On days like these, when we see gigantic headlines no matter where we look or what we read, when we feel wholly inconsequential yet as if the universe is conspiring to deflate us, when we cannot bear the thought of turning on our beloved public radio because we know they’ll continue repeating the words plunging, worst, virus, death toll, confirmed cases, test kits, President Trump said, and more…on days like these we need to look for tiny glimpses of hope.
The brilliant writer and illustrator Mari Andrew gives us a way to think from this place of despair. Mari is a beautiful soul, and I’m lucky to actually know her IRL. Thank you North Park University for providing a place to interact with intelligent thinkers, something more valuable to me now than my actual degree in accounting which is currently gathering multiple layers of dust at the bottom of my closet next to my CPA certificate and graphing calculator.
Mari possesses a remarkable ability to pinpoint the complexity of the human experience exactly with her posts as @bymariandrew about holding both pain and happiness at the same time.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrkuZpElMZ3/
She reminds me it’s okay to feel both. To feel peaceful while watching an old gentleman ride past my window on a bicycle while also feeling despair over the global impact of uncertainty. To tune it all out for a bit and think instead about the berries in my freezer waiting to be baked into something lovely.
I can feel giddy walking to the library after seeing an email in my inbox from Decorah Public Library saying Olive, Again is ready for pickup. So I jump up, throw on a pair of sneakers, and leave the house without a hat or gloves. It’s only 45 degrees, but it feels warm.
I move at a brisk pace in the half-sun and smile at those I meet on the sidewalk. The snow is nearly melted. As it recedes, debris is left in its place. Normally this disgusts me but today I don’t even mind. I almost pick up the garbage, but change course at the last minute, leaving the sandy, silty candy wrapper stuck in the muck of the gutter. I see a “Caucus for Bernie” flyer revealed in the melting snowbank. February 3rd seems so long ago already.
I walk in the door of my library. Oh what a gift we have, free books! When despair for the world grows in me, rather than the peace of wild things like Wendell Berry, I find comfort in the peace of orderly library shelves, soft voices, pages being turned gently. The satisfying click of the rotating due date stamp still in use by library staff, perhaps one of the last remaining.
I get my book, eager to return to the story of Olive Kitteridge. I walk back to my house, looking forward to the prospect of a fresh cup of coffee (Peru from Colectivo) and the familiarity of a known fictional character. With any luck as I fall back into her life in Crosby, Maine, parts of the current world will fade away. For just a moment, I’ll be somewhere else. For just a moment, I will again find calm.
Elisabeth A. Fondell is a writer, potter, and food enthusiast living in the rural Midwest. She is currently working on Food Stories From Houston County, a project documenting stories of culinary resilience in Minnesota’s southeastern-most county through the Crystal Creek Citizen-Artist Residency.
Elisabeth began focusing on place-based food writing after receiving a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council to create a body of work celebrating the intersection of food and culture. See that exhibit here.
