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For the past several weeks I feel as if I’ve been waking up with a weight pressing on my chest. The world is heavy with tragedy and many of us are feeling it in one way or another.
Overwhelmed, I have found myself taking hour-long breaks from writing to walk in the nearby tree-lined park and let my mind and heart air out. The sidewalks here in New York are carpeted with yellow leaves, and when I look up and see the rows of orange, red and golden foliage against a blue-grey sky, I am momentarily relieved of the despair I’ve been feeling.
This ability to get a reprieve from our cares is a privilege, and not one to be taken lightly. For those of us who are able, such momentary respites might help keep us a little fortified to move towards acts of peace, compassion and justice, whatever shape that takes for us.
I am taken by the series of dance-inspired paintings by Barcelona-based contemporary artist Gabriel Schmitz. In the 2022 work “Terrain Vague 1”, an unidentifiable person dressed in black trousers and a loose white shirt crouches low to the ground. We see them positioned from the side, their taut body and face turned away from the viewer, their left arm and leg reaching towards the vibrant green leaves of a nearby plant. The toes and index finger are elongated and stretched, as though straining to reach out beyond what is possible.
There is a poetic dance of intimacy between this person and this plant as they reach for each other. It is a striking but quietly charged image of life in motion, magnetically drawn towards more life. When I consider ways of seeking respite in times of deep turmoil, a turn towards nature can be restorative and grounding. In our fast-paced, individualistic culture, it is easy to forget how connected we are to other life forms. A walk in a tree-filled park or sitting by a body of water can have a calming effect on our nervous system, while also opening up space for us to figure out what we need to attend to.
Even as we humans continue to be so destructive towards ourselves and creation, there are living things that by their very existence are sources of nourishing life. Something about that feels desperately hopeful to me.
The French painter Édouard Vuillard is one of my favourite artists. In his 1909 work “Woman Reading in the Reeds, Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer”, we see the shape of a woman’s body as she lies on the sand, engrossed in a book. The opening in the reeds creates a small private niche for her to be alone with her reading. She seems protected by the encroaching grass. The olive green and orange palette of the reeds blends warmly with the charcoal, blues and cinnamon dusting of her clothes and hair. She seems hidden but she’s not. What stands out brightly is the white of the pages that both expose and hold her.
Looking at this moment of peace, I feel myself breathing more deeply. What the painting depicts is not an escaping away that denies the seriousness of life, but a pause, refilling the well through words and contemplation. We are each nourished by different types of writing, but I like to imagine the woman in the painting is reading poetry, the rhythm and cadence of which might feed her sense of solace.
In the past few weeks, I have been drawn again and again to poetry, especially that of the late Nobel Prize-winning Polish-American writer Czesław Miłosz. His soul-stirring poems weave back and forth between the tragedy and the beauty of life, as in the opening lines of the stunning “A Song on the End of the World” (1944): “On the day the world ends,/ A bee circles a clover,/ A fisherman mends a glimmering net.” I am struck by the recognition that, as one person’s world shatters, another person’s world continues to turn, filled with the small beauties contained in every life. Even as one reads and contemplates the vicissitudes of the world, there is rest in the act of stillness and engaging with art.
I find the work of the Cornwall-based artist Jess Allen powerfully evocative. Her canvases are filled with shadows of people or objects, bringing to mind roaming thoughts of everything that our lives are filled with, as well as a recognition of the absences. Her 2022 painting “A Moment Together 1” reminds me of the feelings of comfort that can come from reaching out to others in times of distress.
Two people stand in front of a window as sunlight pours in and casts their shadows against the backdrop of a couch. I love that their silhouettes fuse together so you can’t tell where one person ends and the other begins. We are all connected to one another, whether we choose to realise and admit it or not. I also love the intimacy of this image because it provokes an awareness of our need for the physical presence and touch of others in our lives. And in times of despair or crisis, sometimes respite is simply finding a space where one’s love and presence are affirmed.
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