Reckoner

 

“Wherever you go, there you are.” This insight from Jon Kabat-Zin is shorthand for the notion that you won’t often outrun your internal situation just by changing your external circumstances. Which is sometimes a frustrating thought for those of us that work so hard to change our external circumstances (because, of course, then we’ll be happy). 

 

It’s been almost three years now since I wrote “Commencement” (more than six since “Five Years Later”). A lot has changed in the last few years, including the fact that I’m newly married now and wonderfully (wonderfully) happy there. And also, it turns out there is (much) more to figure out in life beyond finding the right partner and working to improve a fulfilling and stretching and loving romantic relationship (though before Danielle, I found that hard to imagine because that goal consumed so much of my thought and energy).

 

But it turns out that at nearly 48 years old, I’m still trying to figure things out. I kinda thought I’d have it all together by the time I got here, but what can you do?  

 

I started writing this piece several months ago in what was intended mostly as an appreciation post for the Radiohead song “Reckoner.” But as I walked with things long enough, more came to the surface, and I recognized I was trying to work through (or at least articulate) what’s been a significant, and significantly difficult, part of my internal experience for as long as I can remember: the fact that I wake up most mornings weighed down by worry and fear (Danielle has affectionately labeled this my “marine layer”). It’s an aspect of my personality I’m not particularly fond of.

 

I will leave some mystery to where this all lands, and I’ve also got a pressing question for you as we get to the end of this post. But first, I need to provide some important context, which means starting with one more close look at the play Our Town. Forgive me, but it’s necessary.

 

[Spoiler alert if you haven’t read or seen the 1935 play—but also, your ignorance feels like it’s deliberate at this point]

 

Revisiting Our Town

 

As you may be well aware, Our Town takes place in the early 1900s in the the fictional western Massachusetts town of Grover’s Corners. Aside from the Stage Manager, the central figures in the play are two families—the Gibbs and the Webbs. There is little remarkable in the First Act as Thornton Wilder introduces us to the small town and the characters and the seeming ordinariness of life there. Emily Webb and George Gibbs are high school teenagers, and we get hints of their budding romance. 

 

The Second Act advances the story three years and shows us scenes with both families on the morning that Emily Webb and George Gibbs (now all of 19 years old) are to marry. We also get a glimpse backward to the day the two began dating. 

 

In the Third Act (nine years after the wedding), we learn that Emily has just died in childbirth. We are placed in the Grover’s Corners cemetery for the aftermath as Emily is buried next to her mother-in-law (who had died 2-3 years earlier). We learn indirectly that Mrs. Gibbs apparently never took that trip to Paris she’d schemed about years before. Now Mrs. Gibbs, with the other dead in the town, sits mostly still and quiet, waiting for the “next thing” (brilliantly, we’re never told what that is). 

 

Emily enters the scene as her body is brought in for burial. Her spirit, though, is still full of life. She is watching her funeral (that takes place in the background), and she is trying to take in her death and make sense of what’s happening. Emily seems nervously talkative, and begins catching up her mother-in-law on all that’s happened in the last few years. Mrs. Gibbs is polite but hardly interested. 

 

Emily then pauses and asks her mother-in-law, “Live people don’t understand, do they?” 

 

“No, dear—not very much.” 

 

As Mr. Gibbs comes to lay flowers on Mrs. Gibbs grave, Emily further observes “Oh, Mother Gibbs, I never realized before how troubled and how…how in the dark live persons are. Look at him [Mr. Gibbs—her father-in-law]. I loved him so. From morning till night, that’s all they are—troubled.”

 

Not long after, Emily realizes that, in death, she now has the power to go back and revisit any moment of her life she chooses. It seems wonderful! And her first inclination is that she wants to revisit all her days over again…why not? 

 

The other dead, mostly Mrs. Gibbs, warn her against this, though. It will be too painful to go back. The Stage Manager explains that it’s because Emily would not only relive those moments, but she watches herself reliving them. And she watches knowing now what is to come. 

