The Universe on our Shoulders
A kind of love called maintenance
At least monthly, I read U. A. Fanthorpe’s poem “Atlas,” which pays homage to a “kind of love called maintenance.” It is unromantic to pay bills, plant bulbs, and deal with dentists and insurance, but this is the work of “uphold[ing] the permanently rickety elaborate structures of living.” Fanthorpe analogizes this love to Atlas, the Titan condemned by Zeus to forever hold the universe on his shoulders.
Photo by Carlo Hermann/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images
I’ve been thinking about “Atlas” and our civic life. I worry about how little we value the kind of love called maintenance in relationships, organizations, and governments. We prefer grand gestures to the ordinary work that “insulates [our] faulty wiring…remembers [our] need for gloss and grouting.” We kick out the maintainers, insisting always that this moment, our moment, requires transformative action. We don’t happen to like what maintenance requires, especially if it means throwing things away. So the wiring gets faultier, the gloss duller, the grouting dirtier, and one day we decide that our best option is to burn the house down.
I’m an active member of a small church, which is a good place to learn about Atlas and the kind of love called maintenance. The universe gets weightier by the day, but there are only so many of us. I don’t suggest a program unless I’m willing to lead it. I don’t identify a need unless I’m able to put my dollars into meeting it. It’s so clear to me that saying “someone should…” is empty because here are all the someones—no one is waiting in the wings. It also demoralizes the someones who are doing what they can do. We are all Atlas, trying to hold the celestial spheres with no end date, no technological solution, no reprieve. The relief and reward is simply that, unlike Atlas, we don’t hold them alone.
Church taught me this posture. I suspect that it’s the orientation needed everywhere, especially in this moment. It’s easy to walk around the world critiquing the sky without recognizing the ways that people are attempting to hold it.
I’m working on holding my critiques and increasing my contributions. If I hear a discussion that missed something, instead of saying “you missed this,” I try to add the point myself. If I identify a problem, instead of complaining, I try to figure out who else sees the problem, and if we see it the same way, and if there are solutions that make everyone’s life easier. I try to assume that Atlas’s arms are weary rather than cruel or incompetent. That more hands are needed. That I have two hands, and my hands count. That my hands count, but that still more hands will be needed. That I might not enjoy some of the other hands, but they belong. That, of course, I miss things because the universe is too vast for anything to ever be complete. That I don’t have to have all the answers. That I do have to care enough to give my effort.
U. A. Fanthorpe says that “maintenance is the sensible side of love.” Maintenance carries on when the romance wanes. I do not feel particularly romantic about America right now. The celestial spheres feel heavier to me than they usually do. The bills, bulbs, dentists, and insurance are piling up. But all of this—the uncertainty, the losses, the attempts at burning the house down, the fire-fighting—all of this is the “permanently rickety elaborate structure[] of living.” So, I will steady my feet, raise my arms, and share the strength I can to keep loving the world, to keep its “suspect edifice upright in the air/ As Atlas did the sky.”
On our Spicy Bonus episode on Thursday, Sarah and Beth had more to say about the continuing fallout and follow-up to the Signalgate controversy and the (words are not strong enough to describe how bad it was) detention of Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts University.
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Sarah Asked, you responded!
You all had SO MUCH to say about our episode last Friday. We could have a 10-part series based on your comments and the additional perspective. Today, we’re sharing a little snippet of that with this note from Alyssa, a secular home school mom, and the path she took to homeschooling.
Hi Sarah!
I just listened to the Friday episode and had to respond! There have been a couple of times I've wanted to write previously because our homeschooling experience is so different from what I think comes to mind for many people when they hear "homeschooler."
I am the secular, homeschooling mom of two kids, ages 16 and 13, that yes, we vaccinated on a mostly regular schedule. I did start out as a "crunchy-adjacent" mom (cloth diapers, breastfeeding, babywearing, made my own food), but I was never militant about it. We had regular diapers as well for when it was easier, used formula when my husband fed at night or I was out, and when my body decided it just couldn't do it after 6 months, kept a regular vaccine schedule, did sleep training, did not buy all organic, etc. And homeschooling was never on my radar: growing up, I went to public school and loved it, and my husband went to a combo of public and private schools.
My oldest went to two delightful preschools, but the year before she would have started kindergarten, we started to question the public school experience. We had family with kids in the school system she would go to, and the preoccupation with testing and inflexibility of teaching worried us. We saw my niece come to dread reading and then, the straw that broke our backs, was when she was sent home with a note (in elementary school!) that going forward their afternoon break would be inside and that kids had to bring a snack they could eat with one hand because it would be a "working recess" so that they could get more test prep in. What?!?
