Vapors

The morning fog thickened and swirled. I pulled my knit hat down more snugly and zipped up my fleece jacket. I decided to take a cross-country shortcut home, up and over the steep grassy hill between Coyote and Sacate canyons. The remnants of a road soon vanished, and I trudged through foxtails, yellow grass, and branchy stalks of mustard. I could see the hazy silhouette of an animal watching me in the distant haze, almost motionless, small pointy ears alert, probably a coyote. I meandered upward toward the ridge, where I hoped to stand and get a better sense of how to drop down into Sacate.

I have no affinity for finding my way. I zigzagged unsteadily, stopping now and then to pull out barbed burrs poking through my socks, and to rest my calves, which were complaining a little on the climb. It is impossible to get lost on this route, but there are logical paths down or convoluted ones. I tend toward the convoluted. Also, the ground is uneven, with holes to stumble into, and it’s easy to trip. I was glad to have my walking stick.

The fog had set a blanket of quiet over everything. There was no birdsong, no wind, just vapors and stillness, but not peaceful, rather, a sense of something pending. And quite possibly that pending-ness was simply the feeling I’d brought with me, a manifestation of my own anxiety. I turned to an audiobook I had loaded on my phone. On Consolation. That’s what I seek. Consolation, wisdom, some light forward. “When the world is in crisis, where do we look for comfort?” This book (by Michael Ignatieff) purports to find solace in dark times by considering the thoughts of various artists, writers, and thinkers through the ages who stood on the brink of despair and in some way transcended. “The challenge of consolation in our times,” he has written, “is to endure tragedy, even when we cannot hope to find a meaning for it, and to continue living in hope.”

And that’s how I came to be walking zigzag up a grassy hill in fog listening to Marcus Aurelius. It was a random choice from the collection of essays, and an unfortunate one. “All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.” I did not find comfort in this.

But I listened, a small human still struggling with the same fundamental challenges of being just that, transported back to ancient Rome, where an aging emperor in exile faced barbarians, disillusioning realities, and his own mortality looming near. And I suppose that’s the crux of the “comfort” offered here, tepid as it is: that we are not alone or unique in this difficult moment, that all through history, terrible times have come and gone, and somehow, we collectively continue.

Sorry, but Marcus Aurelius’s hand was not steadying me at all. I flicked over to my downloaded music. Così fan tutte. Slack key guitar. Hank Williams being lonesome, just to name a few. When did I compile these weird whiplash-inducing playlists? I scrolled through my podcasts. On Being suddenly seemed too earnest and preachy, too much like the cliché that is me. Short stories? My mind keeps wandering and I miss key elements. The Book Review? Forget it. I was weary of those New York voices and the authors they had blessed. In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt? Pandemic stuff, informative, but please, not now. Make it stop! And I certainly feel the same way about anything news related.

Let’s get back to silence. To the fog swirling, and the curious wandering of my own thoughts, thoughts that seldom illuminate and lately look a lot like worry but might also lead me into childhood unexpectedly or a tangible discovery right in front of me. Who knows? I might actually enter now, right now, right here. Before it drifts into vapors and is gone.