(HYBRID ESSAY)
WHAT WE CARRY
ELIZABETH TEMPLEMAN
WHAT WE CARRY
ELIZABETH TEMPLEMAN
What we carry, like jugs of water in a desert, sustains us, even as it pulls us down.
How well do I know the things I carry, things I shed? Can I draw them out, extricate each one from the tangle, examine its shape, say its name?
I carry memories, but with no control or much idea of which are getting carried, which dent or warp in the carrying, which spill out from whatever vessel memory forms. I carry belief and bias, like barnacles, with precious little notion of when most have attached to me.
I carry a confounding accumulation of possessions, and a baffling fondness for them. Some seem more to have chosen me, but a few I’m conscious of having selected. The inclination to purge, or to cull, arises seasonally. And I carry that too.
I carry ties to friends, family, husband, the ties woven from affection, loyalty, and longing. Now and then, enemies get drawn up in the load. And for a time, I carry them too.
I carry, in some way or another—always morphing—my children in cumbersome, shapeless bundles. Aloft, they bring me joy, strength, anxiety, love. Striving to sustain connection, without clinging, I carry, also, a responsibility for this impossible agility, this perpetual balancing.
I carry fears, powerful beyond reason, of wasting things—food, whether radish or roast, paper, water, garden soil, minutes, hours, dollars, dimes. I can't quit running cold water into a jug, until hot water comes—to pour into the back of the toilet, saving two litres of flushed water; at first, bright idea—now more an obsession. I do not, it seems, carry perspective.
I carry this love of the written word. But no memory of the time when I didn’t hold it close. Maybe I carry a love of spoken (or unspoken) words too. Words fill my head, in the way I imagine colours swirl in the mind of the painter. And, of course, I try to carry the words themselves, sometimes succeeding, though other loads push words off their perch, more and more.
I carry snatches of songs, diminishing chunks of poems. But as many have dropped away. When I go searching, whole pages of Jelly Belly, Dr. Seuss. Robert Frost? Gone. Robert Munsch? Intact.
I carry my personality (or lack of it, in my mother’s estimation), my full-blown introversion (able to knock an A+ on any test for the trait), my intuiting, endlessly analyzing, judging self, my optimistic, daydreaming ways.
I carry my genes, those ambiguous and tiny coded clusters of chemicals linking me with family back and forward in time. Imagined with cartoon-like clarity, they’re likely at the controls of the whole load-bearing endeavor. For thoroughness sake, I can't dodge one final, perverse admission: I carry the body which carries me.
No wonder, then, it can all get so ponderous: my body, in its most literal rendering, is, well… muscled, flabby, aging. Buttressed by an ill-formed spine, piloted by mis-angled eyes, fueled by will and energy, it does push on. But my thoroughness also leaves me wondering: What would it be like, just once, to dump it all on the ground in a heap, and shake myself into a more ergonomic receptacle?
I picture lining myself with cubbies and pockets. What a sweet relief to sort and repack all of it: To balance things and position the most precious safely, between heart and mind. To cast off husks whose significance has faded.
What we carry, like jugs of water in a desert, sustains us, even as it pulls us down.
How well do I know the things I carry, things I shed? Can I draw them out, extricate each one from the tangle, examine its shape, say its name?
I carry memories, but with no control or much idea of which are getting carried, which dent or warp in the carrying, which spill out from whatever vessel memory forms. I carry belief and bias, like barnacles, with precious little notion of when most have attached to me.
I carry a confounding accumulation of possessions, and a baffling fondness for them. Some seem more to have chosen me, but a few I’m conscious of having selected. The inclination to purge, or to cull, arises seasonally. And I carry that too.
I carry ties to friends, family, husband, the ties woven from affection, loyalty, and longing. Now and then, enemies get drawn up in the load. And for a time, I carry them too.
I carry, in some way or another—always morphing—my children in cumbersome, shapeless bundles. Aloft, they bring me joy, strength, anxiety, love. Striving to sustain connection, without clinging, I carry, also, a responsibility for this impossible agility, this perpetual balancing.
I carry fears, powerful beyond reason, of wasting things—food, whether radish or roast, paper, water, garden soil, minutes, hours, dollars, dimes. I can't quit running cold water into a jug, until hot water comes—to pour into the back of the toilet, saving two litres of flushed water; at first, bright idea—now more an obsession. I do not, it seems, carry perspective.
I carry this love of the written word. But no memory of the time when I didn’t hold it close. Maybe I carry a love of spoken (or unspoken) words too. Words fill my head, in the way I imagine colours swirl in the mind of the painter. And, of course, I try to carry the words themselves, sometimes succeeding, though other loads push words off their perch, more and more.
I carry snatches of songs, diminishing chunks of poems. But as many have dropped away. When I go searching, whole pages of Jelly Belly, Dr. Seuss. Robert Frost? Gone. Robert Munsch? Intact.
I carry my personality (or lack of it, in my mother’s estimation), my full-blown introversion (able to knock an A+ on any test for the trait), my intuiting, endlessly analyzing, judging self, my optimistic, daydreaming ways.
I carry my genes, those ambiguous and tiny coded clusters of chemicals linking me with family back and forward in time. Imagined with cartoon-like clarity, they’re likely at the controls of the whole load-bearing endeavor. For thoroughness sake, I can't dodge one final, perverse admission: I carry the body which carries me.
No wonder, then, it can all get so ponderous: my body, in its most literal rendering, is, well… muscled, flabby, aging. Buttressed by an ill-formed spine, piloted by mis-angled eyes, fueled by will and energy, it does push on. But my thoroughness also leaves me wondering: What would it be like, just once, to dump it all on the ground in a heap, and shake myself into a more ergonomic receptacle?
I picture lining myself with cubbies and pockets. What a sweet relief to sort and repack all of it: To balance things and position the most precious safely, between heart and mind. To cast off husks whose significance has faded.
Elizabeth Templeman lives and works in the Central Interior of British Columbia. A collection of her essays, Notes from the Interior, was published in 2003 by Oolichan Books; individual essays have appeared in The Globe & Mail (“Facts & Arguments”), and journals including Room Magazine and Southern Humanities Review.