ON BUYING PURE POTENTIAL, RELEASING THE STEAM LAYER, AND BLINKING TWICE
Friday February 19 2021
Dear Sarah,
I started my letter to you early in the day on Thursday, jotting down the words getting out from under last week — back on top of work, people in charge with my dad. Life sometimes feels like it is composed of endless cycles of being under the pile, of whatever the pile is, then digging out from under it, and briefly finding yourself atop the pile, riding the pile, in control of the pile. This note was followed pretty hot on its heels by further notes that as of later in the afternoon my dad was making a return visit to the hospital with an infection. (Thankfully he was discharged to his home again late last night!)
I was less stressed about this hospital visit than I was last week, partly because I’ve barely had time to emerge from the stresses of last week; what is unexpected and time-consuming can be stressful, is stressful — but now I can’t say that this was totally unexpected. I am still in the flow of checking my phone gingerly in the morning (what fresh hells?) hoping not to see any missed calls; a quiet phone is a peaceful start to the day, no matter the other contexts swirling about. Each of these hospital outings — now totaling four since mid-November — is a process of practicing for something: practicing for death, practicing for all that is unknown and unexpected, practicing folding the unexpected into my embrace instead of pushing it away; relaxing the muscles to flex into change instead of going rigid with every new shock. A relaxed body and mind can respond to the world with greater agility, flexibility; can bounce back. When I was in high school on a Model UN (!) conference trip at the University of Michigan campus during a particularly brisk winter, I remember our teacher chaperone telling us that you would feel less cold if you could relax your shoulders, instead of gripping them tight up around your ears. Gripping harder made it feel worse, colder; to this day I try to relax into the cold, let my limbs swing free, instead of balling myself up tight like a pre-formed ice cube, hard and ready to shatter into shards.
A new colleague recently expressed the feeling of her days lately as like having too many tabs open — I’m thinking of you here, M.B. — and it felt like an apt comparison, all our minds divided and divided again these days. I was thinking back to an article I read a while ago about a doctor who had covid, who felt like she’d failed her colleagues, who committed suicide amidst the immense strain of the pandemic on New York hospitals. She was doing it all, and then she wasn’t able to do it all, because who could do it all in the new and overwhelming context of the early (and ongoing) waves of the pandemic. I’m sad for her because no one expected her to do it all, I’m sure, but what she expected of herself was unattainable; you can’t be a human and a finely tuned doing-it-all machine indefinitely; the world will throw shocks at you.
I’m recalling another story from earlier this year, unrelated to the coronavirus, about an architect who took too many things onto his own shoulders, thought he was the endpoint for all the problems he came up against in his work to bring the Moynihan Train Hall to life, and he too committed suicide. His colleagues sealed his hard hat and his work boots inside a column in the station along with their mementos of him and of the work they were doing together, before the station finally opened in January to great acclaim.
This all might sound like I have suicide on the brain and I assure you I do not, except that I obviously do, because I am writing about people who committed suicide. But it feels important both to honor these people who gave themselves fully to their work and their commitments — too fully — and to always remember that every moment is fleeting, whether it is good or bad, and we are all going to fail some of the time, it’s just the way things are, or will be.
On a much lighter note, yesterday I placed an order for all kinds of seeds, tomatoes and ground cherries and lemon squash and mizuna, and then today I wanted more seeds, so I bought candy-sweet cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and golden beets and rainbow chard. There is something glorious about buying seeds; it is like buying pure potential. I’m certain we don’t have enough garden space plotted to plant all the seeds I bought, but it feels easy enough to gather up a bundle of seeds and to look at them in their charming little seed pouches and to decide at that time which things we’ll plant this year and which we’ll save for another. The look of fresh vegetables harvested and gathered in earth-covered hands — I look forward to sprouting seeds and planting sprouts and watching plants grow and rooting around in the earth a bit, as things start to warm up here ever so slowly. Our highs warmed to above 10 degrees in the last couple of days and I’ve been able to resume my runs, thank goodness. I was practically simmering today, my brain bubbling, and the run released the steam layer, let me mellow into the rest of the day.
I received a lightly alarming text from you earlier this evening about your Ozarks adventure, and I hope everything is going all right this evening! What a week it’s been all around. I didn’t even mention that I’ve been working with people who are based in Texas who were out of power and heat for the lion’s share of the week. The world seems to be challenging us all, and possibly ramping up in a ghoulish kind of way to our one-year covid anniversary. I’m hoping for some quiet moments this weekend to just breathe deeply, and carry on. Looking forward to reading your words this evening, and catching up with our voices soon!
Until then,
Your friend,
Eva
February 19, 2021
Dear Eva,
I am starting this letter feeling nearly speechless about how this week played out. You and I spoke on Wednesday, and at that point, with two mice down and temperatures rising, I thought things were starting to look up in my Ozarks adventure. Then Thursday afternoon rolled around, and the water in the house abruptly stopped. We then found out from the house owner that it was not just our house, but the water tower serving the entire subdivision that was the problem. About 24 hours later, after brushing our teeth with bottled water and melting snow on the stovetop to pour down the toilets, we realized we were the only humans left in the vicinity. When we saw someone in a pickup make their way down the long hill where we lived, I ran outside and asked them to roll down their window. The driver alerted me that she worked for a different property owner who had relocated all of her guests in the subdivision and that there was not even an ETA on the renewed water flow. Long story short, we then spent the next several hours securing a reimbursement from the place we were staying, finding and paying for a new place to stay in the area, and then frantically packing and moving all of our three cars’ worth of belongings to the new, much smaller but also much cleaner, house about 20 minutes away. (During our hectic packing, Simon spent most of the time sobbing because he would never go to that house again “his entire life.”)
You wrote last week about the miracle of proper hydration and nutrition, and sheesh, I sure feel you on that today. I didn’t sleep well last night, what with the lack of running water and my slightly random paranoia about a fire breaking out from the propane tank heating the pipes. And then I barely ate and drank today as we fussed about making plans and trying to work in the midst of it. The result was a headache-ridden, slightly grumpy, nearly dizzy version of me by this evening. At this moment, I am now snugly seated in a rocking chair in our new, woodsy abode with a belly full of pizza and one beer in my bloodstream. Also, I am blinking twice!
In other news and on a bit of a sidenote, is it just me, or has the font on our RogShinch website mysteriously changed? And if so, why?!
I had other, more serious ideas to raise but I am afraid I am running out of steam. There is always next week! I guess this is the closest I have ever come to our long-threatened “hello, goodbye” letter. It was bound to happen someday!
I hope you have had a good week with plenty of warm showers and working toilets. (You don’t appreciate those things until they are gone.) I am still waiting for the picture of your woodblock print!
I look forward to reading your words that I see waiting for me in my inbox. I miss you, my friend!
Yours,
Sarah