Walking through troubled times
There are no easy answers in this alarming time, only turns to steadfast modes of solace.
This Sunday, I had planned to write about winter walks, how quiet and mystical parks can be, decorated with ice and snow, nearly empty in the darkest season. A walk in the cold can be oddly perfect for thinking and clearing out our busy, worried minds.
I will get around to such peaceful walks in winter by the end of this note, but I can’t delve into anything without first acknowledging the troubled state of our world and the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine only a few days ago.
I’ve been in spaces this week where the mood was light and the war unfolding wasn’t mentioned at all. But this turn to war is too serious to not pause together, even in a tiny newsletter about wellness and illness and our bodies. Also, it’s not entirely unconnected. We feel this shock, worry, concern, outrage in our bodies. Intense emotions are buzzing in billions of human bodies across our planet.
In times of catastrophe, disaster, trouble, or any such seismic shift, being together as humans is comforting and foundational. A reassurance of others gives some sense of stability amid the quakes. We connect our arms metaphorically and literally, to share our outrage and worry, to learn the history and context, to discuss, and to help however we can.
We are tricked so often in America into glossing over the horrors of the world, both inside our borders and outside, numbed by devices and the outsized distractions. But turning away doesn’t rescue us; it only takes us further from our shared humanity. Our bodies feel what is going on, and our fellow humans under attack, suddenly at war in 2022 in Europe, need us to pay attention.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has invaded a peaceful neighboring country on a premise of lies; hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have fled; the future is quite uncertain. Millions of Ukrainians are courageously resisting; democratically elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is leading from the Kiev; outraged people all over the world, including in Russia, have taken to the streets to protest. Putin has threatened to deploy Russia’s nuclear weapons if his invasion is stopped. This is not a morass with an obvious outcome.
What can we do, as citizens of far-away nations? Donate to organizations supporting Ukraine. Follow the news through credible sources. Talk about it, and talk to our children, too.
Finding accurate sources of information and ways to help in this evolving environment both require a bit of research. This is further complicated by how Russia spins falsities (and embeds them in fake social media accounts) and how quickly the reporting shifts, based on the understandably incomplete knowledge of what is happening and by whom and why. (I hesitated too to write here — who knows what will shift in the hours ahead? What will sound tone deaf or not helpful later? But zipping our lips and closing our eyes is a worse option by far, and I hope you will forgive any accidental mistakes or missteps.)
TV news, by its very nature, is superficial. It also repeats narratives that may or may not be true, and commenters who are required to keep talking and talking can be glib and insensitive, which compounds the terrible news. More thorough, nuanced reporting is available in written form online from credible news outlets, including stories that give better background, context, details, and, importantly, the human side of the turmoil that Ukrainians are experiencing right now, deeper than stats and sound bites. Experienced journalists, on the ground, at great risk, are reporting for all of us.
Here are a few things I’m reading, along with The New York Times, Atlantic, NPR, BBC, and assorted other publications.
Thinking about… is a newsletter written by Timothy Synder, a history professor at Yale who specializes in Europe and specifically Ukraine. Back in January he wrote about How to think about war in Ukraine, which I found a helpful overview (it’s not up to date with the latest war movements, but the history and context is just as relevant); he’s written two posts about ways to help Ukrainians with the second post offering more routes using credit cards rather than bank transfers. Other posts delve into the history of Ukraine, Putin’s perverse language of “denazifying” and its hidden intention, and much more.
Putin’s miscalculation: The president has misread not only Ukrainians, but also Russians — this Politico piece by Ukrainian journalist Zoya Zheftalovich started as a Twitter thread.
Ukraine’s ‘servant of the people’ Zelenskiy leads them in war — profile of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Politico.
Twitter can be a cesspool of mean commentary, but it is also filled with information from experts and official organizations. The government of Ukraine is tweeting, including details for how to support financially, as well as dozens of journalists on the ground.
There is an endless stream of new information to absorb, yet we have to turn to tend to our own children and families, and to allow our bodies to decompress as we hope for Ukraine to return to its peaceful state and Russia to be repelled.
While we are hoping, it might help to walk and hope. Movement unlodges built-it tension, worries, fear, spirals of despair knotted into our cells. (Movement is also the most efficient way to complete the stress cycle.)
Moving outside, even in chilly temperatures, awakens our senses and reacquaints us with the corporeal world.
Earlier this month, we shook off our pandemic stiffness and visited Taughannock Falls State Park in New York. A flat, wide walking path followed a river loaded with slabs of ice stacked like crackers on a tray, fanned out along the riverbanks. The trees glistened with ice.
And the gorge! The path was the bottom of a canyon, winding this way and that with steep walls of rock on either side, until the final curve, which revealed an enormous, rushing, dazzling nearly 400-foot drop of a waterfall, tumbling down to a frozen pool of snow and ice.
That was a dramatic winter walk, but it gave me a new longing for parks in general, for padding through white-cloaked woods, for hearing the softness of winter, insulated by snow.
Whatever the season, our minds shift into a different gear in the open air and wide landscape. Our eyes go from focusing a foot in front of us, reading glowing lines on a screen, to focusing hundreds of yards away — to cliffs, treetops, wispy clouds, beams of sunlight. The devilish circuitry of stress loosens its grip.
Outside our mass-manufactured nests, we humans are set back into a more proper scale, teeny beneath towering trees, simply one more living thing among thousands of trees, shrubs, moss, and mushrooms. We can sense our humanness, our vulnerability, and our presentness.
The cacophony of modern human entanglements dissipates, just a bit, as we walk the events of our lives and the world through our minds and through our muscles.
To our journeys and better health, and to peace ahead for Ukraine and the world,
Brianne
Beautifully written Brianne.