One bit of constancy to the world (especially these days, with less to reliably ground us) is that things can change in an instant. One minute you’re having a rather nice day, reading a new novel on the dock after a quick and refreshing swim or walking on your favorite trail in the woods, the ground dappled with late afternoon sunlight, and the next minute you hear the ping of an incoming text message.
Looking back, you watch yourself reach for the phone, still feeling relaxed and loose, not realizing that scary news sits there like a spring, tightly wound inside a string of words, ready to unfurl rapidly and blaze hotly like a comet across your day.
It works the other way too. (I know! Good things happen! You’re all cursing and shaking your fists at 2020 but they do and they will and they have so let’s remember them).
For example, back when spontaneous interactions happened with regularity, you could be sitting at a bar or cafe or restaurant with a pile of work—idly marking up some advertising copy or working on notes for an upcoming case or preparing for tomorrow’s investor meeting with your mind half-attentive, your thoughts slowly unspooling thanks to a cold, citrusy IPA or a glass of jewel-red merlot, considering whether to order dinner or go shower and get under the covers with a book, and then you could just…turn to your left and fall in love. At once as desperately and greedily as drinking water after a long, hot hike and as comfortingly familiar as a two puzzle pieces clicking neatly into place.
Really, what can we do but be there for it? Just be. Present and attentive and quivering with readiness, like a tuning fork poised to have the perfect chord struck such that it sends silvery streams of melody into the air.
You don’t know what will drop into your lap next. When it’s dark and hard and sad and takes your breath away, gently ride the wave of it as best you can. When it’s golden and sparkling and also takes your breath away, treat it reverently. Let it fill you up slowly like the slow fizz of sparkling wine being poured into a tall glass. Let it buoy you.
That isn’t to say you have be to be thrilled and delighted by everything around you — sometimes I think there are hours (or days, often) when all you can do is just notice things. I like this particular poem for that very sentiment:
A Portable Paradise [Roger Robinson]
And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath.
And if your stresses are sustained and daily,
get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,
hostel or hovel – find a lamp
and empty your paradise onto a desk:
your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.
Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope
of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.
White sands, green hills, and fresh fish. Bliss.
When my sister was very little, she sometimes had trouble falling asleep, and my mom would give her something specific to think about, as a way of relaxing her and tiring out her mind. She’d tell her to imagine a house and design each room in great detail.
I think about this occasionally—and it reminds me of the last bit of that poem: something beautiful and soothing and happy to focus on until your body loosens into sleep.
What would make it into your portable paradise?
The crimson and bronze foliage of a crisp October day in Vermont, the colors so bright that they make words like crimson and bronze seem woefully inadequate.
The tink tink tink of milk streaming into a metal bucket as you sit perched on top of the old chest freezer next to the milking stall, the dim morning light just beginning to filter into the dark barn through the dusty air, your mother’s arms moving rhythmically as she works, her shoulder pressed against the cow’s warm body, the muscles in her tanned forearms pulsing.
The heat of a woodstove in the center of a large wooden cabin in February in Maine, you lying on the floor in wool socks, your head resting on Bridges Handford’s lap as you try to read your assigned chapters of a Wallace Stegner novel for your Literature and the Land class while she leans her back against the foot of one of the eight beds lining the cabin walls, working on her science field trip notes about coastal marshes. Music playing softly in the background. The gentle murmur of two cabinmates in the corner, heads bent, puzzling through a calculus worksheet.
That same February in Maine, Saturday morning at 8 AM, gathering on the shore of Back River with a dozen other high school juniors and a few intrepid teachers and racing into the icy cold water, screams and splashes and gasps echoing in the still morning air.
The endless miles of burnt orange sand stretching in every direction on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, your bare toes sinking into it, the dust clinging to your backpack and clothes and hair in a way that will be impossible to ever entirely get out.
The taste of fresh pineapple in the sticky humidity of the Seychelles. Your first taste of passion fruit, the pulpy seeds popping in your mouth.
A pile of unread books. Old magazines.
The sound of a steel drum band. Your suntanned skin smooth against a sundress, the night air soft and warm, lights from sailboats blinking out from the darkened bay beyond.
Bare feet in wet, dewy grass on a spring morning. Armfuls of peonies, their pale pink buds curled tightly.
The hollow, aching echo of a loon calling across a foggy New Hampshire lake.
The rush of rain sweeping across a forest and the thrumming sound it makes as it hits the canopy of trees.
Running, when it comes easily and smoothly. Running when a good song comes on your playlist and you pick up the pace. Running in hot weather when you’re drenched with sweat, feeling it drip into your eyes when you finish the final sprint and stop to catch your breath, leaning over and gasping and feeling so effing tired but so good.
The exhaustion after a very, very hard workout.
Cucumber sandwiches on soft white bread with mayonnaise and Jane’s salt.
Hot apple crisp with cold cream.
The hot, flushed feeling only someone else can give you the first time they hold your hand.
Smelling a perfume you used to wear in middle school (Tommy Girl), smelling a perfume your tentmate Rosie used to wear at camp (Curve for Men), smelling a perfume your friend Kay wore in eleventh grade (Armani White).
The scent of fresh mint in a gin + tonic. The scent of chocolate melting. Old Spice body wash. Just-lit matches. Cut hay drying in the pasture up past the tennis court. Le Labo Ylang 49 hand lotion. Johnson’s Cotton Touch baby lotion. Freshly washed bath towels straight from the dryer. Browned butter. The caramelized, sugary smell of molasses cookies baking.
Double Ginger Chewy Molasses Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup (30g) molasses (not blackstrap)
2 1/2 cups (300g) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (92g) crystallized ginger, diced
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and the molasses, scraping down the bowl, and mixing well. Add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, ground ginger, and black pepper and mix until well-incorporated. Fold in the crystallized ginger.
The dough will be pretty soft, so I like to chill it for at least 30 minutes.
Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
Scoop balls of dough (about 2 tablespoons each) onto the baking sheets (about 1 1/2 inch in diameter), leaving a few inches of space between each ball as they’ll spread.
Bake the cookies for 8 to 12 minutes, or until just golden brown on the edges. The centers will look very under-baked, but that’s fine! Let the cookies cool on the rack for a few minutes until they firm up enough to move. Transfer the cookies to a rack and let cool entirely.