Hope

by mark…..

How does one stay sane amidst insanity? No, really, when things are truly insane, when the world around you seems to be turning into one heaping pile of shit, with the mound growing remarkably higher each day, how does one find comfort and composure? Or even just perspective?

This is a not a secret-of-life question, not a quest for long-term serenity or a musing about how to be a better and fuller person. No, this is a survival question, one designed not to figure out just how to get through the day or week or month, but rather, but much more modestly, how simply to keep plodding through the muck, minute-to-minute, without falling face first into the stinking abyss.

It seems to get harder each day.

And yet, of course, we do put one foot in front of the other because, well, what choice to do we have. Within that, we find moments to hold onto. Tightly. Until recently, my moments had been fairly predictable: watching something mindless on Netflix, playing Warcraft with Nicole, doing a crossword puzzle, reading, eating, sleeping, working; a daily dose of sometimes interesting, sometimes fulfilling, sometimes fun, sometimes numbing – and always distracting – things to keep my mind moving forward.

Then Ella started Twitching. No, wait, she corrected me on this, she started streaming. She’s streaming on Twitch. Every couple of nights, she goes online, and, using the camera from her phone and the one from her laptop, she “performs” her artwork for an audience. There’s an overhead shot of her hands creating her art, and a shot from her computer that captures Ella concentrating on her work, and you can log into Twitch and observe. Occasionally, she’ll look up to answer questions asked in a chat box or she’ll narrate a bit about what she’s crafting – soap carving, making a book, shaping one of those little metal bikes. And you just sit there and watch. There’s usually music playing, with a cool program that allows you to cue up pretty much any song you want the group to hear. Last night, old fogey that I am, I requested some Loretta Lynn (“You Ain’t Woman Enough”), a bit of Joe Jackson (“Look Sharp”) and a taste of Jackson Browne (“Lives in the Balance”). It was a intriguing contrast to Nicole pulling out some Parliament and Chaka Khan, while Ella’s friends picked stuff I’d never heard (or even heard of).

There’s something just mesmerizing about the whole experience. It’s not only that I’m having the opportunity to watch Ella work her magic – and, make no mistake, it is magic to me. The stuff she can do, her creativeness, I’m so impressed. Nor is it just that I’m connecting with and seeing Ella in a way that I’ve never had the chance to before – though that’s also magical. It’s much more than that, even though that would be enough (Dayenu). It’s that the experience, the entirety of it, is exceedingly peaceful. It’s normal. Engaging, Settling.

It’s very settling.

The days haven’t changed a whole lot, and in some ways they’re scarier than ever (pandemic, economic collapse, social unrest, Trump, fires, the looming election, on and on). The shit pile grows. Yet, somehow, just laying on the couch, holding up my iPad and watching Ella draw or carve or sculpt, it provides a level of reassurance. Really, it provides me with … I can’t believe I’m saying this … hope.

Hope.