Seeing Beyond
“Sheltering in Place” in 2020?
William Mueller
There are myriad ways to understand the concept of
“sheltering in place”, or a “lockdown”, or quarantine. Most of us cannot fully imagine
sheltering from aerial bombardment, as Syrian people have done in recent years.
Now, we are experiencing a lockdown necessitated by the spread of the
coronavirus pandemic. (In contrast, I realize that my sheltering/lockdown is
really something of a “first-world problem.”) What will this mean; how will it
change us?
I am confined to my home and small yard, due to health
problems that would be much exacerbated by contact with the virus. My world has
shrunk – but I still have the glorious sky.
I still have the awakening flowers and leaves, the breeze that blows
into my windows, the rainfall every few days. There is a small number of urban
bird species, crossing and crisscrossing that glorious sky, like aerial writing
on an alternating blue or gray or cloud-strewn tapestry. So, after pondering my
“shrunken” world, I see that is only a limited perspective.
I recall a black-and-white photo by the great Hungarian
photographer Andre Kertesz: it was an exquisite amalgam of light and shadow,
with intricate texture...but the subject was only strips of torn paper, piled
on his worktable. Maybe you can see where I am going with this: turning inside, the world can expand, but with
a shift in perspective.
While we have abundant opportunities to re-think our world
(in a “before-and-after” the coronavirus pandemic), maybe we can re-vision how
to place limits on our activity, to vision a world that accepts
ecological limits, a world where we might behave as if our relationships with
each other and the natural world were re-fashioned, out of interlocking
structures of beauty, and care. Unlike some public figures in spring of 2020, I
am not asking “what have you got to lose?” I am asking what we could gain, and
build.
In Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s great book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”,
she writes of the indigenous concept of reciprocity with the natural
world: the people receive from nature, but then they give a gift back to the
earth in return. Our family’s small garden space is the limit of my “reach”
right now; but caring for it is meaningful in ways I am only now fully
exploring. My relationship with earth: how can I foster it more deeply? If I
note the aerial writing of birds on the sky, can I give voice to that…so that
it does not go unheeded?
Each recent day during lockdown, I have watched the
expanding leaves in their short-term yellow-green garb of spring; that color is
already changing to a darker hue that plants wear in summer. During yesterday’s
day-long heavy rain, I could still hear birdsong throughout the downpour. Each notification
from nature prompts me to investigate, to ponder, to turn over in my mind like
the gardener does with a spade-full of soil.
New research specific to tele-working - indicates that there
may be environmental benefits to being-at-home beyond the obvious: fewer auto miles
driven, less CO2 emitted. Perhaps our enforced period of lockdown
has let us look at aspects of our behavior with an unfamiliar scrutiny. Do we
really need 50% of the stuff we own?
May we all become native-to-our-place, wherever on earth it
may be. If we can foster an ethic of care, this time of sheltering-in-place
will have been worth it.