 

But if Emily insists on it, she should only visit “the least important day in [her] life”—not anything she would deem too special. An ordinary day, Mrs. Gibbs advises, would prove important enough.

 

Emily determines she needs to know for herself and decides to revisit her twelfth birthday. 

 

At first, as Emily returns to the early morning, she is wide-eyed and filled with wonder, taking in the town, her house, and just how young her mother looks—Emily didn’t think her mother was ever thatyoung.

 

But Emily’s sense of wonder quickly becomes unbearable. Her mother is insisting Emily get ready for school, and her parents are talking about the weather, even as it’s Emily’s birthday. Emily soon finds she can’t adequately take everything in: she can’t look at everything hard enough. 

 

Amid the bustle of breakfast and birthday gifts and rushing the kids off to school, Emily desperately needs her mother to look at her, but Emily can’t sufficiently get her attention:

 

“Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally’s [Emily’s brother] dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about—don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.”

 

Emily is visiting the past, though, and can’t snap her mother out of talking about the various birthday gifts coming Emily’s way. 

 

And it turns out this is too much. Emily stops it all, calling out to the Stage Manager, “I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one other.”

 

She continues “I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed.”

 

Before the Stage Manager takes Emily back to the cemetery, Emily takes in one last look:

 

“Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

 

It’s then Emily asks the Stage Manager the penetrating question, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

 

“No,” the Stage Manager responds flatly. But after a pause, he offers this qualification: “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

 

As Emily is brought back to the cemetery, Mrs. Gibbs asks her, “Were you happy?”

 

Emily offers the devastating observation in reply, “No…I should have listened to you. That’s all human beings are! Just blind people.”

 

By that point, it’s late, and the dead turn their attention to night sky and stars coming out. As the play nears its close, George Gibbs (Emily’s husband) approaches Emily’s grave, sinking to his knees and falling prostrate at Emily’s feet—obviously deep in anguish. Emily watches her husband uncomfortably and asks (again) the final question to her mother-in-law:

 

“They don’t understand, do they?”

 

“No, dear. They don’t understand.”

 

"Too Wonderful for Anybody to Realize You"

 

I first read Our Town in high school, and it has come to mean an awful lot over the years. For me, there is usually a hopeful ache in its message—a message that still sometimes reduces me to tears: even at its most mundane and seemingly trivial, life is precious. And if we stopped to notice, to really notice, we'd recognize how it all “goes so fast" and how impossible it is to really hold on to anything. If we have the presence of mind, we will "recognize life while we live it" and more regularly be filled with gratitude and awe. 

 

When that happens, it’s such a beautiful thing. For flashes of time, the ordinary becomes transcendent, and I’m left savoring the warmth of a hot shower or the satisfaction of yet another bowl of oatmeal. Or doing the dishes. Or mowing the the lawn, or any number of ordinary, wonderful things. It’s the kind of feeling that has surfaced every so often over the years, and I’ve tried hard lately to cultivate a more frequent intentional recognition of life as I live it. 

 

And even these days, amid all the world’s chaos, it usually doesn’t take much effort to sense that there is *so* much to be grateful for in my life, so much about even the most mundane aspects of of it that I’d miss at the prospect of leaving.  

 

And yet, there are (many) times this does not feel true for me. I feel a little sheepish admitting this but there are times when the poignant message of Our Town doesn’t quite reach me—even as its top of  mind. For whatever reason, there are times when I cannot find transcendence above the fretting and anxiousness and worries—the troubles—of the moment. The subjects and details of those troubles probably aren’t so important (and honestly, I don’t dare compare my troubles with yours), but they can be stubbornly persistent. And my reality is that I have lots of early mornings that feel so difficult to get moving. Or put more plainly, there are many days I wake up confronted by life’s demands, and I am afraid that I will not be able to meet them. I am afraid the day might just swallow me whole, and I carry that fear as I get moving. Which means, far more often than I want to admit, the troubles of the day cloud out any sense of wonder or transcendence, and I’m just looking for the strength to get moving. 

