Be the elephant
Or the turkey, or the nuthatch. Also: a book about an old woman and a mouse.
Before we begin…
What was the population of the smallest town you have ever lived in? How small does a town have to be to be a “small town”? Have you ever lived in a rural area? What do you think of when you think of a small town in the rural parts of America - wherever they may be. I’m asking for a future newsletter!
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Here I am, back from New Hampshire, in coastal San Diego where this is NOT a thing in April (or any other day of the year for that matter):
This is what we see here in San Diego in April:
But even here, Mother Earth likes to challenge me which is why, as I sat at my desk on April 14 at ten in the morning, trying to re-enter my life, she sent an earthquake. I have no photos of the shocked looks on my dogs’ faces only this link (which you may/probably have seen) of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
Watching animals respond so brilliantly to threats or changes in their surroundings shamed me at first. There I was, in my mother’s house in New Hampshire, bewailing the snow, while the birds flew or turkey-trotted) through it to the feeder and put on a show for days. The birds took their turns — first the nuthatches (or so I’m told) and then bigger birds (whose names escape me now) and then, eventually the turkey. They alerted their community and gathered, figured out the pecking order, and all got fed in a beautiful dance of ego-less cooperation.
Then, the elephants. We’ve all watched this video and we’ve seen how the adults gathered in a protective circle, their youngest member in the center, ready to both face and shield her from threats. Another dance made beautiful by a shared understanding of what was important to all of them and a readiness to do what it took to protect that.
I’ve watched these videos often and thought about them even more. These animals are not trying to shame anyone. They are just doing what they are made to do. They are fiercely beautiful. They are showing me how I must behave if I want to survive the threats that are coming for us all but affect the most vulnerable among us most. They are reminding me how it is done.
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A small book about an old woman and a mouse
Right before I left for New Hampshire, Cyndi, a friend and subscriber to this newsletter, surprised me in the middle of a walk. She crossed the street and gave me a gift: a new book with twine wrapped around it.
That was amazing all by itself — a gift, out of the blue, just because a friend has a feeling for the books and stories that I might like. I was intrigued, joyful, and grateful. Then she said,
“It’s about an old woman and a mouse.”
A mouse? I appreciate all animals but I do not feel comfortable with all of them. Mice and rats are fine outdoors but I can’t even think of their little tails and feet and teeth without getting a shiver up my spine. I was one of the few kids in my elementary school who did not love E.B. White’s book Stuart Little. I shuddered every time I thought of how it must feel to touch him.
So, I wasn’t sure how this would go. I am happy to say, however, that Cyndi was right about Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy. Moreover, it was the book I needed when I arrived home.
This is a small story that runs very deep. In some ways it made me think of A Man Called Ove. A woman, Helen, is waiting for the end of her life. She is, in fact, a bit impatient for it to arrive. Ove, just as he was attempting to hang himself, got a knock at the door. Helen finds she has a mouse in the house, and she is the one who brought it in.
This tiny animal disrupts her plans. Helen is forced to connect with the place and people around her in order to help him survive. In turn, she has to decide how she will live in the years she has left to her. Apparently, she’s not done yet.
I got over the mouse because I realized that there is no end to the number of times I have to make the decision about how to live. I wanted to stick with Helen all the way to the end which surprised her as much as me.
Simon Van Booy is a beautiful writer with a gift for enlarging small details and moments simply by expressing them. I will be reading this book again just to read lines like this:
“Those who in life had held back in matters of love would end in bitterness. While the people like her, who had filled the corners of each day, found themselves marooned on a scatter of memories.” - Simon Van Booy, Sipsworth
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Ciao for now!
Gratefully yours,
Betsy
P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…a voice from rural America
This is from my family’s local paper, The Coos County Democrat, a weekly newspaper that hails from northern NH where there was and likely still is overwhelming support for the current president. This editorial suggests, however, that it would be a mistake to assume anything about the voters and citizens who live there. Reading it made me think of how the elephants behave when one of their own is in need and how the birds solve their problems. Maybe there is hope for us.
Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”:
What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.
Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed.
I can’t wait to see what you send!
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You know I have a lot to say about this, Betsy. I currently live in a town with a population of 12,208. I believe that qualifies as small. I grew up in a town that at the time probably had a population of about 7,000. I think when you get above about 30,000, you're moving out of small town territory. I also think it's contextual. The "small town" I grew up in was in the middle of a rapidly growing area that was becoming suburban. So pretty quickly, it was no longer a small town, regardless of what the Census numbers said. Small town is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is numerical.
I've spent most of my life in rural areas. In Kentucky. Now in Indiana. My small town is plopped down in the middle of a very rural area. The biggest city is an hour away.
What do I think of when I think of small towns in rural areas? I know that these places tend to skew older as far as their population, though that may be changing a little bit. I don't think of them as more conservative. All kinds of people live in all kinds of places. The idea of "blue dots" or "red states" is sort of a myth we're telling ourselves. On the ground, it's all so much more complicated than that.
When I think of small towns in rural areas I think about quirkiness. I guarantee you that every small town has its collection of "weirdos," though they probably won't tell you about them because those "weirdos" aren't really weird to them. They're just their neighbors. They're just Frank down the street.
I think of people who are often living in ways that are more deeply connected. You're stuck with who you have, so you make things work. I think there's something really valuable there.
When I think of small towns, I think of the joy of being known in a way that's hard to get in other places. I walk down my streets and say hello to people. We stop and talk. They ask me about my writing and about my book. They ask how our trip was. I feel held, and yeah, cared for in small towns in a way I've never felt anywhere else.
I have a lot of opinions, including that for most of our human evolution, we lived in small groups and that maybe we're still better suited to a smaller scale. It's so much harder to generalize and de-humanize in smaller groups.
I like to think of myself as a chronicler of small towns. There are so many stories to tell. As Niall Williams said in THIS IS HAPPINESS: “A hundred books could not capture a single village. That’s not a denigration, that’s a testament.”
I lived in the town of O'Brien, Oregon, for almost a year as a kid. It couldn't have had more than a few hundred people. The only (tiny) store was also the post office. I was from Los Angeles so the town felt very small to me. I'd say that a town has to have less than ten thousand people. I have lived in rural towns and even on a small commune near Santa Cruz, CA. When I think of small American towns I think of main streets and town squares, and of community and cooperation. People helping each other out.