“The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness
And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.” ― Czesław Miłosz, from The Separate Notebooks
There were children playing soccer across the street from KISS, the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support building, my berthing for the week. They were yelling, passing the ball and shooting, and there was a certain joy in their voices that rang across the dusty road, that filled the emptiness between us, and that I remembered from my youth. I should write that I only remember it on those rare days when the other boys weren't acting out our fathers' dominance rituals, when it was only for the fun of the match, the kinetics of it all. It was cold yesterday and I smoked a cigarette and listened.
Later in the evening, when I emerged from the rooms to smoke again, they had moved their play from the dusty football pitch to a pair of swing sets just beyond some neglected tennis courts. There were aging pallets stacked where players might stand on the court, and the fence was badly in need of repair. The surface of the courts had seen better days. But beyond these was colorful playground equipment, things for our children to climb on and slide down and make those joyous noises on. The wooden swing sets these boys had descended on, a weary platoon in respite, were as old as the tennis courts and in as much a state of clear deterioration.
The tone of their conversation had changed dramatically. I could not tell if they were speaking Danish or Kalaallisut, and would not probably be able to tell the difference anyway, certainly not at a distance, but it didn't matter because this new tone was fairly recognizable. I've heard it in every playground I timidly shuffled through as a boy, in every country I've been to as an adult, and really every time men with little understanding of the world come together in groups.
There is a shift in any language when men are at leisure in groups, and they are either comfortable with each other or forced together with some frequency for no other reason than lack of any more desirable options. It is the vicious language of ridicule. And I don't mean the honest and personal, narrative-developing, and often delicate ribbing of close friendship. That is something of value. This was the kind of ridicule that marks a boy. Marked me. Marks one as weaker than the other boys. Convinces one of both his own inadequacies and the savage capacity of humanity to demand and to position and push and claim and to disdain. But I was a sensitive child, as much or more than I was weak.
I wanted to tell the weak one, whoever he was, that he needed to suffer, to bear it, and continue because there are more places and wonders in this world than he can know, and the suffering will not break him overmuch, and he is only young, and this childishness will not define him, no matter how much this particular derision may hurt him now. I wanted to tell him that these foolish boys who want only position or power will become men who want only position and power. That they may think those things describe a life, but they do not.
I wanted to console him with a story of his future. Because I know his story. He leaves his home and everything that gives him the first inklings of an identity, but never defines him, and finds a beautiful and intelligent woman who loves him and abides his faults because his heart is honest. And they love each other more after they work out the rough parts of their partnership. And love each other for the way they define each other. And each grows stronger because of the union. And maybe they'll have a child and that child will grow up to be a strong and intelligent woman, or a beautiful and delicate boy, with hearts as honest as their parents and as honest as their parents' hearts. I know this story because I found such a partner and we want such children. I was him, that boy, but I am a man now. And for many years.
I know all this, boy. Trust. Be different and value the different among the many who desire only the same. Please, trust me in this one little thing.
I said nothing, but smoked. Could say nothing. I'm a stranger here. There must be an Inuit word for outsider. I'll bet there's one for colonizer. Although I am not, I don't feel I have the right to a voice here and I'm fine with that. Silence is not indifference. And difference is not weakness.
So I'll be the traveler. The pilgrim. Only a guest. Grateful at the welcome. Because I was once one of those weaker ones and thought suffering the extent of my world, and bore ridicule, and viciousness, and the pettiness of others. And now, although I am an outsider again, I am certain there is too much world. Too much world. For weak boys. And different boys. And a stranger who wants only to listen and look and move on, steering toward the indifference of nature, and to different natures.
And well clear of large groups of men.
“In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.”
― Wisława Szymborska, from “The End and the Beginning”
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