Open Closed Open

‘Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed within us. And when we die, everything is open again. Open closed open. That’s all we are.’

Yehuda Amichai (1998) Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

Recently, three people close to me opened--or closed-- depending on how you see it. One was my brother-in-law Jim. For over fifty years, together we kept alive the memory of his brother, my late husband. The other was a friend from earlier days, someone from the nineteen sixties with whom I shared Peace Corps times in East Africa. And before them, my beloved friend Ellen died. She and I shared a house for eleven years, where I was super-aunt to her three children.

Examining the meaning of these people in my life, and constructing the meaning of their death, I am oddly--and gratefully--comforted. It's as if each of them taught me something by the way they left. They hadn't planned to do so. I wasn't central to their lives, the way their spouses and children were. But we shared conversations and thoughts over the years. And knowing them as I did, I understand a bit more about how finality can be a bit more of an opening than a closing--though still I fear it, truth be told.

My friend Diarmuid knew he was dying. He was in hospice, but we kept texting. His straightforwardness was invigorating, his ability to coexist with death's approach and still be incensed by the state of the world he was leaving behind. I loved his sense of outrage, his Swiftian anger at how messed up things are and how they need to be mended. When we were young, in the sixties, we were optimistic things would get better. Doing our bit to make that happen, he worked with farmers in Uganda and I taught secondary school in Kenya. Things felt less calamitous, before the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, before 9/11, before climate catastrophe, before the magic and destruction of social media. The world was headed in the right direction, and we were along for the ride, making progress happen.

What did I learn from Diarmuid and how he handled his exit? I learned you can remain engaged, pissed off, unrelenting in fighting injustice in the world around you.

What did I learn from Diarmuid and how he handled his exit? I learned you can remain engaged, pissed off, unrelenting in fighting injustice in the world around you. And in the end, as you skip away from it all, you can observe that your individual life is connected to larger realities. As Diarmuid said in his last unfinished note to me, not with grandiosity but with inquiry:

Is it a coincidence that the helpless thrashing of the last cohort of defunct empires matches my personal struggle to maintain coherence? In my case, I am leaving the stage of history with an overwhelming feeling of joy and gratitude for the love I have been able to give and receive. Vladimir the Terrible, Donald the cultural rag-picker and Boris the Blithering Idiot should be so lucky.

Upon further reflection, I don’t think this balmy notion plays out into anything resembling an insight. But it is definitely a fact that my exit and the final collapse of Imperialism (currently in a demented state but still sowing havoc) are somehow coinciding.

On the other hand, my brother Jim did not know his death was on its way. It came quickly. He was away in five days. Jim, too, had a finely honed sense of outrage. He and I were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but each of us was unrelenting in how we interpreted the world's woes. Underneath his opinionated, take-no-prisoners intellect, shone a vulnerability and lovingkindness.

As he wrote a few months before his death,

{thanks for your card re} my aging, my crappy health and just plain reminder of our ties. It's our ties that matter most of course.

Jim taught me that anger doesn't have to dissolve bonds, that sharpness of mind needn't fade over time, that there are ways of being loving even when inner conflicts threaten to choke off kindness.

Jim taught me that anger doesn't have to dissolve bonds, that sharpness of mind needn't fade over time, that there are ways of being loving even when inner conflicts threaten to choke off kindness.

My dear Ellen showed me graciousness in the face of leavetaking, courage at its most fiery in resisting despair. Our last conversations reverberate over time. Anticipating her imminent death two years ago at what is now the not very old age of sixty-nine, Ellen wrote:

I don't really know what to think about the afterlife. Whatever it is, it will be an annihilation of anything I’ve already experienced. Will my consciousness and being disappear? Probably. At least as I understand consciousness and being. That's scary, but also it raises my curiosity, because the change does not necessarily mean an ending, just a different state that might as well be an ending. I guess that's the point of "soul growth" -- to facilitate the transition.

I'm in a different space, already "going away" and yet I'm alive and doing relatively well. I don't want to anticipate my death. I want to value what I have. It reminds me of the scene in the play "Our Town" when the woman dies in childbirth and comes back to visit her family. She sees everything so poignantly, while her family is just involved in the banalities of everyday living. I expect things will be changing as I go along; I will feel different things, going back and forth between anger, fighting, acceptance, sadness and joy in what I have.

For now I still have some work I want to do. One can only stay on these subjects for so long. Thank God, there is living to do.

Living to do; fortunately, yes for now. Those who have left are my teachers, guiding me and urging me to be open to what is to come. Goodbye Jim, Ellen, Diarmuid. Thank you.

Chronicles of an Elder: Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, August, 2022

Zimbabwe is a beautiful, distressed, struggling country of 15 million. Its government is corrupt, its social services practically non-existent, its unemployment rate at 80 percent, its currency worthless. Goods are priced in US dollars, and one US dollar is 750 Zimbabwean dollars. Our dear friend Sophie, a university professor, makes $130/month. Electricity is erratic in many places, including the house where I stayed. There's no hot water, infrequent wifi, lots of flies. But the warmth I feel towards the Chirongoma family, and their reciprocal affection, makes it alright. On the other hand, it's a hard life in terms of the daily slog for 98 percent of the population. As ever, there's a layer of rich Zimbabweans whose housing and other amenities are on a different planet from most.

