A Farewell to Arms

I’ve always thought there was something rather lovely about an outstretched arm. A merciful invitation, the vulnerability of embrace, the instinct to protect, a willingness to forgive, the possibility of being wanted…

Though I suppose even the noblest of outstretched arms has, on occasion, been rather overcome by the generosity of its own gesture. After all, there is a certain pleasure in being caught in the very act of being lovely. Is there not?

But lately, I have begun to suspect the world is positively teeming with counterfeit limbs.

Wherever my gaze happens to wander, something seems to extend an eager little hand in my direction, offering a siren’s song in exchange for some small tribute. A fragment of my attention, a moment of my time, an opinion, a reaction, a comment, a purchase. Such modest requests, really. And not entirely immune to such overtures, I was perfectly willing to oblige. I may even have taken some delight in its artful seduction.

But I have grown rather bored of the arrangement.

Oh, how my suitor has exhausted his charms!

Which is quite amusing to me, considering how much of his courtship has been devoted to ensuring I never experience such an unfortunate thing.

And what an extraordinary spectacle we’ve made of it all, with nearly everyone rather enjoying being both the entertainment and the entertained. We take our turns upon the stage, offer ourselves up for admiration, and graciously bestow our applause upon one another. Such generosity!

And then, of course, there is the peculiar pleasure of disappearing into the audience, secretly hoping our absence might prove as intriguing as our presence.

Good heavens. What a demanding little theater.

I should confess that my own feminine ego has been a most enthusiastic, B-minus-at-best actress.

She has occasionally found herself rather enamored with an online persona, though in real life she is but a shuddering wallflower, enjoying the platform considerably more when she needn’t actually stand upon it.

She admits to an occasional desire to be noticed, and a particular fondness for approval, however fleeting. And although I should like to believe myself above such ordinary vanities, I have caught her revisiting her own performances with an interest bordering on the ridiculous.

What an exhausting woman.

I have bid farewell to social media before. More than once, in fact, and occasionally with the sort of conviction that ought to have made my departure quite possibly, most definitely, absolutely-this-time permanent.

And yet, somehow, I return for another tryst.

I have, after all, lived with my own inconstancies long enough to know better than to make extravagant promises.

I should prefer to attribute these reunions to intellectual curiosity. Though I suspect she had rather missed the company.

Somewhere between my shy-ish goodbyes and my not entirely shameless reentry, my humors had apparently negotiated an entire set of new woman rules of conduct.

And so here I am, once again attempting to disentangle myself from a rather persistent attachment that seems quite unwilling to relinquish me.

Though I must say, playing his muse has afforded me some rather elaborate exercises in self-presentation.

How gentlemanly of him to permit a lady to introduce herself! But one mustn’t make too much of oneself, naturally.

A hundred and fifty characters in which to define a human being!

My latest Instagram bio was:

My love affair with fruit & other fantasticals. Perfectly content amid beautiful organized chaos. Put to music. Devoted to the sun, always vegan.

Imagine that. A woman of some complexity, rather conveniently reduced to a fondness for nature’s confections and a few charming predilections.

An entire life of intuitions, tender devotions, beautiful irregularities, private affections, love affairs with the strange and ordinary, eccentricities, and inexplicable preferences, pressed into a handful of words so that strangers might know precisely what sort of fascinating person they have encountered.

And then comes the task of carefully choosing our identifiers and arranging our affiliations. We're encouraged to announce our unusual proclivities, and then hope they will be sufficiently distinctive to make us oh-so interesting, yet familiar enough to make us belong in a world insistent that we do, in fact, belong.

And then we go looking for our people.

Our tribes, as we so devotedly call them.

There is something deeply human in that desire. We wish to be recognized. To discover someone who understands a little of the strange country within us.

Recognition asks us to be identifiable.

Being known allows us to be complicated.

And perhaps that is where the trouble begins.

We offer our individuality in hopes of belonging, sometimes discovering that parts of it are rather less welcome than others.

A person can become a collection of observable positions. And once we have decided what those positions mean, we grow rather confident about everything else they ought to believe.

Even a small gesture of kindness can become suspicious.

A person follows someone unexpected. Likes something apparently inconsistent. Offers a bit of warmth across a line others have drawn.

And suddenly a gesture of care becomes evidence in an argument we never intended to have.

I have my own dearly held persuasions. But I have never thought to require those I love to be in agreement with them.

And what a strange world it would be if every affection had to pass an ideological inspection before being permitted to exist.

Yet the little hearts accumulate, and one wonders what conclusions might be drawn from them.

How extraordinary that a symbol of affection should become such a useful instrument of suspicion.

And while we are busy identifying ourselves, examining one another, and arranging our little corners of the world, something else is happening.

We are forever being persuaded that we ought to improve our lives, display our lives, indulge our lives, and, should we find a moment between these considerable obligations, perhaps even live them.

And I can hardly claim innocence in any of this.

Because, of course, I am not merely the person being interrupted.

I am also the interruption.

While I bemoan all the arms reaching for me, I must acknowledge that I have extended a few of my own.

I have posted things hoping someone would stop and look. Offered little pieces of my life for admiration. Asked, however indirectly, for a moment of someone else’s attention.

Good heavens.

There I am, appearing between someone and their afternoon.

Perhaps someone they love was sitting beside them, the warmth of their nearness a luxury so familiar it had almost gone unnoticed. Perhaps solitude had finally paid a visit. Perhaps the rain had wrapped the whole day in something deliciously intimate.

