The Artful Response to the Chaos of Pandemic Times

A few times in life, I have read a short phrase or sentence expressing a simple idea that makes so much sense it is as if I've always known it, even though this is the first time I've seen it stated in words.

I still remember the moment when I read C.S. Lewis' words explaining the parallelism of the Psalms in Reflections on the Psalms: "It is a very pure example of what all pattern, and therefore all art, involves. The principle of art has been defined by someone as 'the same in the other.'"

Lewis goes on to illustrate this concept using a country dance ("the first three [steps] are to the right and the second three to the left"), architecture (the two opposite wings of building are the same shape), music (the same pattern is repeated but with slight modifications), and rhyme (the same final sounds but different initial sounds).

Once I had seen this almost too simple principle of "the same in the other" expressed so succinctly, I began to see it is true of so much art. And then I noticed that it was a large part of what I like most about art, especially literary art.

 The literary forms and patterns can provide that sameness sometimes. For instance, when I sit down to read a short story, I kind of know what I'm getting into. But there's always an element of surprise: I like to see a skillful author embrace the form of the short story yet do something new and unexpected with the plot or characters or reader expectations. That's the most basic enjoyment of this same but different heart of literary art.

But then beyond that there is the pleasure of reading art that has pulled order from chaos and confusion and given shape and pattern and thus some permanence and beauty to what otherwise slips away unnoticed and not celebrated.

In his really excellent introduction to poetry, Sound and Sense, Laurence Perrine writes about pattern in art. He writes, "art, ultimately, is organization. It is a searching after order, after form. The primal artistic act was God's creation of the universe out of chaos, shaping the formless into form; every artist since, on a lesser scale, has sought to imitate Him--by selection and arrangement to reduce the chaotic in experience to a meaningful and pleasing order."

 

Recently, we had the chance to go stay in a beautiful house in South Lake Tahoe. Since you might as well distance learn/teach from a beautiful mountain get-away as from home, we went, almost on the spur of the moment. It was beautiful and refreshing to be away from home and in such a lovely place. Even though the California wildfires made the air smoky some days, we still enjoyed our time there very much. We were doing all the same things we had been doing at home (Zoom classes, lots of time interacting online with students/teachers, sticking close to the house and avoiding crowds), but we were doing it somewhere different.

That week or so spent doing the same thing but in another place, made me realize that the balance between same and other in every day life is really off right now for many of us. Not only do we try to replicate the same/different pattern in art, but most healthy individuals incorporate this pattern into their everyday lives. And the patterns many of us have developed to give shape and organization to our lives also bring meaningful and pleasing order out of the chaos. 

At the beginning of the pandemic--if you can remember way back in March--there was some good advice going around the internet about creating new routines for living and working entirely at home. I found all that useful. I also drew upon my own experiences when I spent more time just at home with the kids. When my oldest was two years old, we moved and I didn't work for a few years outside of the home--I finished my dissertation and a few other writing projects during that time, but for the most part my energy during those days went to child care and education and homemaking. And I definitely had to figure out how to stay at home and do all those things. It took me awhile to find my way into fruitful habits of work and rest and play, but I remember flourishing as a stay at home mom, despite the exhaustion and frustration that goes along with taking care of multiple very little people.

After reading some inspirational articles and recalling how I used to do things when I was not working outside the home, I drew up a routine for our family. I put it in a prominent place where everyone could see it. We talked about it. We followed it. For two weeks. Then the Zoom schedules started. And changed. And we got tired of having nowhere to go. And bored. The house got messy. But who was there to see it? Who would EVER be there to see it again? Other than us. And we saw this same messy house and the same messy people day after day after day. 

Am I the only parent, "working" or otherwise, who feels like there's just too much sameness while at the same time not enough of the sameness I crave? All this previously settled stuff is in up the air: What are my kids' classes going to look like? How do they turn in assignments? When do I get to go back to teaching in person? What's going on with the orthodontist appointments? Will I ever have enough time free from children at home to mop the floors again? (I think I've mopped, like, twice since last March. Most of our house is tile. This is getting gross, people!)

Not only is all our "same" stuff no longer the same, but a lot of the stuff that used to provide the joy of "the other" in our daily lives is really diminished: How will we celebrate the holidays in a special way this year? When and how is it safe to go to the beach or get a haircut? When is it a good idea to resume air travel? Can I still look forward to that trip I planned for next summer or should I cancel it? What about soccer this year? Ice skating? (It's out--the ice rink went out of business in the midst of the shut-down.)

There are of course ways to infuse much-needed "other" into the disjointed sameness of the daily life we are experiencing right now. We took that restorative trip to Tahoe. One of my children is becoming a first-class baker. Another daughter has decided to take up violin. (Send help.) Our family has discovered some great nearby hikes. 

But even these efforts are shot through with a longing for what we are missing. One morning at the end of the summer, I took my 10-year-old early and went to an easy trail not far from our house. As we walked uphill and enjoyed the view, she began to explain her feelings of frustration to me: "Why did a pandemic have to happen right when I'm at the END of my childhood? Right when I'm 10?! These are my LAST DAYS to enjoy being a kid, and I really look forward to things like going to the zoo or going to the beach. Those things are a BIG DEAL to me and pretty soon I'm going to be so OLD that I won't even care anymore. Then I'll be happy to sit around ALL THE TIME. " 

I tried to point out to her that we weren't just sitting around (despite the fact that I am old), and we could at least enjoy the moment--a cool morning together and a great view in front of us--but in our conversation she kept coming back to how unfair it felt to miss out "on one WHOLE SUMMER" of her waning youth. 

Who doesn't feel the same way as my 10 year old at least on some level? Even while you are doing the very thing that's supposed to comfort you in the midst of your pandemic despair, you are shaking your little fist in the face of the chaotic world that produced a deadly virus and a disputatious human response to it. 

But that immature response ignores the fact that we are, in fact, always living in the midst of chaos. Returning to art and contemplating the beauty of its pattern and organization has reminded me lately that it always requires real effort to impose meaningful order upon that chaos. Hell, just writing this blog post has required concentrated effort. I've had this tab with this entry open on my computer for a week now wondering how I'm was going to develop my central idea. How I was going to tie it to my own experience. How I was going to end it. 

So as I end this meditation, first I will admit that it IS hard to impose meaningful pattern and thus beauty upon the world as we experience it. It is especially hard to do that when the world presents us with even more chaos than usual. This is true of the art we make and also of the patterns of daily life we try to create. Second, this struggle may be amplified right now but it has always been part of the human experience. Reminding ourselves of that fact is therapeutic. There are many ways to recall the continually human effort to imitate God in his calling of order out of chaos. Sometimes I choose to write. Sometimes I choose to read. (Are you surprised?) I've been reading a lot of the Psalms lately. But then I also turn to great fiction frequently.

I've started reading Oliver Twist (an adaptation) to my 10 year old and 8 year old. They are horrified by the workhouse and the abuse and the crime and the difficulty of little Oliver's life. But they also love the story as it follows the main character from poverty and desperation to hope and love. The mere act of reading this story aloud provides some same but other pattern in our lives--every night at the same time we read another few chapters--but more than that, the story affirms the possibility of order and beauty emerging from chaos and ugliness. It's a pattern I hope will remain deeply imprinted on the hearts of my little listeners . . . before they get OLD and their childhood's are OVER. 😉