about the relationship between effort, virtue, and reality. I would have said that it takes effort to learn how to portray reality rightly. Effort alone doesn't necessarily equal virtue, however. Am I missing something?
"Virtue is to be in alignment with reality." Yes. A crooked back that gets more crooked every year is my reality, and when I forget to make allowances for it, the pain reminds me. Like today. So at some level, aligning with reality becomes not a matter of virtue but of survival.