And I have arrived with a photograph and a few carefully chosen words.

What a splendid little captivity, to be both captor and captive.

I might be perfectly content in the company of those I adore, but apparently the entire population of the internet has been invited to join us.

That rogue!

And with him, the whole circus has come to town!

Strangers make themselves at home. Advertisements parade about. An endless procession of amusements unfold, each promising to be worth another moment.

And the next.

And the next.

And before I know it, hours have passed, the evening is here, and I’ve spent the better part of my day under his spell.

And now he comes proposing moderation. How very devilishly clever of him.

Boundaries and balance and cultivating a healthy relationship with the very thing from which I am attempting to free myself.

But I have begun to wonder why I should devote so much energy to managing a relationship I no longer care to entertain.

Why must freedom be negotiated?

Perhaps I have no desire to devote myself to the noble art of resisting something so ingeniously designed to make resistance futile.

I should much rather make my escape.

Not because there is nothing worthwhile to be found there. There are people I care about, beautiful things the creative and talented have made, interesting thoughts, and occasional moments of genuine delight.

But surely his wicked little tune is no reason I should go dancing for him.

Although I am quite fond of dancing.

And what of my charming rogue?

I suppose he shall have to find himself another muse.

Because I find myself wondering why I should like anyone to notice me at all.

The natural world, I must say, seems to have managed quite beautifully without all this fuss.

A wildflower does not announce its arrival. A tree does not summon an audience to admire the turning of its leaves. The mountains make no particular effort to inspire awe.

And yet, good heavens, there they are.

Beautiful beyond any reasonable obligation to be so.

I wonder when we began believing that our own beauty, our endearing contraries, our little contributions to the world, required so much announcement.

And perhaps more importantly, why the affection of those who know us most intimately has begun to seem insufficient beside the admiration of those who scarcely know us at all. How could we overlook something so precious?

There are people in my life who have spent years becoming acquainted with me. Who know the sound of my laughter, the private intricacies of my affections, the less admirable corners of my character.

People who have come to know me in all my unremarkable moments, and have somehow remained true to me, nonetheless.

And still, there is that ridiculous woman, with her impertinent little ego, wondering whether a stranger has noticed.

Good heavens. She really is insatiable.

Perhaps there is something rather unbecoming about an appetite for attention.

I think of the sunflower, turning its young face toward that great golden sphere, following its ancient passage across the heavens.

Not toward an audience. Not toward admiration.

Toward the very thing from which it draws its life.

And how curious that we, too, have taken to turning our faces toward a little illuminated rectangle.

But one turns toward the light that sustains its very breath, while the other is forever being summoned by a light that coaxes a little more of it away.

We speak of being enlightened, informed, exposed to the world. And yet we can spend hours bathed in artificial light while remaining strangely inattentive to the world around us.

We have mistaken being illuminated for being enlightened.

The sun follows its familiar course, rising in the east and resting in the west. It gives us morning and evening, light and darkness, the promise of its return. Our very existence relies on its miracle.

Meanwhile, the little light in our hands never seems to set.

It offers a perpetual imitation of daylight, with no natural invitation to retire, to wait, or to begin again.

And yet, how much of life’s meaning is found in the spaces between absence and return.

In the anticipation of sunrise. The first stirrings of spring. The pleasure of rediscovery after a season apart.

The sun must set in its grave for us to experience the wonder of its ascent.

Still we sit before a light that offers no such courtesy.

And what a splendid view of the world I’ve enjoyed through a window without ever having to leave the room.

I admire distant silhouettes of rugged peaks while the sunlight moves unnoticed across my own floors.

And all the while, just beyond the glass, the world goes on without asking whether I’ve noticed.

The trees turn toward the seasons. The birds make their clamorous little declarations to the morning. Somewhere, a fern unfurls in a place no one will ever photograph.

Perhaps I have been standing at the window for so long that I’ve forgotten it was never intended to be a substitute for the door.

John Ruskin wrote, “There is no wealth but life.”

I have been thinking about that.

Not merely the number of hours we are given, but the meaning we find within them.

There is always something more we might possess. Something more we might experience. Something more we might know, improve, display, or become envied for.

And I have spent an extraordinary amount of time being invited to enrich a life I was scarcely taking the time to inhabit.

Perhaps that is the most troubling part of all.

Not that I have wasted time, although I certainly have.

But that I have allowed so much of my attention to be directed away from the very things that make the passing of time worth experiencing.

I do not want to spend the remainder of my life learning to coexist gracefully with machinery that has made a rather profitable business of my distraction.

 I want to resuscitate the life I have been so busy displaying.

To see what happens when I am no longer perpetually available for inspection, interruption, admiration, or persuasion.

To discover whether the world grows more wondrous when the little illuminated window grows dark.

Perhaps there are things worth knowing that cannot be condensed into a biography.

Affections that need no public declaration.

Discoveries that require no audience.

Loveliness entirely unacquainted with applause.

And an entire world that has been worthy of my attention all along.

I suspect it has been quietly going about its business, entirely indifferent to my absence.

And so, a farewell to all those outstretched arms.

Including, I suppose, a few of my own.

Because there are other things I would rather touch.

And I should hate to discover, after all this reaching, that I had neglected to touch any of them.

Repairing the ruins,

Stephanie