Aliveness of Differences

“Differences are what make us come alive – in art and in life.” ~ Nicholas Wilton

Quick: what’s the most memorable thing that happened for you this week?

My guess is your answer was something that was different than your usual. Lunch with a friend. An unexpected illness (hi, COVID). Taking a new class. The aliveness of differences is part of the human experience.

Last week, on the recommendation of the gifted painter Howell Burnell, I took part in an online art workshop with Nicholas Wilton and the Art2Life team. Even though I’m not a painter, the experience has changed the way I see art, make art, and plan my days.

One of the first things that Nicholas shared in his opening lesson was that differences are key to making engaging, compelling art. Differences, he says, make us come alive.

Take, for example, Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace & Hummingbird.

What immediately draws our eyes and attention are the differences: her face and blouse against the black monkey and black cat. The stark curving shapes of her eyebrows and the hummingbird at her throat. The cool colors of the leaves and the warmth of her cheeks, lips and blood. The bright sparkle of the butterflies and dragonflies against the organic textures of leaves and thorns.

You don’t have to know anything about Frida Kahlo or art or anything. Just using your human eyes reveals that the contrasts, the differences is where the energy is in the painting.

The same is true in movement.

One of the things I love most about the Nourishing Movement practice is using different movement qualities. The form may be simple yet we can bring it alive by changing the quality.

A basic walking step can be done small or big, fast or slow, flowing or sharp. We can walk in a linear, rhythmic way or a circular, melodic way. We can move with precision and clarity; we can move loose and sloppy.

Even more energy of aliveness happens when we use contrasts right next to each other: switching cleanly from flow to sharp, linear to circular. Contrasting movements expand movement vocabulary and wake up the whole body. Differences is where the energy is in the movement.

The same is true in life.

Even if you absolutely love your day-to-day routine, nothing enlivens life more than changing it up. Going on a trip or to a party or even walking a different route energizes what is around it. Learning a new skill or making a new recipe or getting a surprise call from a friend juices up whatever else is happening.

Our brains default to habit as an energy-saving strategy which is all well and good for getting stuff done with less effort. But doing even small things in different ways is like sprinkling some cayenne pepper on your pasta: it wakes up the whole experience. Shazam.

Right now, I’m planning a summer trip, ordering tickets to The American Shakespeare Center and setting up a dinner with friends. I’m doing these things intentionally to create differences in my future days. Differences is where the energy is in life.

It may seem like a trivial thing, this aliveness of differences. Why bother, you ask? Why, when the world is burning down is it worth playing with differences? As 20th Century theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman said,

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

This week, increase your aliveness: play with differences.

The Broken Down Dam of Time

But that was a long time
And no matter how I tried
Those years just flow by
Like a broken down dam ~ John Prine, Angel From Montgomery

I first heard Angel From Montgomery, sung by Bonnie Raitt and John Prine when I was in my late twenties. A challenging relationship was limping to its finish line. The song’s words that spoke to me then were

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the mornin’
And come home in the evenin’
And have nothin’ to say?

The line about years flowing by like a broken down dam hardly registered. It felt like something my parents would say.

But now? Now that line hits me square in the heart.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of my first date with my husband. Twenty-five years. More than 1300 weeks. The dizzying idea of it makes me put my head down.

It’s safe to say that I’m not a nostalgic person. I don’t keep memorabilia or old letters or piles of photographs. It’s frankly not that interesting to me to spend too much time in the past. It seems too easy to slip into romanticizing and painful longing. In fact, the word “nostalgia” is actually a combination of the Greek algos for pain, grief, distress and nostos for homecoming.

Nostalgia was originally thought to be a medical condition – a disease mostly in soldiers that needed to be cured. Adrienne Matei’s piece Nostalgia's etymology Explains Why It Can Feel So Painful explains that after centuries of looking for a medical cause for the feeling – including looking (in vain) for a “nostalgia bone,” the meaning of the word shifted. She writes

...While nostalgia shed its medical connotation centuries ago, its current definition never quite evolved to suit the nuances of its poetic second act. After all, that ineffable feeling of nostalgia extends beyond an affectation for bygone times. … what about the strange homesickness you feel for a place you’ve never actually been, like an island pictured in a magazine or your great-grandparents’ long-gone summer home you’ve only seen in black-and-white photographs? What about that sad wave of wistfulness that reminds you not to take the present for granted and to appreciate every day? What about that tight sensation deep in your gut when your city changes around you, or the feeling of being vaguely melancholy for no distinct reason?

Even as a non-nostalgic person, when I find myself awake in the night, I think about all that’s happened in my past quarter century. The stages with my step-children. The houses we lived in. The cats we cuddled. The places we traveled. The meals we shared. Honestly, it’s incredible – in the true sense of the word, it is impossible to believe.

For me these days, the passage of time is less about remembering the past in any romantic, idealized way. I know for sure that all days are filled with everything: delight and disappointment, hope and despair, excitement and boredom, joy and grief.

For me, it’s more about the breathtaking slipperiness of time. The stunning relentlessness of its movement. And while yes, I know, as my Buddhist teachers remind me, the only time I truly have is this moment, right now. Even so, I am astonished by what has unspooled behind me.

Image: Howell Burnell

I saw a broken down dam once. We were at a state park on a bike ride and we came upon an earthen dam that had burst its bounds. The feeling I had as I watched the enormous torrent of water flow past was not fear or sadness or longing for it to be as it had been. Watching the huge flow of water roaring past, I was in awe.

That’s what the passage of time is for me: not nostalgia, not idealization, not wanting to be anywhere else. The passage of time and life itself fills me with breathtaking awe. You were right, John Prine. It’s just like watching a broken down dam.