The small life

I met an old man strolling outside the imposing church at the heart of Tertenia. I was surprised to see anyone around the church; it was the middle of a weekday afternoon. He said he was there for a funeral, and that he went to funerals because it was a chance to see people from the town and surrounding area. As we spoke, people of all ages were making their way slowly toward the church entrance, coming from all directions. About an hour later, the church bells began to ring throughout the town with a sombre tunelessness. They rang like this for half an hour, reminding us all of the life that had been, and of how short our own lives are.

…any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne

The old ways are still very much in play here. The whole town gathers for a funeral, even if they were not particularly close to the person. The dead are actively remembered; flowers are placed regularly on graves, even for those who died decades ago. Old women wear black as a sign of mourning. People grow vegetables and hunt and make their own cheese. There are actually still shepherds here. As in, people who hang out in fields with their sheep. We’ve seen them daily, moving their flocks from pasture to pasture, watching as they graze.

Our landlady, who lives in the capital city, Cagliari, told us that she could never live in Tertenia, that it is too boring, there is nothing to do. But what does that mean, exactly? I can imagine that it might be difficult to find highly-paid employment in these small towns, but the statement also seems to hint at distain for the old ways, the simple, slow life. I’ve noticed that we all have a way of being over-eager to justify our decisions, especially the ones that we are not so convinced of, as if by swaying the opinions of others, we might finally quell the vague uneasiness inside. But life in big cities is not always so grand and glamorous. In fact, it rarely is. City life will likely just mean that more of your time will be consumed by activities that don’t really make you happier. You will drive a lot more, you will wait in longer lines, you might work more to pay for the expensive city life that so easily sucks you into the endless cycle of consumption, and you will probably be more stressed. Even though there are more people, you will likely know fewer of them and spend less time in their company, because, like you, they are all too occupied with their own busy lives.

Until I started travelling like this, I’d never lived in a small town. The smallest place was Regina, Saskatchewan, with a population of around 200,000 at the time. The kids I grew up with often spoke of moving to even bigger cities and I was curious about it too. I went to Montreal for university, and many years later, moved to Calgary to be closer to the mountains. There is no question that these places have more “stuff” going on: more concerts, more museums, more festivals, more restaurants. I do appreciate those offerings, but I also found that my life always seemed to feel so busy that I didn’t often take advantage of them.

Having now spent a fair bit of time in small towns, I do not disparage them. In fact, I seek them. I think we have a lot to learn from this simpler life. After a month in Tertenia, I knew many shop keepers as well or better than those I saw regularly for five years in Calgary. People take time to talk to each other…because they have time. And because you have more spare time and yet there are no concerts or theatres, you are forced to entertain yourself, to creatively overcome your boredom. I don’t think I would have started this blog while living in Calgary. But perhaps the thing I appreciate the most is a pervasive feeling of connectedness and respect for the land and living things. People in these towns know where their food comes from, and they take pride in making that food as healthy and delicious as they can. The town is small enough that even a small child could walk from its centre to the edge, where there are wide green vistas, sheep, lizards, bugs, birds, plants with flowers, plants with thorns. Ulysse and I find ourselves in constant awe of this smorgasbord of life, life that we’d have passed without notice in our big-city rush.

A few nights ago, we saw a small bit of that life wandering on the living room floor, unwittingly transported back from the climbing crag in one of our packs. A little black beetle, about an inch long, marched slowly in a manner reminiscent of a wind-up toy, looking forlorn against the hard, white tile. He was missing half of one antenna, but other than that, and being some 20 km from home, he seemed to be okay. He was likely some sort of dung beetle, given the abundance of sheep leavings in the area he chose to inhabit. 

“Shall I put him outside?” I asked Ulysse. 

“Well, maybe there isn’t enough…er…food…for him, here in town,” he responded, his brows furrowed in concern.

I reminded him that southern Europeans remain unconvinced that it is remotely civilized to pick up their dog poo.

“But he’ll get squished on the street,” Ulysse pointed out. It was cold, dark, and raining. We agreed that the beetle should be transported out of town the next morning. 

So, we convinced him to crawl into an old plastic container and put a large drop of water in one corner. When he discovered the water, he lowered his head and drank. And drank. I added more water to the drop, and he continued. He must’ve consumed a third of his body weight in water before he’d finished. Something about that action touched us deeply. This little beetle had been out wandering around, doing his thing, when these two cruel giants had carelessly transported him away from his poopy paradise. He was now somewhere that felt completely foreign with no way to get home, and he was relieved to finally find some small comfort. I added a small chunk of cheese to the container, hoping that a hungry dung beetle would not look down upon this offering as being insufficiently processed. Ulysse stepped outside to pull up a bit of greenery to try to make the container feel more natural for the night.

The next morning, while I worked, Ulysse drove the beetle all the way back to his home. On my own, I think I would have just walked him to the edge of town and put him down in a pasture, but Ulysse insisted. We’d made a connection with the little guy. We had come to care about him and it just felt like the right thing to do. Maybe we’d all behave a little differently–a little better–if we felt more connections like that. Perhaps we should rewrite John Donne’s meditation to include all life, not just “Mankinde.”

As for me, I love that my man has a heart so big that there is room even for dung beetles.

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