This hit me as wrong in so many ways. Before getting married and having kids, I worked as a business consultant, traveling 5 days a week, working non-stop hours, and eating many, many meals sitting at a desk while working away. After marrying, I switched to an industry job but still worked long hours, as did my husband. We were stressed, tired, and disconnected. We finally realized that if we continued, we would probably end up divorced.
Long story short, I quit my job and went to grad school for my Master’s in Library Science, and at the same time, I got pregnant. Fast forward five years later, and the last thing I wanted was for my child to have to work during recess when they should be outside moving their bodies and being kids. However, we were also down an income and could not afford a private school, and the only other affordable option in Rhode Island was a religious school, but we are not religious. I did have one close friend from college who lived in Madison, WI, and homeschooled her son. After many hours of conversation with her and my husband, we decided to try it out for kindergarten. We could always change our minds later.
As it turns out, we absolutely loved homeschooling. The flexibility of schedules, the ability to customize our kids' education, and the richness it brought to all our lives. It's not a given for us; every year, the four of us decide together whether we will continue homeschooling. Particularly as the kids have got to middle school and high school, it is super important for me that they choose this path on their own. But so far, each year, the answer has been a resounding "yes!"
There's so much I could say about our experience and how it has changed our lives. I will say that two conversations have come up on the show that have made me think, "Yes, we have that." The first was your family's experience when you were traveling out west and all the kids spent the day together like a one-room schoolhouse. My kids have had experiences like that their whole lives. In so many of the programs and groups we have been a part of, age is not the determining factor of the group - it's mostly based on interest, and those with more experience teach those with less. That could mean older kids or adults helping youngsters, or sometimes, the younger kids are the experts. It's fantastic.
The second was a comment Beth made about her daughters' schooling and how she felt it was very surface level - that they don't get to go deep in subjects. I see this as a real strength of our homeschool. I know what my kids have learned, so instead of repeating a survey of a subject, we have the flexibility to go deep. For example, we studied a survey of American History a couple of years ago, from the founding to the present day. This year, when my high schooler needed an American History course, I designed a curriculum that built on that by looking at questions and issues that face the United States and examining how these have been answered throughout our history, reading primary documents, listening to speeches, examining court cases, etc. It has been a fascinating and fulfilling year!
Of course, there are downsides and sacrifices, and we are incredibly privileged to be able to make this choice. There's so much I could say, but this is already super long! But we're out here - homeschoolers who are secular, not-that-crunchy, and only as weird as everyone else! I'd love to know what questions you have!
Thank you for your work - you all are keeping me sane these days, and I truly, truly appreciate it!
Best,
Alyssa
Something Nice to Take You Into the Weekend
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I think now is also an excellent time to set some things down. Reevaluate whether we need to be holding certain weight or if we just are because we always have. Recently when one of my mom friends at church and I were approached about helping lead Sunday school, we didn't say yes.
We also didn't just say no. I asked to meet with the priest and the Sunday school leaders and explained to them that my friend and I are both drowning. We each have a bunch of neurodivergent kids we are homeschooling, we each are struggling with chronic illness, we each have husbands who are depressed and struggling to function and who do not participate in church life with us at all. Just getting the kids ready and making it to church at all is too hard some weeks.
But then I also offered the observation that because they were reaching out to us for help, the rest of the church body seems similarly tired and worn down. So I suggested that they also consider stepping back and taking a break. I spoke to them about Jesus calling us to rest and telling us his burden is easy and his yoke is light. Rest is sacred and holy (Shout out to Tricia Hersey for illuminating this so beautifully through her work).
I suggested that because life is so hard right now, we should be doing less, not more. And they talked about it and decided to switch to doing Sunday school every other week to give teachers a break and a chance to participate in the regular church service more often. And it has been lovely.
We aren't having a shortage of volunteers anymore, we set up a little space on one side of the sanctuary for the kids to sit with us in church and the older ones read and whisper together and the little ones scribble furiously with crayons and spill snacks on the floor and we are together and everyone is more relaxed and happy.
Sometimes we just need to give people permission to set the world down and rest. There is much that needs to be done urgently right now...but we should be cautious and intentional about what we are giving our time and energy to right now especially, because much is being demanded of us and I think more still will be needed in the near future.
Well said. Maintenance is essential, work of dignity and value. Done well, it's invisible - things operate smoothly, and don't break. Done with others, it can be fun, a chance for bonding.
Other cultures seem better at this, elevating maintenance to an art and a profession. I recall my first dinner in Italy, where the waiter prepared the broiled fish at our table. He expertly filleted the fish, whisking butter, herbs and wine into the drippings, and then ladled the fragrant creamy sauce over the fish. Divine! I realized then that it's an honor to serve others, rather than a chore. What a difference it's made in all aspects of my life.