 

So often for me, the idea of “recogniz[ing] life while [I] live it” doesn’t do much to alleviate the pit in my stomach as I search for the strength to face the challenges ahead.

 

And in those moments, the message of Our Town can feel frustratingly foreign and out of reach. In fact, it can sometimes feel like more of an indictment than an inspiration. 

 

[And yes, I understand that read literally, Wilder’s words are ones of lament: only “saints and poets” recognize life while they live, and then only “sometimes.” But if Wilder did not mean for the play be hopeful, then it is almost universally misunderstood. I more see statements like those as adding fuel to the fire, inviting us toward appreciation, much in the same way that C.S. Lewis used The Screwtape Letters—letters from a devil—to write movingly about god and faith and charity in incredibly tender ways.] 

 

Which is to say, sometimes the reverenced message of Our Town can be exactly what I need. But other times, it feels frustratingly inadequate. In fact, it can feel like the opposite of helpful and hopeful. 

 

“Reckoner”

 

Now, let’s juxtapose that messaging and experience against a work that’s frequently met me in that difficult headspace: the song "Reckoner" from Radiohead's 2007 album In Rainbows. 

 

While there may not be an official interpretation of the song, let me lead here with the fact that I interpret the word "reckoner" in this song to mean "death."  

 

Take a listen if you haven't heard it in a while. It'll make my attempt to write about the song feel a little less awkward.

The song leads with drums, a tambourine, and apparently a lemon, setting a gentle but determined rhythm. 

 

Soon after, we get a lightly introspective and intoxicating finger picking of an electric guitar that, together with the percussion, sets an atmosphere that feels like clear eyed, beautiful melancholy.

 

It’s a full 47 seconds into the song before Thom Yorke’s falsetto vocals arrive on an off beat, with a drawn out singing of the word “Reckoner” [death].

 

In a few minimalist lines, the song describes the complications of mortality: our inability to hold onto things, the striving for happiness even so, and the difficulties and heaviness that often cloud our vision:

 

Reckoner

 

You can’t take it with ya

Dancing for your pleasure

 

You are not to blame for

Bittersweet distractors

 

Dare not speak its name

Dedicated to all hu-

All human beings

 

[Interlude]

 

Because we separate

Like ripples on a blank shore 

 

Because we separate (in rainbows)

Like ripples on a blank shore (rainbows)

 

Oh, reckoner

Take me with ya

 

Dedicated to all you

All human beings

 

****

 

It's this early line that first got me: You are not to blame for bittersweet distractors.

 

It’s probably not always true that we aren’t to blame, but it at least feels true sometimes. And the singing of that line here puts me in communion with the rest of humanity in the struggle (dedicated to all human beings) without necessarily being swallowed by it. Put another way, it feels as though “Reckoner” looks at the difficulties of being human and comes along side me to sit a while in that difficulty (something I never really get the sense of from Our Town, which rather seeks to inspire me out of our difficulty). 

 

Yes, we humans may largely be “troubled” and “blind people,” but it’s a frustrating oversimplification to say we are “just” that. Some of us really work to develop practices that help us see things more clearly more often, building in space for reflection and gratitude. Sometimes even awe.

 

I know I’m not alone in that.

 

But in my experience much of the blindness Wilder identifies (if not decries) arises out of the fact that life is hard. It’s not just that we go through challenges and difficulties, but sometimes we experience horrible things. Sometimes we do horrible things.

 

And yes, though so many days “go[] so fast” that we can’t adequately appreciate them in the moment, I wonder how many of us have days we not only wouldn’t ever want to relive, but that we (justifiably) wish we could banish from our memory forever. 

 

Even when it comes to just the plain old fears and worry I often confront—worry about the safety and survival and comfort of those I care about, worry about my continued ability to provide for them, worry about the present and future of humanity writ large—there are times “just” those worries can feel almost hopelessly overwhelming. 

