Pop 89: The Pace of Grace
By Madonna Hamel
I have just returned to my home in rural Saskatchewan from Toronto, and the first thing I noticed was the silence. And then: the pace. And then: how constant movement made by lots of people makes for lots of noise. Let’s face it: even if all three million Torontonians were taking naps, sitting at a desk, reading and reflecting, the combined dispersed energy would still be noisy. That’s what happens when that many people congregate in one geographical area.
I seem to be more and more susceptible to the intensity of big cities. I love them for the same reasons they can burn me out - an endless supply of things to see, hear, do (and avoid). Walking from one end of the metropolis to another is an education in itself. I walked from Pape & Danforth to Ossington & Bloor and from Queen & Carlaw to Bloor and Dovercourt. I eavesdropped and window-shopped and commented on people’s outfits and sat in cafes nursing a latte and journaling the day’s encounters. I saw a bike courier chase a guy down to return his wallet to him after it fell on the ground. I watched firemen put out a fire that had consumed a church spire. One afternoon, I stopped short at the sound of a saxophone with a real live saxophonist at the end of it, playing on the sidewalk of a wine bar. I ordered a glass of wine, just to keep listening to him, and I made sure he knew it.
One late afternoon on the Danforth, I decided to see how many conversations I could catch while walking past people on the crowded sidewalk. The snippets made for a lively cross-section of human concern. It went something like this: “The whole thing could have been a total disaster, but..”, “You need to pick up the …” “Where did he get that stupid…” “Nonono, that’s not molesting, molesting is when…”, “I need you to - are you listening?”, “No disrespect, but if you give them the occasional….” With every snippet came the urge to stop and walk backwards to catch the rest of the story. And it’s important to note, that for every conversation in English, there were two in a language I could not discern.
While random conversation sampling is a stimulating exercise in urban appreciation, there are other sounds and noises less enjoyable: the screech of brakes, the urgency of sirens, the cries of children, arguments between cyclists and drivers and/or pedestrians, the boom-booming of a bass line blaring from a car idling forever under your window, the coughing of an insomniac on his balcony at 4 am, every morning, without fail. The most unsettling of all is the scattered, shaky, manic voice of a lost soul, wandering up and down the street, talking to himself but convinced they are talking to one, two, maybe three other people shadowing them all night long.
The voices and noises of the city cover a wide range, and the brain must find the capacity to accommodate or dismiss them if one is not to become overwhelmed by their demands and insurgencies, if one wants to fall back to sleep when jostled by the world just outside your window. Which is why I think I am so exhausted when I get home. “Think about it,” said a friend. “You were virtually lifted from the quiet and emptiness of the prairie and dropped into the heart of a city full of intense human energies.”
It is always a challenge when trying to pinpoint the origins of one’s anxieties. Especially when there is so much to be anxious about. This has been a year of reckoning with my delusions of immortality. I touched on some of this in The Liberation of Limitations, but the truth is that the days, weeks, and years just keep rendering up more things to fret about. I fear I will always be on edge after my brother’s stroke, wondering what news awaits at the other end of every phone call, no matter who it’s from.
And I don’t like this new abnormal. It doesn’t feel right that I should be blind-sided by grief and fear - given how I’ve been doing my best to make a daily inventory of what aspects of self need tending, what apologies need making, what assets need enhancing and what many things I have to be thankful for. I should be entering my crone-hood now, dispensing sage advice, placidly sitting back while the young strive to prove themselves right and beautiful and worthy. Haven’t I earned the right to just “be”?
I am surprised every time I wake with a jolt. I can’t always remember my dreams, but living around a brother who’s a Jungian and a sister who has kept a dream journal for over 40 years has taught me that dreams work on us even when we don’t recall them, so try to remember, because then you can make some kind of important, positive move in your evolution.
But what kind of solution exists to quell the kind of separation anxiety I experience? I’m not talking about being out of my brother’s reach now he’s back on the island or my sister travelling Scotland at the moment. I’m talking about the Big Eternal Separation Anxiety, the one that worries over how I’ll connect with my family when I die.
Or maybe there’s something else at play, some deeper change that is slowly working away at my being, preparing me for the ultimate Transcendence. Then what? I’m drawn to religious writers for answers. Writers like the monk Christopher Jamison still speak in a language that helps us recognize the transcendent when it appears. “Grace,” he writes, “is a subtle presence that appears in moments of failure” that teach us our biggest lessons. Which is why “to keep giving thanks in the midst of trials is to be on the way to overcoming them.”