There’s this book, a favorite of mine, where its passages, ideas, even phrases are randomly brought to surface in my everyday living, but most especially as I compose posts for this blog. It’s a French novel: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, authored by Muriel Barbery. And like most French story-telling, particularly in film and literature, the dénouement, or finale, to the story ends emitting soberness; much unlike our American tradition of happily ever after. However, there is sublime and stirring beauty amidst the soberness, all gained from generally unnoticed yet profound encounters experienced by the protagonists. I dare say, the French promote reality, while us Americans are obsessed with idealities.
Anyways, Paloma, one of the two main female leads, is a 12 year old, burdened with genius and struck with an inability to find purpose in human existence. Living within a family of wealthy pseudointellectuals, Paloma philosophizes that if life is pointless, than it is pointless to be living it. But before entirely giving in, she begins a journal to record “any beauty that there is in the world, things that, being part of the movement of life, elevate us” (Barbery 38). It is her resolved attempt at giving life one more opportunity to prove its purport before ending it.
I mentioned in last week’s post, that I, at times, feel life is more about enduring than enjoying.
And as Paloma, I have made an effort to be more keenly observant of my collision with life.
I want there to be joy amidst the enduring.
And I’m convinced it is found in what Paloma calls “motionless movement”, where we aren’t moving “toward,” but remaining fully present in the moment, grounded, nonfragmented, centered (39, 41). It’s what we have been referring to as horizontal living.
For our futures are concealed from us. And our past is gone from us. And seeking life behind us or beyond us, fragments us from life happening in the now.
And so, in this favorite book of mine, we witness Paloma discover the beauty in everyday movement, and ultimately find an objective for living, even joy-- in this life... throughout the persisting and amongst the enduring.
What follows is a record of her encounter with a moment of motionless movement entitled:
Journal of the Movement of the World No.4
A choir is a beautiful thing
Yesterday afternoon was my school’s choir performance. In my posh neighborhood school, there is a choir: nobody thinks it’s square and everyone competes to join but it’s exclusive….
Every time, it’s a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there’s this life we’re struggling through full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck—it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing. Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion. Even the singers’ faces are transformed: it’s no longer Achille Grand-Fernet that I’m looking at (he is a very fine tenor), or Déborah Lemeur or Ségolène Rachet or Charles Saint-Sauveur. I see human beings, surrendering to music.
I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close: I can hardly keep myself from sobbing. So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it’s just too much emotion at once: it’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I’m no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment, during a choir. When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant. It is so beautiful.
Observing and uncovering the beauty in everyday living, and becoming really enraptured with the bounty possible, we become fuller and more complete; we are less fragmented and disjoined. Paloma sought for it and found it. Look for it. And I promise, you too will find it.