Tag: musings

Checking in on Reality

Rachel Henry6 Comments

When you are chronically single, it is good to have at least one other chronically single friend. This increases the odds that, at any given time, one of you will be sane.

I was speaking with one such friend recently, and it was her turn to be sane. Both of us would like to have kids, and both of us are ever more rapidly approaching the age of ain’t gonna happen. The subject came up and my friend said in a hushed, semi-awed voice, “I think I’m OK with that.”

The “OK with it” option had occurred to me but was a little too scary to contemplate closely, like the ingredients list of a Twinkie. I have this idea that thinking will make it so, but here’s the thing: it is already so—I neither have kids nor do I currently find myself in a situation that leads to the rapid production of children.

When do we continue to believe in the possibility of something that isn’t yet and when do we accept life in its current state? On the never ending list of things I don’t understand, the balance between those two is near the top.

My friend’s sanity lay in shifting the emphasis: while she may not have this one thing she wants, she recognizes that her life is incredible. The question is not so much am I giving up on something as am I remembering that right now, my life is incalculably rich. Right now, I have an enjoyable job; I live in a beautiful place; all the parts of my body work well; I have wonderful friends and family; I no longer need to worry about the ingredients list of a Twinkie.

Louis CK does a great comedy routine called “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.” (On being impatient with smartphones: “Give it a second, it’s going to space.”) There’s always something available with which to play the if only game—marriage, kids, publication, four-foot-high chocolate fountain. It’s just so much more fun to play the everything’s amazing game.

Bring on the Beauty

Rachel Henry54 Comments

I just received in the mail my first in a long time ridiculously expensive relative to my income bracket purchase, perhaps the first ever that is not a bicycle. It’s way too nerdy and grown up of an item for such an event, but I’ve been staring at my new “upcycled wooden desk trays,” vintage distressed French country style, and feeling really happy ever since I opened the package. Perhaps nothing I’ve bought in my life has come with so many adjectives attached.

wooden desk trays labeled "in" and "out" with scrabble tiles
Upcycled wooden desk trays from Vintage Chichibean on Etsy

Let me express my appreciation for the word “upcycled.” I am generally not a fan of creating words unless you can do it as well as Roald Dahl, but upcycled is a brilliant marketing word, appealing to people’s vanity and environmental consciousness all at once.

I admire not only the description but also the physical presence of my desk trays. I like the size and shape of them, the heft, the way they’re cleverly slotted together. I like the unevenness of the paint and the yellow-green color that is more attractive than yellow-green has any business being.

The way buying new stuff can make us happy used to worry me. I have a complicated relationship with the physical, which I suspect I share with many Americans. On one hand, we are deluged with marketing telling us that our appearance matters more than anything else, and on the other, we hold onto our Puritan forebearers’ attitude that physical things are not particularly worthy or holy and possibly downright sinful.

But we are physical beings, and we are drawn to and enlivened by beauty of various types, many of which we experience through our senses. Few would argue that a painting by Rembrandt or Monet is shallow because its beauty is physical.

I’m not saying I’m going to sprinkle holy water on my desk trays (that would be blessed vintage distressed French country style), but I welcome them both for the enjoyment they’re already bringing me and for the reminder that beauty comes in many forms, and we need them all.