Bound to each other.
The role of art can be debated endlessly, but I believe it is both a personal and public act.
Credit: Anna Claussen. In Honor of Mari Leete
In a post-dinner haze I pull open the Tupperware drawer. I’m sizing-up the leftovers while simultaneously hollering at the kids tussling in the living room and thinking about tomorrow’s travel schedule - the emails I still need to send after the kids are bathed and in bed. Subconsciously I’ve reached for the round glass Tupperware with the blue lid and begin scooping a single size portion of leftovers into it for our neighbor Mari. And then it hits me, again, like a blast of arctic air hiding around a corner. I drop the spoon and I crumble. Deep sadness swells inside and the tears tumble down.
It’s hard to imagine a week without Mari in it. She’s no longer here with us. Our dear neighbor Mari passed-on two days ago, and while my grief has been front and center, I still have moments like this when I operate on auto-pilot. Just two days prior we lost a dear friend. We lost a neighbor who felt like family. It’s hard to believe I won’t knock on the front door and enter to find her sitting in her chair in her bay window, basking in the sunshine. No more sipping tea while my daughter reads through her daughter’s handmade books; no more food deliveries. It’s hard to look at the Tupperware drawer. In the garage, my husband had just set out the Christmas lights that we would string for her on her Cedar tree outside her window.
I understand she is not here, unlike my two-year-old who still races up her front steps to beat his sister inside and lay claim to the babushka dolls . But even I'm not sure if I’ll ever bike by her pink house without looking for her on her porch. I’ll always remember the last dish we shared together - warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. When I delivered it she was just beginning to take ill with a bad cold. We agreed that the crisp would still be warm after she prioritized a nap in bed. I’ll remember the last dish we brought for her 2 days later - potato sausage soup (just like in England) - now still sitting in her fridge. It all changed so quickly.
I’ll miss our weekly conversations that spanned everything from Prince Harry to plant identification, which were illuminated by her rich descriptions of a full life - the smells of her childhood in England, the Christmas parties held in that back sunroom (now partially collapsed and abandoned) where they would dance until the sun came up. I’ll miss flipping through her iPad together, seeing the latest pictures of her great grandchildren and absorbing her sage advice on life. Mostly I’ll miss the sparkle in her eyes, the gratitude she shared for our friendship, the bond her and our 5-year old daughter had and their parting salutation: Goodnight Little Chick (cluck, cluck), echoed by Lenny’s Goodnight Mama Hen (cluck, cluck).
It’s hard to realize the impact you have on others in the moment. Sharing my bereavement with Mari’s children has illuminated this for me. It has also been a pure gift. The exchange has made me ponder - What does it take to have dignity? What does it take to give someone dignity?
For Mari, her dignity was in living out her life in her home - at 93. For me, I like to think that it didn’t take a lot to contribute to her dignity - it took time. More specifically, it took shifting momentum, stopping my flow of life to fall in stride with someone else's flow.
The way for me to shift and alter my pace and path was easier when I was thinking about that person and simply did the next right thing. Headed to the coffee shop on a sunny Saturday morning...Why don’t I bring a latte for Mari? The kids are restless...What if we go for a walk and not watch the clock when we stop by to check-in on Mari? I’m making a lasagna...Might as well make two. When we’re picking up pumpkins to carve...Let’s carve one for Mari, too. Entering the long dark winter and putting up light to get us through the other side...Let’s run our extension cord over to Mari’s and do the same for her.
To do the next right thing by someone, we have to have them on our mind. We have to clear enough space on our mental to-do lists and overflowing social media feeds to hold space for them.
To do the next right thing by someone, we have to have them on our mind. We have to clear enough space on our mental to-do lists and overflowing social media feeds to hold space for them. To see them. To think of them when we don’t have the fortune of their constant presence to remind us of their lived realities. And if we can’t afford that constant clarity of mind, we need something to wake us or shake us; something to shift our flow.
For me this is the power of art. Art in all multitude of forms - from the public murals I view alongside my neighbors, to the poetry I read in solitude in my bedroom; to musical lyrics that seem to have been written just for me in this moment in my life - has the power to shake us into a new awareness.
And art and people together have the power to give dignity. Alongside our basic human needs of being fed, clothed and sheltered is a human need to understand and be understood. The human desire for dignity. The role of art can be debated endlessly and I don’t intend to contain or curtail its role, for it’s a personal act. However, I believe it is also always, simultaneously, a public act. It has a universal ability to transform us. Art has the power to let us tell our story, but also the power to help share it - to transport and translate our story to others. Voices for Rural Resilience prioritizes the role of art and intentionally uses it to build a more inclusive and equitable society where we all feel seen, heard, and known for who we are. Our approach gives the permission to value the thinking and the feeling, alongside the doing. And art gives us a vehicle for expressing what we hold in our head and heart.
I intend to use art to help me slow down. Because it’s hard to slow down.
But Mari reminded me it’s worth it. Always. I never regretted a single visit. Never wished I had sent three more emails instead of spending thirty minutes visiting in her living room. She reminded me that stopping, slowing, sitting, staying - it matters. In the moment I may have been fooled into believing it mattered more to her than me. But ultimately the benefit was mine; my daughter’s; my family’s. Ours as much as hers. Because we are bound to each other. And daily reminders of this are a blessing we should try to curate and create.
May you all this holiday season, and always, curate a consciousness for Nannette Mathews’s observation that “If you’re always racing to the next moment, what happens to the one you’re in?” In doing so, may you create more friendships that bind us to one another.