A crab scuttling sideways
Delivered as a reflection at The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville.
On an evening in April this past year, just around sunset, I stepped out of my car after a seven-hour drive to the coast. I was immediately greeted by the sound of waves hidden behind the towering building of condos where we were staying. Ashley, my wife, and I lugged our bags up to our spot for the weekend, and once we had the door unlocked, I made a beeline through the small apartment to the balcony and shoved open the heavy glass door, to be greeted by exactly what I imagined would greet me – by exactly what I had driven these hours to see after making the decision to go on this trip only a few days before. There in front of me was the sun setting over the Gulf of Mexico. It was a breathtaking view of the emerald-green water and beautiful orange-streaked clouds. The sound of the surf was loud enough that words spoken softly to yourself were muted to anyone more than a foot or two away from you. And the words that escaped my lips as I took in that view were “thank goodness.”
It was the week after my birthday and also the week after I had unexpectedly lost a job had been incredibly meaningful to me. It was just about six months after the dialogue in our country had turned confused and desperate - after an election that felt like an earthquake. It was a year since Ashley and I had taken a huge leap of faith in purchasing our first co-owned home and started in on an exhausting renovation that had taken more energy, and to be honest, money, than we had ever anticipated. I was so, so tired. And I was so, so lost. Outside of my family, my job had felt like the thing I could trust for the past year. It was the place that felt like home. It was the place that kept the outside world and its often disturbing and fear-inducing news at bay while I plugged along doing work that I was used to next to people that I trusted.
When that was taken away from me, I felt paralyzed and struggled against hopelessness. I didn’t know what to trust, and I didn’t know quite what to hope for. I was very much in the dark. This is why it felt like an absolute miracle when Ashley reminded me that her mother was headed to the Gulf the next week, and that she could get off work for a couple days if we wanted to go. I’m not sure if it was my exact reaction, but in my memory I cried tears of relief, because nothing sounded more perfect. I wanted to head into the light. To the waves. To a place that would allow me to be still - a place that would give me a chance to play and remember, thankfully, how small I truly am.
What I was running towards, and what I used my three days at the beach to remind me of, was that my current state of uncertainty and hopelessness - one that had its origins in our country’s division and had become more acute with the recent change in my own life wasn’t EVERYTHING that was going on. That there was always more. I waded out alone into the waves - that were particularly cold in April, and stared out into their vastness. I was reminded that the unknown wasn’t always scary. I got another reminder of that in the evenings on that trip. On cloudy nights on that beach, it was pitch black. The night was so inky that couldn’t see your hand in front of your face until you blinked a few times. But you could still hear those waves. You were still surrounded by a beautiful, sonic reminder of that unknown. On that trip, I was reminded that the unknown was a place to imagine into existence, and my imagination didn’t have to go for the worst case scenario. I could always imagine hope.
In her book Hope In The Dark, Rebecca Solnit discusses with immense thoughtfulness how to be a person of action in a world where progress can seem impossible. She writes:
“Cause-and-effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension.”
That image, of a “crab scuttling sideways,” is one I love, and one that I witnessed that weekend last April. These tiny little creatures move with steps that seem as choreographed as they do chaotic. They move deftly in these odd little motions, clearly working towards a certain goal that I can’t perceive. From my zoomed-out vantage point, it surely takes a lot longer for me to register progress in their work than what they can see from their on-the-ground, in-the-thick-of-it view of the situation. And I never pay attention to their movements long enough to see the end result of their work. The truth is, I don’t matter to their work. I’m just lucky enough to witness it and even delight in it, as I’m simultaneously comforted by the sound of the waves and in that altered state of peace that can come with time taken away from our everyday lives.
In the months since April, the news cycle hasn’t gotten any easier for me to digest. I’m often frightened by stories of laws being passed that put up barriers to the agency of our most vulnerable neighbors. I’m frightened by the news that powerful people choose to support members of their tribe who are known predators. I’m frightened by a world that gets more and more expensive to operate in and that seems more and more indifferent to that struggle. I’m frightened by talk of nuclear war and by those who seem to feel that toying with the notion is a game.
But something else has happened to me since April, too. We are expecting our first child, funnily enough due the week before the one year anniversary of the day I lost that job. As I witness my wife’s pregnancy and see evidence of our baby’s development, I stand back and marvel every day at what’s taking place. Ashley invites me to place my hand on her stomach to feel this now one-pound little creature flip and kick and bounce around, and am lost back in imagination thinking about what their little world must be like. Just like I was on that beachfront at night, they are ensconced in darkness. I imagine that little creature playing in the darkness, not knowing anything but the dark - making their way around their space, constantly exploring every millimeter of their world. They’ve never seen light, but they grow and they move, and with all that flipping around, it’s hard not to imagine that they’re playing.