 

To the extent it is not already clear, I don't like feeling beset with worry. And yes, I’m fairly certain there’s more I can do to alleviate those worries (isn’t there always more we can do?). But still, sometimes it feels like there isn’t anything I can do—sometimes it feels like those feelings are waves that just have to be felt and worked through. 

 

Maybe sometimes, for all my efforts to make it otherwise, I just can't help the “bittersweet distractors” that keep me from "recognizing life as I live it." Maybe the inevitability of bittersweet distractors is part of the deal of being human. And maybe sometimes I could spend less energy blaming myself for them.

 

[And while I’m here, I find it curious that the dead in Our Town waiting for “the next place” seem so callous toward our apparent troubles/blindness—almost as though they themselves have forgotten how hard it is to be a human. In a sense, they, too, apparently suffer from a sort of blindness to our reality. Even Simon Stimson, the town drunk who committed suicide, seems to trivialize his own difficulty in angrily calling out the living: “That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those . . . Of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know—that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.” 

 

It is a biting commentary from a character who had apparently experienced tremendous pain while he lived. And it’s tempered only by this quick retort from Mrs. Gibbs, “Simon Stimson, that ain’t the whole truth and you know it.”]

 

This is why I love “Reckoner” so much. Radiohead hasn’t forgotten how hard it is to be human. 

 

And yet “Reckoner” isn’t indulgent or morose about the difficulty. Midway through the song, I love the interlude and the orchestral strings that eventually sweep in. Tell me you don’t feel at least the subtlest rising of hope in those strings, I dare you.

 

Then, following the interlude, there is such pathos in Yorke’s singing of the word “Reckoner” that second time. Honestly, it (also) often brings me to tears, especially followed by the phrase “take me with ya.”

 

And soon enough, the song once again turns instrumental, and we get choral voices with those rising strings once more. Whether all that reflects a hopeful end to life, or just a carrying on even so, it’s beautiful.

 

Maybe, looked at from the right perspective, even our frequent blindness is part of the beauty of being human. Radiohead certainly seems to have made something beautiful of it.

 

“This Being Human is a Guest House”

 

Rumí, a 13th century Sufi poet, seems to at least suggest that our frailties are part of our beauty. I’ve known about his poem “The Guest House” for years, but it was in the difficult aftermath of a double knee replacement last year that it really stirred reflection. 

 

 

The invitations in this poem feel so stretching. Rumi doesn’t specifically mention blindness, but it’s striking that he entreats us to “welcome,” “entertain,” “treat honorably,” and “[b]e grateful for” guests to our psyche that include “depression,” and even less socially acceptable conditions like “meanness,” “the dark thought,” “shame,” and “malice.” 

 

He further asks us to consider each “as a guide from beyond.” 

 

So even though Rumí doesn’t specifically mention blindness per se, I think we can reasonably include any of the seemingly infinite number of less problematic emotional states (causes or results of our troubles) that might render us blind.

 

As I noted above, I confronted this poem during a stretch of deep discouragement in the days after having both knees replaced. Rendered nearly immobile, in significant discomfort, hardly sleeping, and feeling like I was only moving backward in my rehabilitation efforts, I encountered some stretches of real darkness.

 

In that unwelcome headspace, and with no small amount of desperation to be rid of it, I wondered if there really was a way I could meet my discouragement at the door “laughing, and invite [it] in.” What would that even look like? 

 

Frankly, it seemed a bit ridiculous.

 

And honestly, I don’t think I ever got to that stage of enlightenment. The poem did, though, help me sit with my feelings as more of an observer than I had been—sensations to feel, watch, and move through. And maybe that alone left me feeling less stuck in them, less defined by them.   

 

So I wonder if it might not be the same with this human tendency toward blindness—the thing that’s so distasteful to the dead in Our Town. What if even our blindness isn’t always something to fight against, necessarily, but something else to observe, welcome in, treat honorably, and learn from?

 

"The Dance is Always Danced Above the Hollow Place"

 

So where does all that leave me? As Danielle likes to say, maybe only with a phd in the obvious. 

