Tis the season to write about Christmas and good will. It’s the season…but not the day. I will try to knock out something more Christmas-y in the coming week.
If ever the day arrives where I understand humanity I think I will faint. That’s a macro statement. I had this thought while standing in front of a Giant (a NE grocery chain) supermarket in a gentle rainstorm. The weather was lovely to me – but I’m a pluviophile. I was struck how much everyone was rushing around and acting as if the rain were acid. I get it, I am in the minority on this thing about loving rain.
I found myself in a state of ponderance which is a $0.25 cent word for a poor-man’s observation of the world and building (or modifying/reinforcing) a philosophy. I don’t mean to seem as though I stood in a state of judgement. Far from it. I wasn’t looking at these folks as if they were somehow wrong. I think I was more upset with this culture we have created where we have to scurry everywhere and cannot take the time to take in the moment. Hell, modern psychology has several treatments that focus specifically on living in the moment. DBT and CBT therapies both leverage this as a core principle of their matrices.
Why not stop and enjoy the rain? Why not jump in the puddles? I know – wet socks and all that. But still, have we willfully sacrificed every part of our younger selves for this bullshit maturity we now have? Personally I think the stiff upper lip and the constant time management in the face of life happening around us is a pretty silly look.
I didn’t start this post to be some sort of boiled-down carpe diem thing but it is going to have some of that essence. It is more like seize the love. In fact, my original thought process centered around the particulate composition of the parking lot puddle water. Parking lots are notoriously filthy surfaces. Add water to it and you get puddles and these puddles are dirty. The water pulls the filth of the lot to the puddles like a border collie herding sheep. Inevitably a car tire finds the puddle and spreads the water like an orbital rubber Moses.
After a brief moment of separation the parted water rushes back together to return balance to the body of the puddle. In that moment the path of the tire is briefly replaced by clear water – the force of the tire having sent the lighter sediment further than the water. But of course this purity doesn’t last. The sediment rushes back a moment later fogging the clear space suspended in the water like a dark-themed snow globe.
I took the peculiarity of our rushed existence into consideration standing there at the overhang just outside the door where they display the snow shovels and fresh Christmas wreaths (yes, I am that weirdo). Make that puddle a metaphor for our life experiences and holy hell you have a lot to think about! How many things would you not have jumped into had the water been calm but you could see the suspended sediment? What if the sediment had settled but your arrival disturbed it and now you’re immersed? How many situations have we flung ourselves into right after the tire exited? “The water in the center is clear so it all must be clear!!! Wait. What the fuck? What’s all this other stuff?” -Me over and over
Take it from me, dear reader, I am one existential-puddle-jumping sonofabitch.
Sometimes I underestimated the sediment. Sometimes I was reckless. Still other times I was just focused on the crystal-clear water in the middle right after Michelin’s exit and then when the sediment returned was hesitant to admit that I might be in over my head. Those are the times I most identify with Wile E. Coyote when he holds up the little sign bearing some iteration of “I’m screwed.”
The worst is when your entry into a puddle sends filthy water flying and hits someone else. Nobody wants your existential soup. The puddle water is kinda gross and ruins khakis. I know I have caused a lot of collateral damage jumping in the people pools. Unfortunately we can’t always keep this existence clean and still live our lives. But the past is the past and we can’t change it so we have to make our peace with it.
I imagined what cognitive dissonance would be needed to convince one to drink the water. It didn’t take me long to reach my conclusion; not much if any. Sure no sane and well-watered person would slurp up a puddle of road sludge and emissions dust [metaphor]. What if you were dying of thirst? Your only qualifier would be that it be wet. Beyond that you don’t have many scruples or conditions [metaphor]. What if life had recently left you dehydrated? Sure, you would like cleaner water but this looks pretty good in a pinch. Besides, the water in the middle where that Chevy just rolled is super-clean [metaphor]!
Of course I’m alluding to things like love, affection, kindness, empathy, comfort, support and the other messes of the heart we find ourselves coexisting with our fellow humans. You get it. You’ve stayed with me this long so I won’t insult your intelligence by breaking it down further.
Just know this; you are worthy of all those things and we all make splashes. Learn from them of course but don’t stop playing in the rain. Don’t let yourself become jaded. You be you and make a mess or two {tips cap to Ted Geisel}.
You knew I was going to take this puddle & rainstorm bit and make it about our emotional selves and existentialism; didn’t you? I simply wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to tie modern urbanist urgency to skipping the childhood pleasure of making impulsive emotional decisions…in metaphors surrounding poor hardscape drainage.
But if you read this far you already knew the deal and I thank you.
Beta Testing Adulthood 