A huge Chinese influence operates, and they are purchasing all manner of valuable resources. It's the new colonialism. Very, very few white people in evidence anywhere. Many, many people selling vegetables, soft drinks, baskets, trinkets, oranges, etc. by the side of the road. One of the most distressing things for me is knowing that giving someone two dollars can make the difference between their eating for a couple of days or going without. I feel a continual need to buy stuff I don't need or want, and to tip anyone who does me a service. I experience how hugely privileged I am compared to almost everyone I meet, and it's discomfiting. It's not charming to see seven year old children driving a donkey cart or an old woman hawking apples.

I experience how hugely privileged I am compared to almost everyone I meet, and it's discomfiting. It's not charming to see seven year old children driving a donkey cart or an old woman hawking apples.

On the positive side, the skies and the sunsets and the wildlife are magnificent. Today I stood two feet from a giraffe, and fed a four ton elephant at Antelope Park, an animal sanctuary/resort. The Zimbabwean culture I've encountered is warm and intensely welcoming. I'm conscious of my western liberal values and my colour. I'm concerned about being insensitive and matronizing, but my outsider feelings are minimal. The acceptance level I experience is huge. I don't understand how people can endure such privation and be both accepting and often cheerful. Being an elder, I feel fairly comfortable not understanding lots of things, but I wish things were better here and were on the upswing. They're not.

I was in the Peace Corps in Kenya over fifty years ago, and this brings me back to considering how the world has changed and how I, now an elder, am different. I despair at the way things are moving in alarming and unhappy directions. Today at the animal park I realized with horror what climate catastrophe will keep doing to this gorgeous land--and to ours. This concern was nothing but a whisper when I was young.

Today at the animal park I realized with horror what climate catastrophe will keep doing to this gorgeous land--and to ours. This concern was nothing but a whisper when I was young.

November, 2022.

The following update comes from Dr. Sophie Chirongoma, currently living in Zimbabwe. Sophie is a professor at Midlands State University.

Living conditions remain difficult in all arenas with socio-economic circumstances continually deteriorating. Zimbabwe's forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in 2023 do not offer much optimism. There's ongoing polarization and animosity between the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union, Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). The ruling party continues to use government resources such as food aid and farm inputs as campaign tools to influence voting patterns.

We Zimbabweans persevere, but there is little light on the horizon just now.

……………………………………

Rose Levinson, Ph.D.

Founder and Managing Editor

Emerging Voices: A Webzine for Shifting Times

To Autumn

‘Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness’...

From John Keats, 'To Autumn'

This time of year, September, has always had an aspect of melancholy for me. It was early September when my first husband died of cancer. Though that was many, many years ago, the anniversary date evokes sorrowful recollections. I think of Steve’s final days, and how intense they were, of my panic following his loss. I wonder if I’ve learned anything in the many years since, whether I’m better equipped now than I was then to deal with my pain and that of others. Sometimes I feel I’ve matured, and can withstand life’s blows. Other days, I’m intensely fearful, fretting over possible catastrophes and desperately wanting to be reassured. I’m like a child begging her mother to assure her all will be alright. My mom couldn’t do it back then, and there’s really no one who can do it now.

These days are full of ongoing fragmentation, a continuous rearrangement of what felt like some kind of order. I detest nostalgia, longing for the old days. I don’t miss what went before. What I miss is a sense of the world being coherent, moving towards better times. Shattered, that’s all shattered. The climate is no longer moving towards disaster; catastrophe has arrived. Floods, fire, ice caps melting, deadly heat and attendant drought, Pakistanis dying in their waters, and villagers dying of their thirst. Right wing autocrats and hate mongers like Putin in Russia and Bolsonaro in Brazil, Republican Party senators in the US; anti-immigrant Tories in the UK; Sweden electing far-right ideologues. The list goes on. My knowledge, if not my understanding, of world disorder grows.

I don’t miss what went before. What I miss is a sense of the world being coherent, moving towards better times.

The war on Ukraine continues, no clear end in sight. At first, I read everything, scrabbled around frantically looking for ways to help. Over time--it’s been six months and counting--I turned away. I listlessly peruse the latest news, watching the endless posturing and the mounting deaths.

Here in the UK, the Queen’s timely death has unleashed even more possibilities for disorder. While much of the intense public grieving is surely genuine, some of it arises from despair over how bad things are on this little island. It’s a country run by people who seem to think the UK is still a world power rather than an insignificant little island. As an American, I’m amused and horrified at how the UK still has delusions of grandeur. Cutting itself off from Europe via Brexit was an insane act of self-harm. Dire predictions of shortages of food and fuel are made even more frightening by rising inflation and a government whose heart--and purse--is open to those who least need succor.

While much of the intense public grieving is surely genuine, some of it arises from despair over how bad things are on this little island.

What does it matter what I think and feel? How do I parse my insignificance? As I age, I’m slightly more comfortable with how truly miniscule my existence is--but only slightly. I rage still, not just against the dying of the light, but against the disorder which is unlikely to abate during my lifetime. There’s a perverse part of me that thinks, ‘since I’m going to die, why shouldn’t the world go with me?’ It’s a hideous form of self aggrandizement, a loathsome desire not to miss anything significant.

Meanwhile, as despairing as I often am, there’s still a sense of renewal that comes with the beginning of an autumnal new year. I’m glad to be swirling around in the continual confusion of this time in history. I make my little noises. I revel in that most human trait: the abstractions I create to make meaning of it all. Like these words.