What Lasts, What Sustains

A rainy evening in the clouds, the first sustained weather like this we’ve had since moving here. I like the different feeling in the apartment: quiet and closed-in, with the nearby all we can see and therefore much more prominent.

We stopped at the Jean-Talon market on our way home from my annual check-up in the eastern part of the city -- the first time I’ve seen my GP in person in more than two years -- and bought tomatoes, strawberries, a big bunch of basil, and pots of thyme and small hot peppers. Jonathan made pizza for dinner with the tomatoes and basil, and the pots are out on the balcony, getting slowly soaked with warm rain.

Coming back from central New York this time, I’ve finally realized that I always have a day or two of adjustment in each direction when I feel emotionally ragged, tearful, even angry. Arriving there, I feel overwhelmed by the house and tasks that have, suddenly, become my responsibility; I feel burdened with obligations and other people’s expectations and demands, and worried that I will fall short or be criticized -- and at first all I want to do is escape. Then the natural surroundings start to work on me; I get used to going to sleep after walking around the lake, looking at the stars, hearing the croaks of frogs, intermittent conversations of geese, and the distant lowing of cows. I get used to waking in the fresh air of early morning, fog blowing across the water, before making coffee and drinking it out on the porch or on the bench down by the shore as fish begin to rise -- and the negative feelings start to calm down. The longer I spend there, the more people I’ve come into contact with, and the more I realize we share a web of interconnections that have somehow persisted despite my long absence. Because my family’s roots there run so deep, it’s not hard for me to find ways of connecting, and when the mechanic or the truck rental guy or the clerk at the supermarket hear my name or my parents’ names, the suspicion caused by my Quebec license plate seems to be replaced by their own natural sociability, because people there tend to be very warm, friendly, and chatty. And this feels not only familiar, but refreshingly natural to me, after spending fifty years in New England and a French-speaking major city where there has been, frankly, not much of that, and seldom a ready response to my own overtures of warmth or friendliness to strangers.

Coming back here, to Montreal, the reaction tends to be a kind of wrenching sadness and grief, mainly about my father but also my attachment to that place juxtaposed with my fulfilling and happy life here, and an awareness that both marriage and family ties mean compromise -- I cannot do whatever I might want on a given day or in a given year, but have to -- if I’m to remain true to myself the values that I hold dear -- act responsibly on behalf of the people I love. And this, unfortunately, divides me. I don’t want to live in central New York full-time, nor do I want to live primarily in America again, but I do want to see and care for my father, I do feel a responsibility and love for the land that we own, I respect and care about the hardworking and straightforward people I’m meeting back where I grew up, and (perhaps this is the most significant revelation) I see much more clearly how embedded that culture and place has always been in me. Here, in my adopted country, province, and city, I am able to live more fully and freely as the person I’ve become over the years, and this is where my husband and I have built our life together and want to remain. As for community and friendship, these exist here, there, and everywhere we have lived -- and sometimes just as strongly in the strange place of online interconnection that has arisen over the past two decades, and is independent of addresses, borders, or time zones.

As I look out over the city from this high place, the clouds have risen and thinned, and lights begin to flicker on and shine in the deepening blue distance. I feel my solitude keenly and comfortably tonight, and I know that this is a quality I carry with me wherever I am, along with a natural desire for making connections, and an ease in doing so. There’s relief in recognizing that it doesn’t matter so much where I am, physically, because I’ll always be myself -- a child who grew up loving and being consoled by the solitude of nature, books, art, and music, and also learned sociability and a love of people from her father and others in a rural society that valued family, and caring about each other, above everything else.

Those qualities saved me when I left my small town and went off to find my own way in a large university, and I see them now in my father as he navigates the incredibly difficult transition from independence to a nursing home, impaired by deafness and mobility issues that would doom many people to isolation and despair. But several staff people told me how much they liked him, and I could see his efforts to connect with people, to find ways of communicating his identity and his sense of humor in spite of his frustration at his body’s failings, at finding himself stuck in that place, his grief at the loss of his partner, and all the other challenges of extreme old age.

At first I thought, “This is terrible, how difficult this is for him,” but now that I’ve thought through this last visit more deeply, it actually gives me hope that even in extreme circumstances, one’s humanity and love of others can still be expressed, and consolation found in recognized places of solace. “I can’t sing anymore,” my father said to me as he listened to a woman play the guitar and sing familiar songs -- but I saw his toe tapping, and watched his hand beat time to the rhythm -- and he had found his way to the circle of residents at the appointed time for the musical event that week. Whatever is deepest in us remains, I think, and we must not give up on it -- not now, not ever.

 

Comments

[Peter]

This is a moving reflection, and thank you for sharing it!

[Natalie]

I loved reading this and empathise strongly with you Beth. My thoughts are with you, sending waves of love and serenity to you and Jonathan and to your father.

[Kathy Hughes]

Thank you Beth. Agree this is very moving and reflects your feelings so well. We need to talk soon and catch up. Love to you all!
k

[Duchesse]

Thank you for this nuanced and resonant post. Ties contain an element of responsibility; the freedoms we seek when we set off from a home generations old may come to prove far less rewarding than the reverant stewardship of which you write.

[Gretchen Hall]

A lovely expression of thoughts and feelings that are familiar to me -- some delightfully so and others harder to acknowledge and own. I do feel that being an only daughter is significant in our lives and (for me at least) in the ways we address our parents' and then our own diminishments.
Sending much love, G

[Martine]

Quel beau texte, honnête, touchant et bien senti. Hâte de vous voir tous les deux.

[Magda Kapa]

Dear Beth,
there are so many passages in this entry that I could just replace „central New York“ with “Corinthian Gulf“ and “Montreal” with “northern Germany” and it would express perfectly how I feel moving to and fro between my rural place of birth and the Northern European city I live.
Even though all these landscapes mentioned above are so different to each other, the inner landscapes they’ve created for you are so familiar to me.
Thank you, dear!
Much love, M. xo

[Liz Nestler]

Thank you Beth. I understand well the feelings you express about responsibilities, memories, and life in multiple settings -- chosen and inherited.

[am]

"Whatever is deepest in us remains, I think, and we must not give up on it -- not now, not ever."

Thank you for your honesty and the clarity, following which you come to this conclusion, Beth.

[Ann E. Michael]

Oh, my. How I recognize it--the awareness that isolation looms for elderly parents who were once so vibrant. It hurts the heart. You see the spark that is in him--the toe tapping, his resilience in navigating a new living situation. My mother just moved to skilled nursing, too--two years after my dad's death. When I remind myself to be patient, I see how adaptable she actually is. You've captured that so well here.

[Edward Yankie]

Another beautiful reflection. And photograph. Thank you.