What Remains

I never watch TV alone. My cat Seamus always watches with me. And I mean it when I say he watches. He’s as engaged in TV as I am, until he finds something boring enough that he can fall asleep to. But this is rare—Seamus hates almost everything on TV, and he lets me know it. He’ll either bite my wrist or stare at me unblinkingly until I hit mute or change the channel when he hears any of the following: babies crying. Kids crying. Women crying on “The Bachelorette.” Men crying on “The Bachelorette.” Women crying on “The Bachelor.” Men crying on “The Bachelor.” Drums. Barking dogs. Trains. Bagpipes. Ethel’s singing on “I Love Lucy.” Trumpets. John King’s voice. Sirens. Children laughing. Doors closing. Doors opening. Someone knocking on a door. Harps. Pa’s laugh on “Little House on the Prairie.”

A miracle happened last week, though. Seamus and I found something to watch together. I was watching a video series of famous poems narrated by different people. Seamus was bored by the poems, so he was sleeping. Until he heard “Ulysses,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He sat up and watched, completely transfixed. I thought at first that it was the narrator’s soothing, British voice—Seamus is partial to a British accent. But he’s also smart. After watching him sit up and take notice the fourth or fifth time, I listened as intently to the words as he was. And he was right—the poem is entrancing. The words transfixed me as they had him.

Tennyson wrote the poem after the death of his close friend, casting him in a heroic light as the mythical Ulysses—an old mariner, exhausted but resolute, going to sea one last time. As with most poems, there are many interpretations of it, but Tennyson himself said, “’Ulysses’ was written under the sense of loss and all that had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end.” These are the lines that speak the most to that:
“The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. . .
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

If I’d heard or read this poem at any other time during any other year, I don’t know if it would have resonated with me in the same way. But here we are, in the last months of a year that took all of us by surprise. I’ve heard people describe this year as a dumpster fire. And I’ve agreed with that. It truly has felt sometimes during this year that everything that could go wrong has—COVID-19, wildfires, hurricanes, job and money problems, social and political unrest—and many of us have lived through all of it in isolation, trying to keep ourselves as safe as possible.

On a personal level, this year has been a difficult one. I had three surgeries and three bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. Seamus’s autoimmune disease flared up several times over the year, and he’s just now beginning to stabilize. Monty and I had a vacation planned, which we had to cancel, like so many of you did. We had tickets to a Nuggets game and tickets to two concerts—all of which were cancelled. Our world became very small as we tried to live safely in “the new normal.”

And yet. For all the moments of hardship and heartbreak, there were moments of soul-mending beauty. Monty and I got into the habit of taking short road trips on Saturdays to give us something to look forward to.  We also took two short trips with my parents—on one, I got to know my dad better as I saw one of his favorite childhood places through his eyes. On the other, we visited my grandpa’s grave, and I got some much-needed closure to a difficult chapter in my life. We’ve spent hours with my parents, sitting around their fire pit and sharing our lives. We also got to spend time with my brother and his family at his new house. Sitting on his porch, watching his joy at this next step in his life, filled me with joy. And the moments at home with Monty and the boys? Those have been the moments of grace that have tied our days together. There have been countless pockets of laughter and shocks of delight. We’ve done puzzles. Read books. Watched movies and TV with the boys. And through it all, I’ve realized how little we needed and how much we still have.

Tennyson’s words came at just the right time to make me look back at this year and evaluate it clearly. He writes about the lights beginning to twinkle as “the long day wanes.” I see November in those words—the ebbing of a year. Tennyson notes that much has been taken—that we’re not who we were in “the old days.” Most of us started this year with hopeful expectation and the strength to set goals and plan our days. Now, all these months later, “We are not now that strength.” But we are “strong in will—to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

That’s the hard part, for me—not to yield and simply let the rest of the year ebb away. I made it this far. Why not just lay on top of that dumpster while the rest of the year burns and ride it out? Because there are fifty-two days left in the year. Fifty-two days packed with the same kinds of moments of grace and beauty that brought me this far. I don’t want to miss those moments. The moment when Carrick sees the first Christmas lights of the season and his eyes widen in pure delight. The magical moment when our little town turns into a snow globe of twilit Christmas. When Monty and I look at each other on Thanksgiving and don’t have to say a word to know how grateful we both are.

So what will I do with my fifty-two days? I’m going “to strive, to seek” and find those moments of grace and pockets of beauty that take me from day to day. I have fifty-two days to dig deep for the strength I still have and remember the goals and plans I had in January—I can still make progress on those. Tennyson said, “Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.” To you, I say, we can do this. We can dig deep. We can seek and strive. And in fifty-two days? We get to check in and find out how and what we did as we ring out this year and greet the next. So come, my friends. It’s not too late. Tennyson said it best: “Life must be fought out to the end.”