Am I Scared?
Musical Chairs
Who was the clever person who thought up the game that now seems to me such a perfect metaphor, almost a sadistic metaphor, played out by unsuspecting children at their birthday parties?
A game of cruelty and chance, so aptly symbolic of life’s uncertainty, from start to finish.
As a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, I paraded around in a circle with my peers while silly music played—until the presiding adult lifted the arm of the record-player, and the music scratched to a stop. And everyone hastened to plunk down onto a chair.
Only there weren’t enough chairs for everyone.
With each subsequent round, someone was left without a chair, without a place to sit.
The other children sat around looking smug. Maybe your best friend looked at you sadly. But there she sat, with her butt on a chair, and you were the one—
Were you the one?
You were never the first one or even among the first ones, left standing. You were quick and attentive. You knew how to play the game: you knew how to survive.
Not only to survive but to thrive.
You weren’t going to be one of those awkward, unfortunate ones, left without a place to sit down. A place to call home. A place of safety.
Not you.
A lot of people are feeling unsafe now, throughout the world. And the particularly awful thing is that we have good reason to feel unsafe. The entire world is being held hostage by the power-mad horror at the helm of the United States, taking his place among the most heinous thugs of human history.
We seem to be failing in our bid to evolve into better, kinder, wiser creatures. What makes us think that we have any chance of designing artificial intelligence to be kind and wise? It’s evolving orders of magnitude faster than we ever can. But toward what?
And meanwhile, scientists tell us that cows have shown themselves capable of using tools. Let a cow live a peaceful, stimulating life, free of the fear of being slaughtered, and she will pick up a broom with her mouth and use it to scratch her back.
Put a writer in a peaceful setting, free from the fear of destitution, and she will write books of fiction and poetry. Put anyone in a peaceful setting, free from the fear of destitution and danger, and she will be able to grow and thrive.
But the world is not a safe or easy place, especially for anyone who has been marginalized by a culture that sees itself in terms of winners and losers. A culture that rationalizes bigotry and arrogance. A culture that fails to see that we are just one tiny part of the natural world, with no special prerogative to own or control it.
What a cruel, competitive planet we’ve bequeathed to our children!
Does each of us have the power to make the world a better place by filling our hearts with kindness and compassion?
I’ve always believed in the power of the natural world to heal us with its beauty. I felt that beauty in my walk last night to my dance class, along an urban street where a princess tree was blooming in a patch of dirt. The last of the daylight was shining for a moment through the purple blossoms, showing the secret circulatory system inside—showing the heart of this kindred living thing. The admirable persistence of the botanical world. The undaunted need to keep producing beauty as long as we possibly can.
And Now the Hourglass Is Visible Someday, if life and DNA allow, I will be elderly. My flesh will lose its muscle tone and sink, as if snuggled tenderly against low-density bones. If neural connections still work—if poems still beckon me when I open my eyes, waking from sleep, from the nightly journey into the glimmering dark—then I won’t complain: I promise. Just give me a pen and my notebook, a cup of tea, and I’ll write down the words that are planted in me like seeds from the whirlwind. And I will be grateful for each grain of sand till the last one—my final portion of life—slips through. copyright © 2020 by Barbara Quick
Could it all have turned out differently? I keep walking past that house in Berkeley I used to own, feeling like an utter fool.
I think of all those decisions I made over the years, with such conviction. Fleeing from the idea of getting a PhD, as my professors at UC Santa Cruz urged me to do. Wanting instead to find myself “on the other side of the typewriter,” as I put it then: wanting to be a poet and writer, not a scholarly writer of literary criticism.
I spurned the support that would have been there for me. I turned and fled as fast as I could, beginning the colorful, international, adventure-strewn journey that became my life. A life where I was always scrambling to make ends meet, until I settled into a life, for my final years, that I thought would be comfortable and safe.
And now the music has stopped. I have nine published books, and a dozen or so translations, on the bookshelf in my writing room in Connecticut, where the ice and snow sent me fleeing to California. In the writing room with its gracious views and the lovely Arts and Crafts furniture I collected over the years.—such a far cry from this tiny little furnished studio I’ve rented in Berkeley on a dark street, behind a locked gate.
The Bay Area is a treasure trove of dear, dear friends for me—friends I’ve known and loved for decades. Friends who are showering me with kindness every day. Who are lighting up the darkness of this dark time, along with dance classes and the literary community I reluctantly agreed to leave behind.
I’m trying hard to get my act together. Some paying work would go a long way toward making me feel safer, wherever I land! I keep sending AI-optimized job applications into the void.
But truth be told, my life-boat is leaking.
I’m going to try to patch it up again—to keep it afloat—with other people’s words of encouragement.
My own words and thoughts are too dark now. I’m too frightened to cast my spell of buoyancy over what is, after all, a vessel woven of spiderwebs and hope and imagination.
If you know of something I can do to help anyone else now, I hope you’ll let me know! There are many brave and good people around the world, risking their lives and freedom, to help others. What will the history books say about these times?
You provide a small beacon of light in this time of darkness. As well as hope that humankind is better than the leadership we suffer now. I see people rising up but our elected leaders and judges are quiet. May we light a fire of action under them sooner. We cannot afford later
We need to be there for each other in these very dark times in our country !!! Your words always are uplifting to me, even in your dark times, and our friendship will last as long as I have breath :) Here is a new quote that I just discovered: "You are enough. The world is a better place with you in it." This is how I feel about you my dear friend :) Sending big hugs & much love to you always :)