Grace Notes

Long ago, on a text-based social platform that preceded things like Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky, I used to post what I called “grace notes,” those little vignettes, snippets of beauty or observation that somehow defined a moment or a mood or just resonated the world around us, kind of how grace notes in music add a special, optional flourish.

I sat down the other day thinking, I want to find those grace notes again. There’s something missing in my way of looking at things. I still see beauty, but I don’t let it resonate. I witness moments, and while they may make me laugh or think, somehow it feels less profound.

I know why. Or at least I think I do, but it doesn’t mean I still don’t want to find the grace notes again. Celebrate the why.

There’s the saw about “the meaning of life” being 42, from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Meaning is individual. We all have our personal takes on what we value, our ideas of what it takes to have a fulfilling and meaningful life.

Reasons to be

The WHY is something else.

The Bible would have you thinking we exist because of God’s will, or the Genesis theme of be fruitful and multiply. Kind of removes the agency, though doesn’t it? Well fine, but kind of finite. Do the thing and you’re done. Why go on once you’ve fruited and multiplied? And what of those who can’t multiply, much less fruit? (And where’s their agency if they don’t want to?). And WHY human, vs. any other species that is also out there copulating like mad, but reaches an age where it just continues on, laying in the sun, washing its paws and enjoying some small grace note in its existence? We could go deeper into evolutionary processes or even what defines living and nonliving but that level of philosophy makes my head hurt.

I didn’t think about “why I exist” much until my husband died 26 years ago. At the time, I wondered, how do I go on, and why. I stuck it out for the toddler who needed me. But that purpose grew up, and moved on. What new reason to be could I find? I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the world. So, that’s what it comes down to now, “to make a difference in the world.” That’s the thing that’s supposed to keep me going.

Making a difference

But what is that? Oh, when I was young, I dreamed that I’d write something so profound it would stop all the hate. Peace would break out. People would take care of each other. We wouldn’t have racism. Crazy, huh? I was a kid. Kids’ whys are as grand as they are out of reach. I wish reality didn’t have to snuff them.

As I got older, I’ve still thought, well, what are my tools, what am I any good at that might make a difference? I’ve worked on environmental issues, but my contributions have done diddly squat to achieve significant difference. I’ve given out and monitored grants. Money in the right places can make a difference! But I didn’t choose the recipients for those dollars, or what kind of project they were going to and I wasn’t creating those programs. I might have influenced a few of them, but my contribution is more or less just functional performance. It would have happened without me. Same with teaching.

I raised a brilliant kid by myself. But he gets to own his accomplishments, not me, and he might even claim he is who he became in spite of me (I hope not, but he gets to define his why, not me), just as I am the embodiment of my experiences, not my parents’ desires and expectations. If they relied on me to be their why, I might have failed them. That why has to belong to me. I must own my own why.

As I face down getting older and a body beat to hell by cancer, the likelihood that I’d have the stamina to crusade any great cause at this point in my life is looking slim. So where can I get my why? Where can I make that difference?

Things are bleak. I hate to admit it, but the Tylenol and ibuprofen just aren’t cutting the pain caused by the inflammation from immunotherapy treatment. I keep turning down the opioids and steroids offered by my medical team, but I’m wavering after yet another sleepless night. It has me down about 25 pounds in six weeks, thanks to first my stomach, and now my bowels inflamed and let’s just say functioning in overdrive. Things taste funny because my salivary glands are on strike and neuropathy has my feet feeling perpetually cold. I’m exhausted and so unmotivated I can barely roll out of bed.

But, I keep going.

I’m still in search of why

I open social media to see my country circling the drain, its proud claims to traditions of democracy, progress, science, “freedom,” all made moot in the face of thuggish and divisive gamesmanship and just plain cruelty. We’ve drained the brains that kept the country relatively safe, healthy and functioning. Things are being done in my name that have the world spitting at mention of us, friends turning their backs in anger as our nation threatens Greenland and NATO allies or attacks boats in the Caribbean and invades Venezuela or threatens Canada or maliciously cuts services to the poor and hungry around the world. People are priced out of their health insurance, or forced to feed their family on “one piece of chicken, one piece of broccoli, one tortilla and something else” (WTAF?!). But, in the face of this, I keep going.

I’m still in search of why.

