On December 10, 1941, a young man named Thomas Merton was received as a novice by a monastery in Kentucky, the Abbey of Gethsemani. Precisely twenty-seven years later, he died by accidental electrocution in his room at a retreat center in Bangkok, Thailand. He entered the monastery three days after Pearl Harbor; he died a month after Richard Nixon was elected to his first term as President. It had been an eventful time.
Merton was a remarkable man by any measure, but perhaps the most remarkable of his traits was his hypersensitivity to social movements from which, by virtue of his monastic calling, he was supposed to be removed. Intrinsic to Merton’s nature was a propensity for being in the midst of things. If he had continued to live in the world, he might have died not by electrocution but by overstimulation.
The first step in the next stage of language’s inevitable evolution — or devolution — may have already hppnd.
The year now ending has been one of catastrophes. To name just two: The planet is getting warmer and the alphabet is getting shorter. Where have all the vowels gone?
I stood on the precipice of each new year with my checklist of resolutions in hand. I would achieve tenure, master the Russian language and visit the world’s largest statue of Paul Bunyan and his majestic blue ox, Babe, in Bemidji, Minn. My family can testify that I come by this brand of pragmatic determinism honestly. My grandfather Gerald Bowler lived in a small town in western Canada near the intersection of Bowler Place and Bowler Avenue. According to family lore, he had stared with a determined expression at an empty field for a long time with his hands on his hips and the subdivision simply materialized.
But after I found out at 35 that I had Stage IV cancer, time did not point toward the future anymore. It was looped: start treatment, manage side effects, recover, start treatment. I lived in the present tense.
This was a perfect assignment. For journalists on many beats – including mine, which includes the far right and gun policy – it had been a year of escalating violence during which conspiracy theories had moved into the mainstream. By December, I was exhausted and anxious. I craved the most American form of self-care: I wanted to get away with something.
My co-workers had plenty of opinions on my new mission. One of them loudly referred to it as “your vacation” whenever she thought our editor was listening.
How many books? How many days? How had this happened?
“I am very good at reading,” I replied with dignity.