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(I owe the first part of this column to an informal writers’ workshop sponsored by the Smithy Pioneer Gallery. The small group, led by Gallery Director Danielle Newell, meets Sunday afternoons and is open to anyone interested in the writing craft. As a warmup exercise on that very rainy afternoon, we each wrote a few paragraphs on the weather and emotions. Here’s what that keen group prompted me to scribble down) The dour old Scotsman, the one featured in jokes without number about buying lottery tickets, pinching pennies, scorning worldly ways, etc., once silenced a friend who was praising the beautiful weather.
``Aye,’’ he said grimly. ``We’ll pay for this.’’
It’s a wonder anyone talks to that Scotsman, the way he knocks wind right out of your sails if you’re happy. But, then, if no one talked to him, there’d be no jokes.
Of course, he’s a caricature of Scots. They really are as jolly and positive as the rest of us. But maybe some do carry a strain of an old-time, stony Calvinism that distains undue worldly pleasure. And perhaps that’s what spoke in the crusty old man: Having too much fun in the world may mark you out as one of the unsaved.
Which means, that as swatter is to fly, God’s wrath will eventually slam you down, ending your fun forever.
But maybe there’s a subtler, more secular grimness in that geezer’s words. Maybe he’s just saying, ``Go ahead and draw your mood from the beautiful weather. But how will you feel when the sleet comes, and the ice, and freezing, wretched snow?’’
Better to soldier along in plodding glumness, than to be bounced around by the temperature and barometric pressure. Hunker down, put up with life. It’ll be over soon enough.
Oh, spare me the company of that old boy! Let him go visit with Eeyore, the donkey in ``Winnie the Pooh.’’ Whatever the weather, Eeyore is at his perverse happiest when he’s feeling low and put upon by existence.
While those two mope together, I’ll sit with a pint of strong cider under a shade tree, rejoicing in the greenness all around, and in white clouds against the blue. And give me a similar pint, when comes the grimmest of winter.
Let me sit, feet propped up by the wood stove, and be thankful for the cider, warmth, and all good things. . .
That’s as far as I got, writing in the good company of those other scribes. (If you’d like to join the fun, call the Smithy: 547-8671, or just show up with paper and pen on Sundays at four.) But I went home that day through pelting rain, thinking about our feelings and their control on viewing the world and living our lives. I thought especially about our emotions.
Later in the week, I carried ruminations further, outdoors and under a shade tree. No cider in hand, but a glass of iced tea. I sat rejoicing in still another day’s display of drifting white clouds (what a summer for them!) and drifted myself into a favorite image for emotions: They're like weather fronts that pass through us.
I like that image. It stresses the lack of control we have on emotions’ overshadowing and then departing us. And, more important, it stresses emotion temporariness.
The lack of control and their fleeting nature mark both positive feelings and disheartening ones. Intense joy really is fleeting (that Scotsman again!), as are simple happiness, serenity, rapture over nature or art, a sense of being blessed, a burst of sudden, intense joy over a loved one. Like weather fronts, these lovely, positive emotions move in, possess, and then move on.
As do the disheartening ones: sadness, for instance, disappointment, a sense of loss, the pain of petty betrayal.
These drift on and finally through us. And we brighten again.
I guess I’d distinguish these transient states of positive and negative feeling from other, more prolonged examples that almost become states of our being. I’m thinking, for example, of crushing grief at loss or a spouse or child, of clinical depression, searing outrage at the way we humans treat one another and all given us in stewardship. Such states aren’t transient. They are only transcended with help, hard work, and (dare I say it?) prayer.
I have a good friend, a hero to me, who has lived with clinical depression for decades. While still suffering, he transcended it by becoming a skilled counselor _ for others with clinical depression.
And searing grief, I know from experience, can eventually give birth to deep empathy with new grievers.
And outrage at humans’ behavior can move beyond banners and marches to determined action, large and small, that counters human self-centeredness.
There are also, of course, blessed and prolonged states of being, some achieved by us, others gifts of grace.
I’m thinking of fundamental serenity; a nourishing centeredness of self (not self-centeredness); the blissful gift of abiding, reciprocal love; a rejoicing in life and even its natural limits. Guard those feelings. They are treasures.
In sum: Put up with the weather fronts, for they’ll surely pass on. Take hold of deeper negative emotions and shape them, as best you can, into the good and useful. And as to those deep states, those positive one: Rejoice and be grateful.
And should you, on a walk, overtake someone like the dour Scot, greet him brightly, link arms with him, and hustle him along a little faster, talking of the good, the bright, the beautiful. He’ll grumble, but he’ll secretly enjoy it.
READ ABOUT Jim Atwell’s book, From Fly Creek—Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country at JimAtwell. com
