The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts
On a sunny Tuesday morning in early May
of the plague year, I finally offered to cut the grapefruit
that my four year old daughter had been coveting since last week. The
heavens rejoiced in her mind as she bound around the kitchen yelling,
“YES!” On a whim, I purchased a grapefruit at the supermarket the
week prior. As the world as we know it breaks down in fundamental
ways, buying something as unessential as a grapefruit seemed
almost transgressive. In the previous time, what would be as outdated
and blasé as eating a grapefruit for breakfast? What is this?
Some 1980s fad diet? Now, eating a grapefruit for/with breakfast
has taken on some luxurious undertone in my mind.
Since
unpacking the groceries, this fruit took on great significance for
her. La niña appeared, mainly to see if I had brought home some sort
of “prize” from the supermarket, and then transitioned into
interrogation mode regarding this purchase- what's this? What does
it taste like? Can I have 'a piece'? Why does a GRAPEfruit have an
orange rind? Since the moment it
was shelved in the refrigerator, she's argued with me to cut up this
fruit for her at every meal. She needed a grapefruit right NOW
for a variety of reasons.
Finally, this
morning the grapefruit was cut open. I segmented a half for her to
try and placed it before her. Digging in, she ate two segments and
then pushed it aside, to “save for later.” When I asked if she
liked it, she gave a resounding yes, but that the real trouble was
she was so full, there
was no more she could eat. I offered her an out, “...but it's ok if
you also don't like it.” Of course, the Iron Lady refused to recant
her previous statements on the tastiness of grapefruits.
If you have never bargained with a small child, you've never truly experienced the unrelenting psychic stamina of another person. It's almost as though a pre-pubescent child's ability to physically stand in a freezing pool, teeth chattering and lips blue, can transfer to their mental state when required. Young children have “endurance.” This may sound like a cold assessment, but I'm awed by their skill. If only I had the endurance for endless small talk, bad arguments, or unrelenting pleas to cut random citrus fruits.
Since work has been minimized due to the new virtual format and constant worry about how much stress we can and should be putting on academic work during a pandemic, la niña and I have been walking quite a bit. We have a usual loop, in which I vary the path slightly, but typically head up a long, unbroken stretch of sidewalk that connects our town to a much cuter and prettier one which has a real downtown and a harbor to walk through. Tired of the usual the other day, I brought up going on a new adventure. We took a leisurely walk around
a local cemetery. It's on a hilltop cleaning surrounded by a wooded area about 2 miles from our
house, nestled inside one of the typical housing developments in this area. We took a Polaroid camera and a snack to visit tombs (her word) and learn
more about them.
While walking through the back end of the cemetery,
I saw a name on a gravestone that I recognized. Someone I had gone to
school with since first grade (maybe kindergarten, even) was buried
there. In fact, she'd died in 2014. The obituary revealed little when
checked. This woman was not someone I was close to, although we'd
gone to school together for 12 years. She was born in November and
was likely one of the older students in my graduating year; I, on the
other hand, with a late summer birthday, was always one of the
youngest. While everyone matures at their own rate, sometimes the gap
of nearly a year does create noticeable developmental differences. At
some point in upper elementary school, she stood up for me to some
other kids who were being a nuisance. That's pretty much the only
memory I have of her besides thinking that in high school, she likely
smoked cigarettes, which was what most suburban teenagers seemed to
be into in the late 90s.
This "find" didn't necessarily provide pause
for the contemplation of my own mortality – that's a nearly daily
meditation anyhow. Instead, it led me down a line of thinking about
the degree of anonymity our lives take on when removed from a daily
routine. After a month of not being at work, I realized I hadn't thought of someone I see on a near-daily basis usually in the entire time we'd been away until that very moment. It was startling in a sense. And not necessarily because I'm a uniquely selfish asshole, but because removed from the daily grind, everyone's vision narrows to what's right in front of them. When people are imprisoned or held captive for a long time, sometimes they relay their time in that experience with a degree of calm more fit for a Buddhist monk. One of the reasons why is likely because they learned to accept their reality, to not struggle against it or to pin hopes on wishing it away. Maybe the suggestion for our quarantine time now should be to keep calm and meme on? Jokes aside, accepting that this is what the near entirety of the world is experiencing now would be a step toward allowing ourselves the space to breathe and be without having to answer to all of the demands we typically put on ourselves.
When you consider the transitions we consistently face in
our lives – graduations, promotions, moves, relationships, births,
deaths, et al – it's no wonder internally we face such a degree of turmoil despite the mundanity of those events. Everyone goes through
changes all of the time; change is the constant, not anything
else about life is a constant as much as we would love that to be the case. Some of
the changes we face, like aging, are much more gradual (and possibly) less
abrasive to our psyches. But it is worth sharing our feelings about
those tumultuous events with those we trust and/or love because, as
it turns out, empathy is a great healer. It provides us the room to accept the situation and ourselves (physically, emotionally and spiritually).
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recommended reading/listening:
interview - https://thedewdrop.org/2019/12/06/deneen-fendig-duncan-trussell/
music- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zikXou8vDc