The cruelty, the in-your-face, sucks-for-you attitude is the hardest to understand. We exist as a society, as humans, because of empathy. Seriously. Look it up. Without empathy, without caring about the welfare of others we couldn’t have survived as a species. What made us human was how our ancestors worked together for their common good. We see evidence, hundreds of thousands of years ago, of our ancestors caring for the sick and injured, their developmentally disabled, and honoring their dead. Empathy is not a sign of weakness as certain tech bros would have us believe. It is what makes us human. It’s the thing that makes us care about what happens to others around us, to feel others’ pain or imagine ourselves in another’s situation. Without empathy we don’t have the motive for the altruism that would send someone into a burning building to rescue someone else’s child, or risk their life to help someone or their pet who has fallen through the ice, or even to help someone push their car out of a snowdrift. We are hardwired as a species to care about others. And the sociopathic thinking—let me correct that, those with antisocial personality disorder—that cannot feel remorse, or understand others’ feelings are what would have had a person banished from our ancestors’ communities: that person couldn’t be trusted, would lie, possibly steal or even kill others for their own personal gain. It’s hard to see an entire government seemingly suffering from anti-social personality disorder.

But, I keep going.

I’m still in search of why.

I can’t help but stress worry about friends and family in harm’s way, whether that’s in Minnesota or DC or the west coast or in my own backyard where being legally in the US, or a born or naturalized citizen, doesn’t prevent our civil rights from being violated as people—humans—are rounded up, detained and beaten based on looks, legally exercising a right to protest, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The vast majority of the undocumented people—humans—being ripped away from their families and jobs are not the worst of the worst, criminals or gang members. Most are hard-working members of our communities. And many have been patiently waiting their turn for an opportunity to become an American. People are dying due to actions done in my name that I vehemently oppose.

But I go on. I’m still in search of why.

And the world is still burning up and it’s as if we have all forgotten the biggest existential threat facing all of us. Wildfires in Chile and Australia are a harbinger of things to come when summer is again knocking here in the north. Around the world, floods, fires, hurricanes and record severe storms and ever-rising sea levels are a risk to millions.

But I go on. I’m still in search of why.

I’ve harped on all this before. From my personal medical issues, twice, to the science denialism inherent in ignoring climate change and cutting funds for cancer research. I feel like I’m spitting in the wind. Which, right now, is pretty darned Arctic and flinging icicles back.

But I go on.  I’m still in search of why.

So, what’s this refrain about? Many would (and do) throw their hands up and retreat, say no I won’t have anything more to do with any of this. Take the pain killers, check out, bury yourself in a book, ignore it all and watch cooking shows. I can’t do that. I’ve stepped up to a few things. Small things. Things that likely won’t make the difference I want them to …There are reasons to raise our heads and look out. Our whys.

At almost -30F below zero windchill, there’s a certain deceptive beauty outside my window today, in the way the sun just blazes off the snow, how steam rises from the heated waterer on my deck shared by (according to the prints in the snow), cats, birds, deer, opossums and raccoons. Swirls of colored fluff mark birds darting back and forth to the feeders. Every so often a gust of wind raises blowing snow high enough to catch a bit of sunlight and it blazes like silver glitter in the hands of a two-year-old.

When I step outside to do chores, snow crunches underfoot like packing peanuts. I have this soft alpaca knit cap with earflaps and pull it down as low as it can go. My nostrils immediately freeze up and I’m pretty sure my toes are about to fall off. But I pause and take a deep breath, just to feel how it makes my lungs quiver with their that’s-freaking-cold response. The house feels steamy in contrast. I stomp my feet to find them, and peel off fogged up glasses. I’m completely awake now, even as I wrap a heating pad around my toes until I can feel them again.

I can’t help but think about my late husband, gone 26 years ago today. This was his kind of weather. He would bundle up and go out to get his “woods fix.” When he finally came in, he’d bring a blast of cold and the smell of fresh air, his skin icy as he stuck his face in my neck to warm up.

Now, the sun plays across the floor toward sunset. Two floofs, one orange, one black, move a little as the sun moves. One bumps a rattly ball that moves just out of reach. A paw extends, but the floof can’t be troubled to reach farther and falls asleep, one toe-bean short of the prize.

I decide to make a stew from some leftover lamb, standing over the oven door to feel the blast of heat lift the hair around my face. I’m taunted by the aroma, something pending to look forward to as I curl up under a quilt on the couch, a warm tea in hand.

Grace notes.

I go on. I’m still searching for why.

Cover photo of a buck running by my Snapshot Wisconsin trail cam. Courtesy of Snapshot Wisconsin, a DNR citizen science project on Zooniverse. Volunteers welcome in Wisconsin to host cameras, and around the world to help identify wildlife.

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