I mentioned in my last post that the landscapes of our emotions start to get artistically interesting when we start to see the same National Park of Emotion described by different people. As images and stories about the same park come in, I’m seeing some synchronicities in the geographical features, color palettes, and image patterns. You can see what I mean by looking at two submissions about the National Park of Disappointment:
Disappointment Ramble, Amy Schiff, 2020
“So much disappointment at this park. This should have been a year of making plans and centerpieces for my daughter's Bat Mitzvah. So many choices to make it a special and quirky day. Inviting family from all over to make the trip and all be in the same room for the first time.
Now I see snippets of what would have been, like a winding path I can't actually get to off in the distance. It reminds me of the Ramble in Central Park, where meandering always led you somewhere wonderful and new. But there isn't any way to get there from here.
We will still fill the day with all the meaning we can with the small group of family we will be allowed to have there. She has been working diligently for months and I wish we could celebrate this sweet and imaginative girl with friends and family with a big old hora. So sad and disappointed we cannot give her what we have been picturing for her for years. She deserves it.”
Amy Schiff, Age 45
Scarsdale, NY
Disappointment Trail, Rhonda Gutenberg, 2020
“I have been very fortunate during the pandemic in that I still manage to see friends for outdoor activities like hiking and tennis, and most of my work (management consulting and coaching) was already by videoconference, from home. While grateful in many ways, I slink into disappointment when I see so many people not taking this situation seriously and ignoring safety recommendations. We got through the summer and into the fall, our numbers were looking positive and restrictions getting lifted - and then boom – Thanksgiving and subsequent surges. The reinstituted liberties we were appreciating like never before were taken away, once again.
My hike on Disappointment Trail wanders through the California Redwoods, on a shady, dirt trail, with dead, brown leaves scattering the path. It is cool, dank and quiet and I am in solitude. Brown is a primary color amid the dark green leaves of the redwoods and sun is beyond the shelter of this path. I am disappointed and sad but hopeful. Each morning, we never know what we will wake up to, and I await the days when those surprises are uplifting rather than upsetting.”
Rhonda Gutenberg, Age 63
Sausalito, CA
I’m intrigued by how two people, on two different coasts of the United States, both picture disappointment as a trail or a winding path with brown as the dominant color. Not everyone’s parks of the same emotion look as similar as these, sometimes there are just small echoes and patterns that emerge. But it’s only by getting more submissions about each park that we can start exploring the topography of each feeling.
Of the dozens of emotions we’ve all been navigating this past year, disappointment has to be one of the most common ones. Disappointment rises up when we have an unmet expectation—and really, whose year went as they expected? So many plans changed, events canceled, opportunities gone. All the people we were looking forward to seeing and hugging in person, replaced by making do with conversations and connection through screens.
Disappointment can be a hard emotion to admit to sometimes though, when there is so much pain in the world. It’s easy to tell oneself that some disappointments are no big deal, to brush them aside, to not even recognize that we’re in the National Park of Disappointment. But like all emotions, I think it’s crucial to acknowledge when we’re wandering around there.
Among many disappointments, I had multiple trips canceled, both overseas and ones just across the US/Canadian border. I live in Canada but grew up in New York, so my entire family and tons of close friends are in the US. I usually go back many times a year, and shortly before the pandemic I moved from Toronto to Montreal. I was so excited to be much closer to New York City and Boston, and had looked forward to easy weekend trips. We also missed a family wedding that was re-planned as a small socially distanced event. I heard it was lovely, but we couldn’t go. The border feels like the Berlin wall now.
National Park of Disappointment, Mindy Stricke, 2021
The descriptions of the National Park of Disappointment above resonate strongly, and inspire mine, in which the paths are full of dead ends. I wander down one path that’s headed for my annual family reunion at the beach, and then hit a stone wall, the sand and the sea beyond reach on the other side. Turning around, I follow a sign that says, “This way to sleepaway camp for your kids (and some freedom for the adults),” to be met by another wall. And on and on this year. The only way to lower the walls is to lower the expectations. I expect nothing right now, because getting my hopes up just keeps me in that park.