Light Enough to Carry

Lena’s guest house on the tiny island of Belize’s Tobacco Caye was made of two by fours and planks—no need for insulation, so no need for drywall or paneling. Everything inside and out—each board, each nail, each screw— was painted utility green, the color of park benches. We ate our meals in a dining area separated from the kitchen by a long counter, so we could easily talk while Lena cooked for us.

She loved dinnerware, her one indulgence. Whenever she visited her children in the States, she returned with a new set of department store china. The shelves under her counter were lined with matching plates, bowls, and cups. Daily, the table was set with a different pattern—daisies, cardinals, small scenes of pagodas and bamboo.

Lena was a tremendous cook. One morning she made the best scrambled eggs of my life; the secret, apparently, was lots of butter. I’ve never been able to recreate those eggs. Perhaps my arteries are grateful.

A lifetime of work and island living had left her body both a little worn and still energetic. One morning over breakfast, she told us that she was taking care not to become too heavy, so that, eventually, when her children needed to care for her, they would be able to carry her. She meant this practically, literally—her son or daughter might one morning need to pick her up from her bed and take her out to the hammock.

I’ve often thought of this conversation, not in terms of pounds, but of the heart and mind. How to become light enough so that, if need be, those caring for me someday might find it a lesser burden? Most recently, I’ve found it to be even more immediate: how to become light enough in the now so that my presence helps, rather than harms? It is, in part, the familiar question: how do I walk lightly on this earth? And it is, in part, another question: how to be in the world so that my presence is a lifting, not a weight?

Bungee the Cat

It is the season of resolution. I have thoughts on how I hope (resolve?) to enter this year. (Though in full disclosure, these thoughts did not arise on a cold, crisp January morning, but in the dark afternoons of November, when hearts were unsettled, and the day’s light seeped out of the sky well before dinner time, and a constant rain looked like tears sliding down the window panes.)

I hope to not shutter myself off from the world and all its fearsome, beautiful, and unexpected ways. We become wary of what we don’t know, especially as we are encouraged in fear and suspicion by those who know we are less powerful when we are isolated. To be in community is to get to know those different from ourselves, to be side by side—whether it be a bright night of listening to music, or a wet afternoon rebuilding a park trail, or a brief moment contemplating apples in the Co-op’s bulk aisle.

Or here is another way to look at it, suggested by the writer and activist Adrienne Maree Brown: We need to learn to be with people because we don’t know who we will be with in the Apocalypse.

I want to remember that my community needs me. What I give may not be my most practiced skill or what headlines tell me is most urgent, but if it is something that keeps me engaged and eager to help, then it is a good offering. Whenever possible, I hope to show up in person. The screen, though a useful tool, is a flat way to be together.

I hope to be quiet enough to listen to many voices—including those not often heard. And I want to listen to myself, including hearing that inner buzz that says a conversation has become corrosive, a cycle of venting that is no longer giving release, but is just perpetuating the anxiety. (I recently heard someone say, “We’ve outsourced almost every aspect of our governance. The only thing we’ve gotten good at is complaining.” Ouch, that hit a nerve.)

One of the perks of age is that I can now feel the moment when too much staring at headlines or too much exchange of doom stories over dinner makes my head buzz as though I’m a tuning fork. Years of pushing through—to meet a work deadline or take care of things that cannot wait—sets the habit of ignoring the body’s signals. That inner listening is a good self-care to recultivate.

Finally, I want to accept the limits, and the potential, of my reach. My impact may be less than I imagine globally, yet much more than I realize locally—in my state, in my county, in my community.

And my greatest reach, the place where I can, daily, do the most good is with those in my closest circle.

Recently, our old barn cat, Cinderelli, died. She was a savvy outdoor cat, the survivor of a neighboring house fire, the mother of six kittens—tiger orange, silky black, gray with white, white with gray, classic calico, and a buffed rose smoke—each different from the last. Cinderelli was capable and independent, until she became deaf and then perhaps a little confused, cared for by her last surviving progeny—orange Bungee, who watched over her, patiently waiting for her when she couldn’t hear the dinner call.

After her death, I was aware of Bungee’s alone-ness, of the fact that the one body he had to curl against was gone. I told my granddaughter about Cinderelli’s death—the first farm animal to leave when she was old enough to know it, the first death in her small life circle. She took it philosophically, with a mix of the pragmatic and the kind. Bungee, she said, would be the saddest, so it would be Bungee we must take care of.

And so, every morning, when I go out to feed Bungee on the porch, I sit on the hard, cool steps and wait to see if he comes to curl around my legs after breakfast. And he does, his back rising under the pressure of my hand, his face brushing up against my arm. I sit, with nothing to do except stroke the surprising softness of his thick creamsicle-colored fur, and I feel both our bodies relax, a gentling of our nervous systems in that moment of contact, with the rain drizzling down, the sky layered in gray. In a heavy but beautiful world, we sit side by side on the porch, becoming lighter together.

Written by Beverly Faxon for the January 2025 edition of the Natural Enquirer.