Archibald McLees, Engraver: New Spencerian compendium of penmanship, Part 2 (1879)

We Can Be Certain Now
When I began writing this series, I couldn't have known we would experience something like another Exile together when I was halfway through creating it. Exiles might be much more common than I had earlier appreciated. I had innocently figured that most people never experience that sort of trauma, and it was consequently a rare sort of event. I recognize familiar tells when surveying my friends and colleagues' reactions since the recent election. We're all Exiles now, seemingly kidnapped against our will and forced to cope with conditions we'd hoped we'd never have to face. Our faith has already been wounded, and we anticipate it will get worse, much worse. We're heartbroken, and we damned well should be. What's coming still seems utterly unnecessary. We seriously believed that we were better than this. It sure seemed like we used to be. These feelings provide the context within which Exiles have always existed. The sense of unfairness never completely relents. It would be unreasonable for me not to doubt my ability to cope with the upcoming insults. Must we exist on platitudes now? We were formerly engaged in serious business. We're forced to struggle to barely achieve survival, and even that's in question now. All Exiles start the same, with their end in question. Every Exile ends differently; of this, alone, We Can Be Certain Now.
—

Weekly Writing Summary

This Exiled Story finds The Muse and I preserving our life rituals and patterns even after being Exiled. Preservation insists upon rendering significant differences familiar.

Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel: Everyman (1556 - 1560)
Gallery Notes: The bearded figure with the lantern represents Everyman during his lifelong search. The legend explains, ‘Everyone searches for himself in various things, all over the world. How can anyone then get lost, when one is always looking for oneself? However, no one knows himself… Whoever understands this has insight into a great miracle’.
"We live lives of ritual and habit  …"
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This Exiled Story, StatusQuoing, settles into the Domestic Tranquility that reigned before we induced our third Exile by moving halfway closer to home.

Constant Troyon: Vache qui se gratte [Scratching Cow] (1858)
"I knew most people only in passing."
—
This Exiled Story, DaGoils, extends my descriptions of my adventures in relatively early Exile when I agreed to help feed feral cat colonies and made a new friend.

Beatrix Potter: Cats in the Window (1909)
" …  those fading days may never go away."
—
This Exiled Story recounts how it was when we were Just_Visiting back home while we were still in Exile. There's probably no lonelier feeling than Just_Visiting while Exiled.

Philippe Pigouchet: Visitation, from Book of Hours (15th Century)
" Who would greet us when we returned?"
—
This Exiled Story reminds me of the utterly transforming effect Visitors had on our Exile. I wonder if we could have survived without the emergency rations our Visitors brought.

Isaac Israels: Two Donkeys (1897 - 1901)
Gallery Notes:
Scheveningen’s donkeys were not just entertainment for seaside visitors; Israels made grateful use of them in his paintings. He portrayed them a few times, either with children riding or a boy leading, or as here, waiting for the next ride. Their keeper lies in the foreground, on the sand.
"I remember we'd once been Exiled before our Visitors found us home."
—
This Exiled Story, VenueChange, finally introduces the second half of our Exile, where we relocated to Colorado, a venue closer to our home than Takoma Park had been.

Paul Gauguin: Change of Residence, from the Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints (1899)
" … [the extroverted ones would always] stare down at someone else's shoes."
—
I began writing this series because I had been flashing back to our experiences after being Exiled. I figured that I might clear some lingering trauma by revisiting the stories, even though current practice has concluded that revisiting trauma does not resolve anything. However, that conclusion might depend upon how one defines 'resolve.' These stories have been helping me get my stories straighter about those times. I'm finding much to appreciate, both in the kindnesses extended to me and also in how I responded to the stresses I encountered. I'm even seeing some universalities emerging from my very personal experiences. I saw this week how Preservation continues, even under the most daunting conditions, and how anything can become a basis for some serious Status-Quoing. The joy found in even the more pedestrian activities, like feeding feral cats and naming them DaGoils. How, in some ways, we're Just_Visiting, and the great gift Visitors bring. Fifty-four stories into this Exiled Series, I finally got around to moving the venue to our final stop on our grand Exile. Thank you for following along.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz