I will be your vessel...I am the vessel that holds all of you. I am the one left stranded here the day you decided to carry on—without the baggage of your past. I am the memories that you pushed violently away at first and then left to drift behind you when you moved too fast for them to catch up. I was there, first walking and then running, behind you to pick up the pieces. But your footsteps are too far ahead for me to reach and I cannot find my way here alone. So I walk now through the deserts of your past, picking up shards of memories that cut like glass and burn like the hot sand under my feet. And it is too late to turn back because, you see, I have no footsteps. The only thing that holds me is the fact that I held you. I am a shadow that lost her way, a loner looking for home, and a vessel cracking on all sides. So I must ask you, if you are so far ahead, where will the sun be to give me my light? Where can I find my map to guide me home? And who will hold the vessel that holds me?
I wrote this unsent letter to my sister just one year ago. Originally intended as a journal entry, then a letter, and finally as a reminder of what it is that I am searching for, it became one of the single most important pieces I have ever written. I spent my entire life holding the weight my family felt too burdensome to carry. Their pilgrimage became my pilgrimage, leaving no space for complaint or self-discovery. So when I found myself three hours away from the family that defined me, I lost myself entirely. By the time I left Dallas to come to the University of Texas, my sister’s addiction to cocaine, stays in Juvenile, and constant running away had come to a close. My parent’s marriage had also long since dissipated. But the weight persisted. Furthermore, it allowed me to deem myself defenseless against its influence and surrender my responsibility for myself.
Slouching downward, enveloped by my own pain, I walked through this earth with no acknowledgement to the pain that surrounded me – that is, human’s maltreatment of animals. Despite a Montessori education that supposedly promotes human interaction with animals and a precious cat named Maggie, I was unable to realize that I, too, had cracked the vessel that held me.
The ache began the first day I came home after seeing my sister in Juvenile. I cried until my body shook and my shoulders trembled. I cried until the book between my hands dampened and its edges wilted. I cried until my cat, Maggie, came to hold my pain for me. I still do not fully understand how she came to know how to rest herself on my shoulders or to wrap her paws around my neck whenever I began to cry. But I suppose that it is not as important as the fact that she did. With my dad withdrawn in his office and my mom crying in the bedroom, Maggie came to me as my vessel to lift the burden and relieve the ache, if only temporarily.
I returned to school that Monday with no urge to talk about what I saw or how I had cried. Instead, I got lost in working with long division beads, shown to the right,[1] and painting in the lunchroom. This pattern continued on throughout elementary and middle school. Each day I came to school, no matter what I witnessed the weekend before or at home at night, and I would walk through the double doors, shake my shoulders free of the baggage and entrench myself in the learning environment.
Long division beads similar to those I used in elementary school
Going to a Montessori school, I worked with natural materials instead of papers and workbooks, demonstrated in the video below.[2] Montessori forced me to realize, mostly through “practical life” activities such as gardening, setting the table, and cooking, how to gain a sense of and responsibility for my surroundings. But the scope of the surroundings I adjusted to through these activities was limited. I felt accountable only for my immediate environment– my home in the suburbs – and not for the larger one – namely, this earth and the species that inhabit it.
As the years carried onward, the more abstract my education became, working less in “practical life” and long division beads, and more with papers and books. Simultaneously, however, I began to have more interactions with nature through class camping excursions and trips to the “Melissa Campus,” a place where we could explore natural Texas wildlife and study about fossils, botany, and water forms. But despite my education in nature, I cannot recall a single encounter with any animals on either of these types of trips. For this reason, Montessori did not instill in me the respect for animals that seemingly a respect for nature would call for. In other words, I appreciated the magnificence of the earth with no knowledge or regard to the animals that inhabited it. Ironically, one of the major goals of Montessori is to put “the child in touch with environment, and [help] him to learn to make intelligent choices and carry out research in a prepared environment.”[3] But I was not in touch with my environment – in fact, I sat so far outside its bounds that I became part of its burden. Animals carried my weight. [4]
My shoulders bent so far forward that my eyes turned themselves downward to the cruelty with which I unknowingly treated animals, and now knowingly continue to treat animals, by eating meat and consuming animal products. I “appreciated” my cat, Maggie, while treating her as a pet and not a fellow being. I explored the environment with no notice to the species that inhabited it. I continued to eat meat even after I watched the violent treatment of animals in the film, Earthlings. Too concerned with the burden placed on me, I never realized who I placed the burden on – animals. Moreover, I stood so high atop their shoulders that I could not hear their voices or their cries.
There were times, however, that I truly believe I allowed animals to walk by my side and not beneath my heavy feet. When Maggie grew sick from a rare kidney disease, in the mornings before I left for school I would hold her the way she held me. Sometimes I can still hear the sound of her gentle paws scurrying across the tile to come wake me at 7:30 sharp for her brief morning embrace. When her body grew weak and feeble, I would lay her against my chest and rock her until she purred her way into oblivion of all pain, similar to the girl in the picture below.
My Vessel, Maggie [5]
This, I believe, should be the goal of all humans – to have this kind of reciprocal relationship with all animals. Barry Lopez, an author mainly concerned with American Indian tradition and experience, writes in an essay entitled “A Literature of Place” that “It may be more important now to enter into an ethical and reciprocal relationship with everything around us than to continue to work toward the sort of control of the physical world that, until recently, we aspired to.”[6] Just as I lifted her pain, she lifted mine. Maggie loved me with no conditions and nothing for me to hold in exchange for such love – except her.
When Maggie passed away in 2005, the absence of her love left me feeling heavier than ever. Similar to the loss John Graves describes in his piece, “Blue and Other Dogs,” the space an animal leaves when it passes away is big.[7] The ache began as soon as I came home after school the day she was put to sleep. I cried until my body shook and my shoulders trembled. I cried until the books between my hands dampened and their edges wilted. I cried, and for the first time in thirteen years, there was no Maggie to come lift the pain, if only temporarily.
So the weight persisted. It followed me through the rest of high school and eventually all the way to Austin. I took my experience with Maggie as a singular event – one that had no effect on my treatment of other animals. But it is only through recognizing my responsibility for this earth that I will be able to find my identity within it. It would be easy to say that pets are different and that my treatment of other species does not matter. But it matters. Animals are not humans, but they are living, breathing beings that feel the burden pain brings. Maggie will always remind me of that.
So here comes the choice – I can continue on with slouched shoulders, treading through this earth with no footprints, or I can turn my head upward and lead with eyes forward and outward, leaving deep footprints in my wake. I can become “the companion of a place, not its authority, not its owner.”[8] Specifically, I can care for the animals I have so willingly taken advantage of by no longer supporting an industry that chooses not only how they will die, but how they will live. I can educate myself by going out into nature to experience other beings besides myself. I can finally let go of this weight and acknowledge that this earth is the vessel that holds me.
Learning to be Sheltered by this Earth...[9]
"Shelter" - Ray LaMontagne
"I guess you don't need it
I guess you don't want me to repeat it
But everything I have to give I'll give to you
It's not like we planned it
You tried to stay, but you could not stand it
To see me shut down slow
As though it was an easy thing to do
Listen when
All of this around us'll fall over
I tell you what we're gonna do
You will shelter me my love
And I will shelter you
I will shelter you
I left you heartbroken, but not until those very words were spoken
Has anybody ever made such a fool out of you
It's hard to believe it
Even as my eyes do see it
The very things that make you live are killing you
Listen when all of this around us'll fall over
I tell you what we're gonna do
You will shelter me my love
I will shelter you
Listen when
All of this around us'll fall over
I tell you what we're gonnado
You will shelter me my love
I will shelter you
If you shelter me too
I will shelter you
I will shelter you."
[1] Long Division, Danville Montessori School, Danville, Kentucky, http://danvillemontessorischool.org/images/longdivision.jpg (accessed February 12, 2009).
[2] This film illustrates the "practical life" exercises specific to Montessori Schools, especially setting the table and working with "natural materials." Such exercises lead to a "sensory awareness" of one's environment and are believed to contribute largely to developing a Montessori child's independence. See Toddler Day Care -Montessori influenced -sensorial & practical, dir. Erica Thomas, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZRE9smmYg (accessed February 12, 2009).
[3] This article discusses the importance of a specific learning environment in Montessori education, where the child works with natural materials in an environment organized by subject areas, including "cooking, cleaning...[and]caring for animals." Montanaro, "Montessori Materials and Learning Environments," Montessori: The International Montessori Index, section goes here, http://www.montessori.edu/index.html (accessed February 9, 2009).
[5] Pawsitive Print Photography. http://pawsitiveprints.com/gallery.html (accessed February 14, 2009).
[6] In this essay, Barry Holstrum Lopez explores the interaction between humans and nature and the necessity for an "ethical and reciprocal relationship" between the two. He is especially influenced by the American Indian experience and the connect indigenous people have with landscape. Barry H. Lopez, "A Literature of Place," USIA Electronic Journals 1, no. 10 (August 1996): 47.
[7] Famous for his tales of nature, this short story explores the specific relationship between Graves and the dog he loved most, Blue. This particular excerpt discusses the emptiness with which Blue’s disappearance left. John Graves, "Blue and Some Other Dogs," Texas Monthly (1980): 135.
[8] Barry H. Lopez, "A Literature of Place," USIA Electronic Journals 1, no. 10 (August 1996): 46.
[9]"Shelter," Ray LaMontagne, online music, 2004, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3UfvSjo0L4 (accessed February 9, 2009).
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