How to lengthen time, find light in winter, plus wisdom from a poet living 18 years with cancer
Hello, dear friends! It’s been a little while. I hope this note finds you warm and snug in your human body. There is so much to grapple with in the world, so much sorrow, and so much tragedy. It’s hard to know how to come to you with that full weight being carried as we read the news, and then also needing to pack the school lunch, to get a bit of levity, to carry on with all the tasks and joys of the season, and to tend to our own health.
One of my main sources of levity and joy lately has been the lovely group I’m hosting for Winter Camp, a virtual gathering to help with the cold, dark season. There will be a second Winter Camp starting Jan. 2, designed to help us nurture our creative selves — I’m calling it Winter Art Camp. If you keep wanting to get back into your writing, poetry, painting, photography, music, or other art, and time keeps slipping by, if having kind people making art around you is inspiring and encouraging, if you want an extra spark of connection at the start of 2024, come to Winter Art Camp with us! It’s all virtual, from your cozy home. You can use the code CREATIVE2024 to get $50 off. Learn more here.
And now, onto Field Notes, six interesting things related to wellness, illness, and the medical system I’ve run across lately. I hope you find something useful here.
1} How to Lengthen Your Life — This is an excerpt from Alain de Botton's "A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from the School of Life," shared by Sari Botton in her fabulous Oldster Magazine. And it’s wise, terrific, perspective-bending, all the things I love about Alain’s writing. He argues that all time is not created equal, and that if we want a longer life, we want to “densify time,” making it more memorable and feel longer by adding new, unpredictable, and challenging experiences. We all have felt hours that seem long and magical, and whole swatchs of months that vanish, forgotten. He writes: “Childhood ends up feeling so long because it is the cauldron of novelty; because its most ordinary days are packed with extraordinary discoveries and sensations. These can be as apparently minor yet as significant as the first time we explore the zip on a cardigan or hold our nose under water, the first time we look at the sun through the cotton of a beach towel or dig our fingers into the putty holding a window in its frame.”
But how do we do find this awe after childhood? We don’t need to circle the world in a canoe or take a rocket to space. Alain has a better suggestion: Notice the world anew like an artist.
“The pioneers at making life feel longer in the way that counts are not dieticians but artists. At its best, art is a tool that reminds us of how little we have fathomed and noticed. It reintroduces us to ordinary things and reopens our eyes to a latent beauty and interest in precisely those areas we had ceased to bother with. It helps us to recover some of the manic sensitivity we had as newborns. Think of Cézanne looking closely at apples, as if he had never seen one before, and nudging us to do likewise.”
2} Finding Light in Winter( New York Times gift link) — Dr. Mary Pipher brings a measured look at the state of the world and coping. “The despair I feel about the world would ruin me if I did not know how to find light. Whatever is happening in the world, whatever is happening in our personal lives, we can find light.” She writes about the many ways to find light — the literal light of the moon, the sparkle on the snow, the candles in the evening, and the figurative light of people we love, spirituality, memories.
Thank you for reading Odyssey of the Body. This post is public so feel free to share it.
3} Women Fighting For Their Lives in the U.S. (Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter) — Katelyn Jetelina shares a glimpse of her personal story and the data around the risks in materal health care. The number of women who die from pregnancy, childbirth, and soon after birth in America was exceptionally high before the Dobbs decision — much more deadly than our peer nations. With access to abortion restricted in some states now, studies predict an increase in mothers-to-be and new mothers dying. Dr. Jetelina outlines what’s at stake in this sobering post.
4} Q&A: Sports and head injuries(ParentData newsletter) — How do we protect kids from head injuries and CTE? A “worried sports mom” asks about the data behind the risk of long-term damage from playing sports that can involve head injuries, as her 4-year-old is obsessed with football and hockey. Emily Olster points to the data and explains that the concerns go beyond concussions to repeated head trauma, such as headers in soccer, and offers resources to learn more. One campaign called Stop Hitting Kids in the Head aims to convince every sport to eliminate repetitive head impacts under the age of 14.
5} These NYC Ambulance Drivers Have Seen it All! (Cafe Anne newsletter) — Local reporter Anne Kadet has another delightful interview, this one with three ambulance drivers in the Bed-Stuy Volunteer Ambulance Corp. in Brooklyn. These volunteers are passionate about their work and share the behind-the-scenes view. Lt. Amy Dorfman said: “At my office job, when people are stressing about this deadline or the report they want, I can say, ‘I was on the [ambulance] last week, and I had a CPR job, and that's urgent.’ Also, I want to be ready for the revolution! The world is changing. There can be an MCI—a multi-casualty incident. And people need to be able to support each other, take care of each other. I want to be of actual use to my community. With hard skills!”
6} After 18 years living with cancer, a poet offers 'Fifty Entries Against Despair' (NPR Fresh Air) — Terry Gross interviews poet Christian Wiman, who has endured many treatments for cancer since he was 39. He is now 57, and just published a new book, Zero of the Bone, which explores illness, love, faith. He says, “I find it more helpful to think of God as a verb.”
Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
“In my experience, the worst despair is meaninglessness. It's not necessarily thinking that you're going to die. It's the feeling that life has been leeched of meaning. That's the worst. And physical pain actually doesn't bring that all in. That can come on any time. In my experience, you can have physical pain and still experience joy. Joy can occur in the midst of great suffering.”
I hope you have a day of meaning and noticing ahead, two balms for all seasons.
To our journeys,"
Brianne
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