In his recent novel, I Cheerfully Refuse, author Leif Enger suggests that as global warming takes place we may find ourselves navigating the rising of bodies buried deep in the waters of our great lakes. They may not actually rise, according to my morning’s research, but may become exposed. Nevertheless, in Enger’s tale, the crossing of Lake Superior in a near distant future requires the handling (or not) of rising bodies, long since left to decay in the water’s tumult. While his main character, Rainy, wishes to steer clear of this human debris, a young girl, Sol, demands that each body be given a proper burial on land. She believes she lost an uncle to the lake, and as such, any body might be that of her uncle. So all within her reach are hoisted aboard, brought to land, and buried…an arduous task for sure…but in her mind a worthy one, as from her point of view, they are all uncles.
What a world this might be if in fact we believed, really thought, that we were all somehow related?
That the care of that child there, was no different than the care of this child here? That our beloved ancestors, if analyzed carefully enough, showed not only a web of connected Italians, let’s say, or Belgians, but that those webs actually over time included pretty much all of us, one way or another? What if we each saw each other as distant cousins at least, who carried some of the same genetic loading that we do, and from that what if we began to feel ourselves rooted in an understanding that we all, literally (and pun intended) sink or swim together?
I do not know how to do this.
Many days I find it hard to treat those I love with as much respect as Sol does those broken-boned bodies. But what if we could, even just for the length of a day, consider that the kindness we extend to any one stranger might just be like serving our favorite Aunty her favorite cake…as if each gesture and each being mattered.
This is aspirational for certain. We are cracked and crotchety often enough to consider that stranger-danger might in fact be encoded. But…put a room of toddlers together and ask them to play with each other…most of them do most of the time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we did the same?
Wouldn’t it be something if the truth found in fiction reflected back a better truth in real time in our real world?
Might that not be a thing?
Love, Maria
