Today - Two new chapters posted under "Hurricane River" in the website, "Henry" and "Devil's Choice." These follow last week's chapter "A Sweater."
Nearing the end of Willa Cather's "Shadows on the Rock," this son of change and glitz (me) learned of the French "art of living." We have as a central character Cecile, who at this point is just 13 years old, on the final step of childhood. Here she is taken to the Ile d' Orleans, an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River below the rock of Quebec. For years now, she has never been, although she has longed to go, looking at it daily from her perch in Quebec. It is an island of fruit and honey, where the best lands of the region are and where much of the fresh food for Quebec comes from. Her ferry man is Pierre Charron, a fierce but good man of the woods, and although he gets her there safely, she is shocked by the manner of life there. While the flowers and trees and grass are lush, the food in the house where she stays is coarse and, to her, almost inedible. She is to sleep with three other smaller girls of the house, and she notes that they do not wash their legs before bed, but jump in, bleeding mosquito bites and mud and all. She is horrified by the dirt, but she is no brat - she simply stays up, starring out the window, waiting for dawn. After two days, Pierre notes her tired composure and asks what is wrong; it is then that she pleads with him to take her back to her home, which he does.
When she arrives at the Rock, she feels like kissing the ground (but does not - she is not given to theatrics). Once home, she immediately goes about the chores and cooking, which has become her lot since the death of her mother three years before. After a bit, she understands something that she had not before; while before she had thought her chores were for her father and the memory of her mother, she now discovers that they are for her, too. She loves the life she has, loves the house she cares for, and loves her habits and chores. They are, she realizes, not just what she does and has, but who she is. She now understands, while not thinking it, contentment and place, her meaning and duty in the world one and the same.
It is, as the French are fond of saying, the essence of the "art of living." It is that each thing, every meal, every room or house cleaning, is a ritual, the ritual of life. For Cecile in her time, it is also a ritual with God included, what she does a part of God's design, but the idea of a specific god is not necessary - rather, it is the notion that one's place is integral to the whole, and as such one's life work much be treated with respect and even reverence. In that, one does reverence to one's self and to life.
It is the Buddhist way, and the way of all saints, and it is something that I do not come by naturally. A chore to me is something to get over. The house can get messy, the food can be from the freezer to the microwave, my dress only adequate for the weather. Life is not art, nor is place - I have moved so many times in life that I still confuse phone numbers and zip codes. Life is to have enough money, and if I am lucky, enough time to watch a game or play guitar. That is the point - to get past the annoying necessities of life. For those of us looking for more, we might have hobbies or church or something to bring us to a more meaningful place, but much of life is something to get done with so we can enjoy the evening or the weekend. TGIF would not be the motto of Old France.
I do not say this to inculcate guilt: we have our reasons for thinking as we do. But there is something to learn here, of others and how we might make our lives more content. As such, the book itself drifts back and forth, from daily life to the life of the Church, and we see how the connections and the order and meaning of life were once maintained. As a cathedral was the dome of the celestial sky writ small, so life was to be the life of sacred meaning writ small. In a way, a wonderful way of life, if one can find it in oneself. A good notion, I think, to keep in mind. FK
Nearing the end of Willa Cather's "Shadows on the Rock," this son of change and glitz (me) learned of the French "art of living." We have as a central character Cecile, who at this point is just 13 years old, on the final step of childhood. Here she is taken to the Ile d' Orleans, an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River below the rock of Quebec. For years now, she has never been, although she has longed to go, looking at it daily from her perch in Quebec. It is an island of fruit and honey, where the best lands of the region are and where much of the fresh food for Quebec comes from. Her ferry man is Pierre Charron, a fierce but good man of the woods, and although he gets her there safely, she is shocked by the manner of life there. While the flowers and trees and grass are lush, the food in the house where she stays is coarse and, to her, almost inedible. She is to sleep with three other smaller girls of the house, and she notes that they do not wash their legs before bed, but jump in, bleeding mosquito bites and mud and all. She is horrified by the dirt, but she is no brat - she simply stays up, starring out the window, waiting for dawn. After two days, Pierre notes her tired composure and asks what is wrong; it is then that she pleads with him to take her back to her home, which he does.
When she arrives at the Rock, she feels like kissing the ground (but does not - she is not given to theatrics). Once home, she immediately goes about the chores and cooking, which has become her lot since the death of her mother three years before. After a bit, she understands something that she had not before; while before she had thought her chores were for her father and the memory of her mother, she now discovers that they are for her, too. She loves the life she has, loves the house she cares for, and loves her habits and chores. They are, she realizes, not just what she does and has, but who she is. She now understands, while not thinking it, contentment and place, her meaning and duty in the world one and the same.
It is, as the French are fond of saying, the essence of the "art of living." It is that each thing, every meal, every room or house cleaning, is a ritual, the ritual of life. For Cecile in her time, it is also a ritual with God included, what she does a part of God's design, but the idea of a specific god is not necessary - rather, it is the notion that one's place is integral to the whole, and as such one's life work much be treated with respect and even reverence. In that, one does reverence to one's self and to life.
It is the Buddhist way, and the way of all saints, and it is something that I do not come by naturally. A chore to me is something to get over. The house can get messy, the food can be from the freezer to the microwave, my dress only adequate for the weather. Life is not art, nor is place - I have moved so many times in life that I still confuse phone numbers and zip codes. Life is to have enough money, and if I am lucky, enough time to watch a game or play guitar. That is the point - to get past the annoying necessities of life. For those of us looking for more, we might have hobbies or church or something to bring us to a more meaningful place, but much of life is something to get done with so we can enjoy the evening or the weekend. TGIF would not be the motto of Old France.
I do not say this to inculcate guilt: we have our reasons for thinking as we do. But there is something to learn here, of others and how we might make our lives more content. As such, the book itself drifts back and forth, from daily life to the life of the Church, and we see how the connections and the order and meaning of life were once maintained. As a cathedral was the dome of the celestial sky writ small, so life was to be the life of sacred meaning writ small. In a way, a wonderful way of life, if one can find it in oneself. A good notion, I think, to keep in mind. FK
RSS Feed