Ordinary Life

October 30, 2023

Greetings from the extraordinary,

I was running down a narrow side street in Ellsworth, Maine. The sky was bruised, burdened with melancholy clouds that could barely bring themselves to rain. I passed a woman out walking, bundled in a large canvas coat, wearing duck boots.

“Don’t trust the clinkers,” she said, as I went by.

No, of course not.

Took me a little while to absorb what she’d said, translating a little from the Maine accent. I was running over the cadavers of acorns on the pavement, clinkers, a loose cobble of brown shells nested in wet leaves. I was a block away before my mind was able to register what she had been saying to me, “Watch your step here, it’s tricky.” And so when I said “Thank you” I was the only person who heard it. I was delighted anyway, feeling the magic in a plain, vanilla moment.

Not many years ago, I was in a forest, walking a well-worn path down from a mountain summit. I had stopped to have a simple lunch with my friends by an emerald river. I was hesitant to leave, when the time came, because I sensed the power of life in that place. The trees, the mountain, the wind in the leaves, the incessant river. Everything new and old in the same place.

I was surrounded by beauty, by peace. I also sensed something deeper, an intention, which somehow I felt included me. It was not a new feeling, but it held on, a connectedness through nature to something else. It is a place I have intersected with many times in my life, an echo of decades of exploring. I remember shuddering with the impact of it, and tears stung my eyes. It was not an epiphany, but simply a flourish in an ongoing thought.

Later I wrote down this sentence: “You have ruined me for ordinary life.” I kept the sentence in my notes of things I didn’t want to forget, even though there was no chance of that ever happening. I’ve read those seven words often, as I scrolled through my little journal of things, and wondered what to do with it.

In the last year, I have spoken with hundreds of people who have lined up for me to sign a copy of my book, now one of my greatest pleasures. Most of those people told me something about themselves, some about a person they cared about. There are so many they blend together, but I feel these strands of connection to humanity tucked inside seemingly commonplace exchanges.

In line at the grocery store, I was behind an older couple. The woman took out a small clasp purse where her money was, but when the cashier told her the amount, she was confused, lost. The man kindly showed her the bill to take out, with no cost to anyone other than that extra moment, her dignity was preserved, her power restored.

I was in a Chicago hotel on Wednesday, minutes from speaking to a group I had been thinking about for a month. I said hello to a woman in the elevator, asked how she was. She returned the question and I said “I’m happy.” She laughed. Later she said: “No one says they are happy. Makes me want to up my game.”

Each fall I am given the responsibility of cutting back the wild grasses in our yard. These are enormous plants, dramatic additions to the landscape. When felled, they are a massive pile of foliage. I drag them on a tarp into the woods behind our house, where they will serve as a bed for the deer who visit nearly every day. It is hard work, but not unbearable. I don’t know how many years I have done it, but I can recall times I resented it. This week when I finished and wrapped up the cords and put away the tools, I felt only one thing: grateful for this ordinary moment.

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I love this exquisitely ordinary life. Inside each innocent moment is the beauty of eternity, the puzzles of the universe, the relationship between all of us and all of everything. And strangely enough, I feel a connection in them to that idyllic setting in the mountains, as if everything had passed through it to reach me. Somewhere there is a quote that says that creation is not an escape from ordinary life, but a place to frame an attentiveness to its extraordinary complexity.

I had oatmeal. I walked to the mailbox. I shuffled through leaves. I prayed. I emptied the dehumidifier. In the simplest thing, where one might find only dull banality, I have finally learned to feel the wonder of all creation. It is not a surrender to the mundane, it is not to live a life of quiet desperation, but thank you Mr. Thoreau. It is exploring the simplest of living to find the vastness of life.

Nature did not ruin me for ordinary life, it prepared me to focus past the obvious shallow experiences to see what is within. It takes practice and patience and humility, none of which I am famous for. But I am famous for my persistence, and nothing ordinary will ever stop me from finding the incredible beauty in every moment.

Hope this finds you living extraordinarily,

David

Copyright © 2023 David Smith