How to Survive

Ambroglo Lorenzetti, Madonna del Latte (Nursing Virgin), tempera and gold leaf on panel, c. 1325

On the bus today, I watched a little boy in a stroller, whose mother was ruffling his abundant black hair. He turned his head and looked up at her with such a beatific smile, and she looked down at him the same way — a sort of Madonna and child moment — and I thought of what was going on in Washington and how little it had to do with that, with these most basic ways in which we are human. And of course, it has everything to do with it, if you are one of the unlucky ones caught in the crosshairs, like countless mothers and children in the world’s war zones, or those who fear deportation or persecution.

I’m not watching the news or reading it today. That’s a choice. We can actually limit the extent to which we allow ourselves to be invaded by negativity, threats and pronouncements that may or may not be acted upon, and the resulting stress and spiraling worry they create. I am not advocating putting one’s head in the sand, or failing to name, protest, and resist all the wrongs that we can. However, the period we’re entering is going to be rough and invasive, and our first responsibility is to ourselves and those around us: to be as strong mentally and physically as possible, and to remember and celebrate our own humanity in the face of a darkness in which it’s so easy to become lost.

My primary job, as I see it, is to be a person who carries, communicates, and encourages hope, joy, creativity, and a positive lifeforce — in spite of everything. And this IS a job - it takes work. What helps? Using my senses to pay attention, because there is almost always something life-giving to notice, like the mother and child on the bus today. There is color. There is music. There are words. There’s the smell of food being prepared, or flowers in a supermarket display. There is the cold of winter on my cheeks, and the warmth of the distant sun which can still be felt even in sub-zero temperatures. There’s the taste of coffee, salt, lemons, chocolate. We miss so much when we’re wrapped up in ourselves and our worries — and our screens — and we have to train ourselves to turn back to the actual world, which is right there, existing, waiting to be noticed — full of sorrows, yes, but also full of beauty, joy, and simplicity.

Last week I had the privilege of being in New York City and visiting the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350.” The detail at the top of this post is from one of the pieces I saw there. Here is the full painting:

Just look, for a moment, at those colors.

And then at the harmony of the composition, and the gaze of the mother.

The exhibition traces a remarkable period in art history, when a small group of painters in Siena, Italy, began to break from the rigid tradition of Byzantine iconography to paint narrative scenes filled with human emotions. Instead of stereotypical depictions of apostles and saints, in prescribed poses, the people they painted looked like individuals who were completely human, doing human things. Their faces show fear, awe, sorrow, confusion, joy, serenity.

This flowering of new art only lasted in Siena for fifty years: not one of these painters survived the Plague of 1350.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, sections of two panels from the Maesta altarpiece. The Transfiguration of Christ (left) and The Raising of Lazarus (right).

But just look at the colors, the gold, the vibrancy of the work they left behind, which influenced so much that came afterwards and still has the power to move us today.

Noticing is the first step. Moving from noticing to inspiration, and from inspiration to creativity and growth -- which can be planting some seeds, baking a loaf of bread, playing an instrument, studying a language we’ve always wanted to learn, finally sewing those squares of calico into a simple quilt, or innumerable other pursuits -- brings us closer to our own humanity, and to a more positive sense of self that we can then share with others.

The key, I think, is distinguishing between the things we can change, and those we cannot. Just as the Siena painters couldn’t have predicted the plague, there are things which are unfortunately out of our hands, but we don’t have to be paralyzed by the thought of them. Most of us have a choice every single day of how we are going to live it, of what kind of attitude we’re going to bring to it and to our encounters with others. Do I do this perfectly? Of course not! I’m human, I have my eyes open, I see what is happening, and therefore I feel depressed and even despairing at times. But I do recognize the pattern and I do not want to succumb to it — because that powerlessness is exactly what allows the darkness to flourish and robs us of our most precious humanity.

The photographer Ralph Steiner (1899-1986), a wonderful man who I met several times and my husband knew well, curated an exhibition of prints by many photographers at the very end of his long life. The pictures showed children, old people, impoverished and well-dressed; dancers, lovers, animals, trees, mountains, quiet interiors, still lives, ice formations, clouds. The title of the catalog/accompanying book was In Spite of Everything, Yes.

I’d like to leave you with two quotes from that book. The first comes partway through:

Some of these photographs give out their YES easily, even eagerly. Some ask a bit more thinking and opening up of the feeling-valves. We get used to moving so fast that we miss yes-saying things. If we get used to missing instead of feeling, the openings of the heart shrink down. —Ralph Steiner

And the final words of the book are these:

Hope is a risk that must be run. —George Bernanos