On Grapefruits And Graveyards

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 In the previous time, what would be as outdated and blasé as eating a grapefruit for breakfast?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 

Craft Your Life In Ways It Will Be Shown

"Craft:  a form of knowledge, but not just knowledge of making, but a knowledge of being."*

Reading a book review of a history of crafts - in the sense of handicrafts or practical arts as well as time-worn, but increasingly rare practices, like sheep-herding - I was reminded of my obsession with the idea that teaching falls under this umbrella. For people who always felt teaching was the job that made sense to them, despite lower salaries or life in the panopticon (in which bureaucrats and your neighbors alike could have an opinion about YOUR job!), the common refrain that 'it's a calling' likely resonated with you, even if you rolled your eyes to the sentimental cheesiness so many would imbue such a statement with.

As I've expressed beliefs about the craft of teaching previously, the focus of this post is the concept of "craft" itself. In an era of instant gratification, the thought of putting time into such mundane tasks as weaving a basket or even chopping vegetables becomes ludicrous in the face of time savers like purchasing "pre-made," "pre-packaged," "pre-cut," etc. Yet, in light of all of our innovative ways to save a few minutes her and there, major consequences arise: the impact of the "use and toss" culture on our environment, the fact that no one seems to have achieved any long-term contentment, and the effect not engaging has on our minds.

Did our ancestors have more fulfilling material and spiritual lives? In some respects, yes....(?!). There was more likely to be a purpose to life, especially when it came to work. Crafting was life for a weaver, a shepherd, a potter. Of course, infant mortality rates were through the roof and a drink of water might lead to death. It's dangerous to romanticize the old and remove these practices from the societies in which they existed. That doesn't mean we can't find something to take away from them either.

In a post-industrialized world, where most hold service jobs, and even those who still work in manufacturing now have an idea their jobs come with an expiration date after which their positions will be automated, humans have to be cognizant of the limitations of the all-tech, all-the-time milieu. Our biological evolution has not caught up with our social. Human bodies have remained relatively unchanged as far as composition since 300,000 years ago. We tend to forget such realities when our species has woven a wonderfully progress-oriented narrative for ourselves in the form of a collective consciousness. And with a focus on the future (and a "now is better than then" attitude) we've lost sight of what it means to experience our humanness in many ways.

Must we, as individuals, craft to survive as a species? We're made to believe so many aspects of our society are "bedrocks" of civilization as we know it when likely they're not. Beliefs that take away our desires to "do," as in experience, the world around us. Instead we sit in inertia, rather than endure hard feelings. The fear of change and anxiety associated with non-conformity to a "normal" way of life keep us in jobs, homes, relationships, behavior patterns that rob us of our (admittedly, very little) agency to effect change in our own lives.

The only answer that satiates any desire for a solution (though it is paltry in comparison to the size of the problems facing our species) is to live , in the face of oppressive bourgeois norms, blasphemously. Whatever that word conjures up in your mind - try it out. The repression of our selves in learned from myriad sources and from an early age. Parental examples, religion, schooling, media and popular culture all send messages to continue the narrative, to preserve it for future generations. And sure, the levels of oppressive social messaging today are less restrictive and more open to new possibilities, but always it's a new amendment added to a list of many others versus. Rather, those new iterations can be intertwined into a wider web of human possibilities, furthering chances of a new configuration.

Thus, our nature calls us to craft - and not solely in the sense of gluing popsicle sticks together to make a frame. "Craft" in the older sense of the word - to know how to "be" whatever it is you're doing. Enrich your experience and life with full engagement in an activity.



*the review of the book, "Craeft" in the NYT Book Review