Hyperlocal 9/9/21

Things have been pretty quiet here at the Wandering Hermit travel log.

That happens sometimes to a hermit - we go inward from time to time and put away all our words.

Then this morning I noticed something and found myself surfacing. And it felt like time to return to the page and to my travel log.

For transparency I should note we are not doing much traveling these days. In fact we are back at my parents house in California waiting for our Airstream to be delivered. Yep - it’s true - we are still waiting. It was supposed to come off the line this week and we are hoping to have a more concrete update by tomorrow. So if you are the praying or wishing type please send one out that our new home will be delivered soon.

In the meantime we are crashing at my parents casita and they have generously opened their doors to not just their wayward daughter and her husband, but also to our 300lbs of dog. That is no small offer of hospitality, and we are humbled and grateful to be welcomed and sheltered.

And Brigid is doing her best to not slobber all over my mother’s very clean floors.

I have been spending my mornings in the walled garden that encloses the space between the casita and the main house. I love the privacy it offers. How the tall stucco walls mute the noises from the outside. How my mother’s artful eye has made it so beautiful. I get up early and watch the sun creep over the wall, pray lauds with my Benedictine community, and then try to do a little writing.

And I have been taking pictures of what I see each day as a way to remind myself that story and poetry is everywhere - if I stop long enough to look.

As the days have gone by I noticed that my looking has gotten more and more focused. The first day I took in the whole sweep of the courtyard, the walls, the windows, the open sky above. The next day I started to notice more details, the color of the door to the house, the red pot overflowing with a green leafy plant, the large cactus resting below a copper wind spinner. The next day my focus went deeper and I saw the smaller things in the garden. The little green frog statue, the way the leaves on the brass sculpture stood out against the blue sky, the fine details in the tortoise shell carving resting on the rocks. Today it focused even tighter and I found myself drawn to a single burnt leaf on the Bougainvillea climbing the wall,. The way the dried edges of the leaf curled in on themselves. The contrast between the still vibrant green bumping up against the brown of decay. And I just sat and watched this little leaf and let it speak to me in the silence of early morning.

A number of months ago I had been introduced to the word hyperlocal in a podcast. The interviewer used it as a way to describe his guest who was focusing all of her social justice work on a few blocks of her community - that which was closest to her. The hermit in me immediately grasped on to the word as it felt like a very hermity word. It eventually found its way into one of my poems and has continued to invite me deeper and deeper.

This past month has had so much bad news in it. So many overwhelming world events that bring about a sense of helplessness. What can one person do against so much suffering? So much war and divisiveness. I too have been feeling overwhelmed by it all.

Then this morning I listened in to my little leaf and my ever more focusing gaze in the walled garden. And I thought, ah - hyperlocal. I wondered if for me, the answer of what I could do to contribute to the healing of the world might be tied up with this word. That I may not be able to solve the world’s problems further afield but I might be able to contribute something within the small sphere of the world I live in. Sort of like thinking of my life like that walled garden.

I asked myself what it might mean if I did not gaze so far out into the distance. What if I paid really close attention to what is closest. Allowed myself to really see and not look away.

In this I realized that I am really only able to pay close attention to a few things. And that this is important for me to know if I really want to contribute to a just and sustainable world. When I spread my attention too far and wide, I get scattered and overwhelmed - and then I find myself doing nothing - retreating instead of helping.

I am just beginning to lean into this new invitation. I am not sure what it will look like. Or how it will keep me connected to the larger needs of the world. But somehow I have a sense it might actually keep me engaged more deeply than before.

I keep thinking of how that little leaf that I observed this morning held both life and loss at the same time. Perhaps in my call to live in a way that is hyperlocal I will find myself able to contribute to the health and healing of the world in some small way. And perhaps that might ripple out in ways I could never imagine.

Not sure how - I will have to keep you posted.