Small Solace

It's October now, but the Summer of Ill Luck refuses to give up its bony grasp. My brother is in the hospital, in intensive care. Despite seeming perfectly fine on Saturday, by Monday he was on a ventilator, suffering multiple serious conditions. There's no knowing at this point if he will recover.

This of course has been distressing to the family, my youngest not the least, and it's causing him to act out. And then there is my mother, whose state of mind is not good. And there's my spouse's health, and my teenager's moods, and the bills to pay and those other fears I never talk about. This leaves me in the position where I often find myself - having to prioritize my worries.

It's a crappy state of affairs when you have to decide what scary thing to focus on first.

Crappy, but hardly new.

In times like these, I find myself I find myself running the same old internet search - how to find solace in times of trouble. The results are always the same, too - references to Bible verses or comfort food. Being a chronic dieter who went to Christian school, these things leave me more than cold. They leave me feeling hopeless and alone.

So the internet having let me down, I turn back the way I always have, to the small, seemingly meaningless things that tie me to the material world.

The sound of a branch tapping in the wind. The red light on the radio tower that blinks all night. The hum of the power lines, or scratch of dry leaves on the ground.

I'm not the only one who finds comfort in such things. My friend and I used to intone "the strawberries, the bowl of milk" ala the Seventh Seal, knowing that it wasn't about the strawberries or the milk, but the solace of simple objects during the dark night of the soul. The focus on the thing that is not your despair.

We all have our ways, I suppose. My cousin watches the original Planet of the Apes whenever she feels desperate. I prefer that episode of Doctor Who, Partners in Crime. Grandpa Wilf at his allotment, always watching the sky. But to each their own.

There are things I like to think about.

I like that the Vatican has an observatory, and that the time and date website thinks, for some reasons, that I am in a town 20 miles away. The sight of moths fluttering in the lamplight, and hot tea after midnight. Taillights receding into the distance. Weather reports for small towns. Articles about gardening. The knowledge that the road stretches beyond the horizon.

All together, it makes a sort of sacred space, albeit it a strange one, full of the most ordinary things. The strawberries. The bowl of milk.

Ordinary, but still sacred. The small solace, the respite, however brief, from the suffering of existence.

update - In the several days it's taken to write this post, my brother's condition has improved and it looks like he will live, though he will need major surgery. He's able to communicate enough to complain now, so that at least is normal.