They say that when you own your own business, you should never breach the world of politics. It's sound advice, and generally, I believe in it. I'm a firm believer in surrounding yourself with people who are different from you, purposefully putting yourself in the minority, and learning from that experience. That said, I have a wide range of friends and customers. Some of whom may decide to part ways with me today.
In one final blow from the year that was 2020, Barry Lopez left our world on Christmas day. Apart from Edward Abbey and maybe Mary Oliver, Barry Lopez was my favorite author. I have a worn and ragged copy of Field Notes that I keep on my nightstand. It wasn't in pristine condition when I bought it; $6.50 from the Dolores Grocery. An impulse buy as much as the local honey and bouquet of day-old flowers. But, the honey jar still gets use in my kitchen, and the book still nourishes my soul. Perhaps one of my more productive purchases.
I enjoy this book so much not because of the provocative stories or the intense deeper meaning, but of its simplistic study of the human condition. I've re-read this small collection of stories twice in the past couple of weeks. Once on the day we learned of Lopez's death and again this past Wednesday.
The human condition is fleeting and fragile, as much so as that bunch of flowers I bought with my copy of Field Notes. As with flowers, we grow and bloom and pass on; the question is, will our blooms bring joy as a sunflower does? Or pain, as is the nature of stinging nettle? I believe we are lucky in the sense that we have the power to choose.
I've read many sentiments of the last few days stating that this is not who we are as Americans, but I believe it is, deep down, who we are. There is ugliness and pain in our history, much of which we have chosen not to address or acknowledge. Issues that we have decided to brush under the rug and hide rather than do the hard work and clean up. We have never taken the time to look at the collective human condition of our country. I believe we have chosen, through fear and shame, to water the stinging nettle of our human nature.
I have a few sentences highlighted in my book, a habit I acquired from my grandmother, the page marked with a sticky note. "Such questions of allegiance seize upon us all I believe - how can we reciprocate, and how do we honor the unspoken request of our companions to speak the truth? What I wish to do here, the task-in-return I have set myself, is to rewrite the story of Cain. I want to find a language for it that offers hope in place of condemnation, that turns not on aggression and vengeance, but on the mystery of human terror." *
As much as I do believe the events of January 6 were in our nature, I also have hope that we can rise above our past and current nature. We can choose what we would like to water within ourselves, the words we use, the actions we take and decide that the stinging nettle within should be choked out.
It's true that we will always have disagreements and opinions, and we must have those differences to make us better as a society. But, we must learn from our past and present, we must take care how we present those differences, and above all, we must find a collective language that offers hope.
