Time for Rabbit Holes

Pandemic time is time for dreaming. Pandemic time is time for remembering. And pandemic time is time for remembering dreams and being open to their possible meanings. I used to say exactly the same thing about summertime, especially those unstructured, obligation-free stretches of summertime.

Those stretches of summer seemed to roll out the way bolts of fabric did: by the motion of hands that turned, pulled, slid, and smoothed, then repeated those motions until enough fabric had been unfurled from the bolt. 

 

The shears sealed the deal. A hushed sense of excitement always surrounded those crisp, audible, authoritative snips: they signaled the anticipated fulfillment of two dreams: the dream of the finished product the fabric would become, and the dream of the self that would transform the fabric into the finished product. That self, aware of summertime’s finitude, knew that its time might be brief: at the first demands of fall, it would probably be relegated to the shelf, where it would wait for next summer.

Alas, pandemic time isn’t endless summertime, though it often feels endless. The living isn’t easy.

Pandemic time is time for turning and returning, which cannot be separated from remembering, especially in Jewish tradition. And pandemic time is time for journeying—not across physical miles and boundaries, but down rabbit holes and other avenues inviting thought, feeling, and memory. Public libraries may be closed except for scheduled pick-ups, but web search engines make it possible to go down some rabbit holes easily and painlessly. Be forewarned, though, if you’re standing in a field marked by multiplying rabbit holes:  that field may be a metaphor for your pandemic-stirred self, in which case the web will be able to help you only so much.

During these last months, I’ve often found myself standing in such a metaphorical field while I’ve been sitting at my dining room table, where I’m apt to be at my laptop. Looking out the window at the upper floor of my across-the-street neighbor’s house, the pyramid hip roof above it, and the three tall, leafy trees that rustle and nod beyond it, I’ve been wondering about the wordless images, many from dreams, that have been parading before my mind’s eye during pandemic time.

So vivid, and so simultaneously puzzling and comforting are these images that I think of each of them as a rabbit hole, and I suspect there are tunnels that connect them. I keep thinking that putting them into words will help me to explore them. 

That’s why lately I’ve been wondering about the etymologies and backstories of words: I want the language I choose not just to capture the sensory aspects of these images, but to suggest something of their significance, which I’m trying to understand. So currently there are two varieties of rabbit holes* in my field: the wordless image rabbit holes that baffle me with their mysterious promise of meaning, and the language-related rabbit holes that respond well to internet exploration.

Today, though, I am writing about what began last Friday as my factual foray down the rabbit hole of “rabbit holes.” Not because you can’t hop onto the internet and find out for yourself whether the metaphorical use of “rabbit hole” comes only from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass: it does. But because I was surprised by what—or whom--I found down that rabbit hole when the internet and I started searching.

My first stop was the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary. The word meant exactly what I thought it meant—“a complexly bizarre or difficult situation conceived as hole into which one falls and descends” . . . “especially: one in which the pursuit of something (such as an answer or a solution) leads to other questions, problems, or pursuits.”**

In addition of confirming that our current associations to rabbit holes come solely from Lewis Carroll’s imagination, the dictionary provided some sample sentences that used “rabbit hole” correctly, along with the following disclaimer: “These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'rabbit hole.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors.”**

"Seer" by Scott Ketcham***

One of the randomly selected sentences—“While trying to find the picture again on Google, I fell down the Cosmo rabbit hole, scrolling through a gallery of swimwear, then through ‘How to Be Sexier-Instantly’ and then through all 23 slides of ‘Sexy Ideas for Long Hair.’”—was attributed to someone with a name I recognized—which I’m changing here to Ava Zembel.

Was this the same Ava Zembel who’d been a quiet, serious student in my “Reading and Writing on Human Values” class roughly twenty years ago? The course’s final writing assignment was always a spiritual autobiography, a focused memoir that represented each student’s evolving sense of identity and purpose as related to a value, belief, attitude, series of events, or transformative experience. The students read their papers on a day-long field trip held at the home of one of them: a potluck breakfast was followed by reading, which was followed by a take-out lunch, which was followed by the reading of the rest of their spiritual autobiographies. I loved these days!

I will never forget the spiritual autobiography Ava wrote and shared with the class the year her class went on that field trip day. I would be violating the norms of the day if I shared even the outlines of her story here. But I can say that she bravely made herself exceedingly vulnerable in her choice of topic and story, and that she was rewarded with love, admiration, expressions of understanding and appreciation from her classmates—and I believe an experience of her own strength as a function of her willingness to be candid and vulnerable. The group held her and one another: they shared new understandings of common experiences. I had the feeling a new chapter had begun for a number of people in that room.

By now, I had the answer to my “rabbit hole” question, but I decided to keep going down the rabbit hole. Now my questions were about Ava. I Googled her—did the image search, the “all” search. Now I was almost certain this Ava was the Ava I was remembering.  Currently, she identifies herself professionally as a writer and cartoonist, and her web site, which lists her the founder and editor of a now-defunct web site especially for women, also provides links to articles she’s published in myriad places and publications—some with thematic connections to her spiritual autobiography of long ago.

Descending further, I turned to Facebook for further confirmation—if I could see what Facebook friends Ava and I had in common, if any, I’d know for sure whether she was “my Ava.” Twenty-one mutual friends, most from the late 1990s: yes, she was.

There’s s something wonderful about going down a rabbit hole and not only finding someone who is a pleasure to remember, but finding her still writing bravely and sometimes autobiographically for a public audience. And to think I found her because of some internet-powered random selection of a sentence she’d written!! I just love this kind of serendipity that reminds me that the world’s a bountiful place, even though pandemic time is often time for losing and grieving. Pandemic time is seldom time for smiling. But Friday, it was.

The field of rabbit holes I’m standing in as I sit in my dining room is a field of dreams. It’s not as simple as “If you build it, they will come.” For that reason, I love that Lewis Carroll’s Alice**** falls slowly enough down the rabbit hole that she’s able to keep thinking, talking, looking around, and making sense of what’s she’s seeing. She notices cupboards and book-shelves as she falls, and I see plenty of them from my dining room chair. It’s pandemic time. The dreaming, remembering, turning, and returning have already begun, as has the search for the words to express them. There’s no telling where they may lead. Pandemic time is time for . . . who knows what else just yet?

* Photo accompanying McTague, B. (n.d.) Life, rabbit holes, and reality [Web log post]. Retrieved August 9, 2020, from http://brucemctague.com/life-rabbit-holes-and-reality

** Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Rabbit hole. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved August 8, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rabbit%20hole

*** Scott Ketcham painting at https://www.scottketcham.com/image/146269919807

**** "Down the Rabbit Hole" by IrenHorrors. Published May 7, 2014 https://www.deviantart.com/irenhorrors/art/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-452600463