 

Lately in my search for answers to life's big questions, I’ve settled into this idea that, whether the product of intelligent design or simply chance and evolution, this life is achingly beautiful. And as reflected in works like Our Town, it is glaringly apparent that I do not appreciate that fact enough. In fact, I don’t think I can [Mr. Wilder, I’m finally ready to cede this point to you].

 

But still, I can do better. And I really, really want to.  

 

And also, there is the sticky fact that being human feels so hard so much of the time. Sometimes the difficulty brings into relief the preciousness of life. Often it blinds me to it. Sometimes it is just plain awful. And paradoxically, sometimes all those things feel true at once. 

 

Sometimes (sometimes), I think I have some choice in the matter, and I guess one key is figuring out how to make the right amount of space for all that. 

 

Now, I’m not terribly fond of phrases like “make space” these days—it sounds like therapy speak that doesn’t really say anything. But then, what other language can I use here to describe my recognition that, for all this internal work, there will still be so many times ahead of seemingly immovable worry and fear? That I’m all but certain I will face many more mornings of waking up afraid to confront the day ahead? 

 

As I tried to describe above, works like Reckoner can be helpful in those moments as they leave me feeling seen. But also, is a nod of solidarity (and maybe acceptance) really the best I can hope for at those inflection points?

 

I don't know, exactly. I do know I’ve still got so much growing to do. But what has felt true for my life so far is that there are times—so many of them—that I feel afraid and full of worry. And for all my efforts to shake the blinders and widen my view, there is no comfort anywhere. In those moments, my only choice is whether I’m going to move forward anyway. 

 

Rumi's invitation notwithstanding, I don't think I’ve ever welcomed those feelings. And I don’t think I’ve ever figured out a way around that fear—only that it has to be confronted head on. Which means, one way or another, deciding to move forward despite feeling weighed down. Some say that is bravery and courage, and I think that's true. But the truth is that, for me, it also feels like the only rational choice, at least compared to the alternative of hiding under a rock (which is my other impulse). 

 

Maybe, stripped down, that's just life much of the time: looking for and hoping for those moments of transcendence, but most days figuring out how to move forward troubled and blind. Again and again and again. 

 

So, for the lonely moments of recognition that the weight on your shoulders, the heaviness in your chest, or the pit in your stomach isn’t going anywhere—in the blinded moments when it feels so much harder to move—I've found this thought from Ursula LeGuin surprisingly helpful: 

 

 

Maybe this idea feels the opposite of helpful, depressing even. But much like the Buddhist “noble truth” that in life, there is suffering, LeGuin’s words here feel surprisingly freeing: “Oh, you have to move forward afraid, Aaron? You need to trudge ahead beset with troubles and worry? Why did you think it should ever be otherwise? ‘The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.’ So get moving.” 

 

It’s significant to me that LeGuin uses the word "dance" here. She's not just talking about survival (though maybe that's the best we can do at times). No, her use of that word is about something more—about our efforts to enjoy this life and make it beautiful. Apparently, we cannot hold back those efforts waiting for solid ground underfoot. 

 

And here, I will let you in on a little secret: the ground beneath me doesn't always feel hollow. Though there are times it feels that way (and that it's always felt that way), it doesn’t always.  

 

Most often for me, the clouds part as I get moving—at least a little. But even if not, or not yet, I’ve come to trust that movement in the face of fear (blindness) has got to be better than the alternative. And while there’s never a guarantee, watch if that movement doesn’t eventually yield to some expansion of mind, body, or soul. Sometimes even moments of awe. 

 

And further, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s this kind of dancing that might just be the most beautiful expression of our humanity: our stumbling efforts to dance this life against the terrible abyss, our movement even when the ground underneath is almost certainly hollow. 

 

And so, friend, bearing all this in mind, here’s that thing I’ve been meaning to ask you: whether the ground beneath you currently feels solid, and especially if it feels hollow, though it might feel a little awkward at first, I wonder, will you dance with me?