none of us can bear too much reality

~ Live & Learn

Thinking about swifts has made me think more carefully about the ways in which I’ve dealt with difficulty. When I was small I comforted myself with thoughts of layers of rising air; later I hid myself among the whispers of recorded works of fiction. We all have our defences. Some of them are self-defeating, but others are occasions for joy: the absorption of a hobby, the writing of a poem, speeding on a Harley, the slow assembly of a collection of records or seaside shells. ‘The best thing for being sad,’ said T. H. White’s Merlin, ‘is to learn something.’ All of us have to live our lives most of the time inside the protective structures that we have built; none of us can bear too much reality. We need our books, our craft projects, our dogs and knitting, our movies, gardens and gigs. It’s who we are. We’re held together by our lives, our interests, and all our chosen comforts. But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed.

—  Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights (Grove Press, August 25, 2020)

Photo Salvi Danes, (Barcelona) (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)

51 thoughts on “none of us can bear too much reality”

  3. 1. I’m going to make a list of all my defences! Long list.

    2. “But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed.” Yes, Beatrice Woods agreed to that. She said we’re liquid, we’re all soul, and we need something to hold it together. So our soul doesn’t spill over.

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    2. Sawsan and Dave: I so agree with you – I am having a correspondence with a friend of how many long, short, complete but mostly uncomplete lists we have: Whole sentences, just words, citations, wishes, prayers, bizarre beginnings (going nowhere), names, I’m looking at a post it bearing plant names (sort of a wish list), personal and intimate thoughts….. put in crayon, pencil, felt (love felt pens), scribbled, noted, calligraphed.
      Loved your exchange! But Dave, you ARE, in a way, Sawsan’s circus monkey (makes me think of ‘We are all completely besides ourselves’….). Deal with it, love!

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  4. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    WISE WORDS … all of them!! … “We’re held together by our lives, our interests, and all our chosen comforts. But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed. – Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights (Grove Press, August 25, 2020)n Macdonald, Vesper Flights (Grove Press, August 25, 2020).

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  9. Regarding your convo with our Sawson…The familiarity of man from BC ” truck load of paper from Weyerhaeuser” Wouldn’t paper from pulp plantation in the Southern USA be ecologically a better choice since it is closer to her locale?

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  10. If I was more on top of this I could have tied in something from the movie “A Man from Snowy River” though I’ve forgotten where you went fishing when you we a mere lad…

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      1. I know where you grew u grew up that is why I said “The familiarity of man from BC” I just like the Australian sweeping saga of Man from Snowy River (out in the Outback and your part of BC near that Continental Divide is an Outback area)and thought I might get a bit witty…perhaps another time I can try to be witty…having grown up in the Land of Boise Cascade, Georgia Pacific and the Giant “Weyerhaeuser” I was just a hoping to encourage the paper business & the need of an order to another area of the USA…

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  11. What Dale, said “Too much reality stops us from being us, I think.” I look at it differently…I see it as bringing out in us the full force of Strength…in a person…as reality is always with us…

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  12. ‘The best thing for being sad,’ said T. H. White’s Merlin, ‘is to learn something.’ That statement brought me up short. Reading can usually fulfill this directive. How wise this author is in so many ways.
    Think I’ve done this once! decided to join a small informal class to learn Chinese when I was going through a divorce. It was for 12 weeks and we went on for 3 years. Among the motley group of 8 of us, two were elderly Swiss ladies who were wonderful. Mme Bopp could never get any of the accents right. Our teacher was a lovely young (Chinese) music student at Westminster Choir College.

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    2. Val(erie), maybe it would be the time for me to attack my longtime wish to learn Portuguese…. But I would want to take a 3 week crash course in Portugal (Lisbon, Sintra or so) – which is frankly NOT on top of my priority list with flights, going to other countries, etc.

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  13. I’m in a strange place at the moment. Not sure where I’m headed. Sort of floating. The desire to de-clutter is increasing in strength. I guess that’s why I spend so much time looking at the sky — moon, stars, clouds, birds, bats — contemplating and wondering… I honestly think the whole pandemic thing has turned me weird!

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