“To really touch something, she is learning–the bark of a sycamore tree in the gardens; a pinned stag beetle in the Department of Entomology; the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr. Geffard’s workshop–is to love it.” ~Anthony Doerr in All the Light We Cannot See
“She” is Marie-Laure and she is blind. She sees through the laying on of hands, the tracing of shapes beneath fingertips, and the mental mapping of physical spaces. Even though she is blind, Doerr’s protagonist discovers sight through the use of her other senses. She sees the world in unusual ways, and yet her experience of life is concrete. It is physical. It is set in a world of nouns.
Bark, beetle, scallop shell.
She begins to carry the “burden of nouns” and it leads her to love.
Author and poet John Blase speaks about the burden of nouns as the weight or substance things carry in our lives. He says we are here to be a witness to our lives, and these nouns help us lay claim to that witness. These earthly things serve as a connection to things of the spirit.
I think of his words often when I write. I’m given to metaphor and to a slow drift into the ephemeral. Blase’s words remind me that concrete words root me to this earth, and I’d best put them to good use.
Likewise, Doerr’s words remind me that these nouns aren’t simply for writing, they are for living too. I haven’t always allowed my nouns, the physical stuff of my life, to transform the way I live into something resembling love.
Like Marie-Laure, as I’ve grown more accustomed to the darkness of this world, the more conscientious I become of tracing the shape of the people, places, and things in my life.
Last summer, I visited Italy on a writer’s retreat. When I want to conjure the pleasures of the trip, I return to the nouns of Tuscany. The rough stone of the abbey walls, pungent wedges of cheese, gelato, pebbled leather, the smooth wood of ancient pews, lemon peel, or the brittle pages of aged books. These nouns act as a hook on which I hang my love for the place.
I practice loving the distant world in this way and often times, the distant world doesn’t disappoint. Tuscany and the people, places, and things I encountered there are easy to adore.
However, my everyday life is riddled with nouns I’d rather ignore. These, of course, are the nouns that deserve my closest attention. Stacks of dishes, piles of student papers, laundry, an aging dog, a dwindling bank account, a difficult acquaintance, the overgrown, thorn-riddled rose in the garden. These nouns ground me in my humanity.
These nouns bear witness to my life alongside the people I love and those who love me, giving my life purpose, meaning, and gravity. These are the burdens, the weight, each of us carry.
Like Marie-Laure, I hope to stretch out my hands, run them over the hills and valleys of my life, gather my nouns, and let the substance of love sink like an anchor in my chest.
This is how we learn to love people. This is how we learn to love a place. This is how we learn to love a thing. We give it the power of our focused attention, and in turn, it pierces us with meaning.
When we know a thing, when we name it, when we run our fingers over it, when we grasp it, when we see it with clear vision, we learn to love and bear the good and heavy weight.
