The Far Side of Five Years

Eight days ago, on Nov. 15, I had every intention of marking the fifth anniversary of this blog. I started Garbanzo Beans for Breakfast — the name of my old newspaper column — just as we were starting construction (okay, we were watching others start the construction) of our house as a means of letting people interested in the process keep track of what was going on without burdening all our friends of the obligation to listen to us prattle on endlessly, although maybe we did that too. And then I just kept writing. Until.

You may have noticed, I didn’t write that post eight days ago. You may have also noticed that I was a bit more prolific five years ago, or three, or even last year. I believe I’ve now slid to one post every two months. (I would say bi-monthly, but I feel that means twice a month. I’m sure there’s a term for “every other month,” but in the absence of that, I’ll just say “every other month.”)

This year has just been hard. Not so much for me as several people very close to me. I suppose, once we get over our rush to get out of it and get to a 2024 that hopefully we’ll at least perceive to be better, we’ll see that ’23 wasn’t all that different from any other year. Right now, though, it feels hugely detrimentally impactful to many in my circle, and I have taken on a ton of stress about outcomes I really have very little control over. Some of these outcomes have not come to fruition (yet), and in the meantime I probably would have been well-served to take the “don’t worry, be happy” admonition of Bobby McFerrin. But still I worry.

I’m sure I’ve previously referenced it — who in this world hasn’t? — but this brings to mind the Far Side cartoon with four panels, one of which features a person deciding the glass is half-empty, the second deciding it is half-full, the third trying to determine half-full, half-empty, and the fourth, a man who points indignantly and shouts, “Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger!”

While I would love to be the cheeseburger guy, I’m at best the wishy-washy wanderer of Life, or it’s entirely possible that I am, at heart, a pessimist. I try not to be, and am, indeed at this very moment holding out for a 2024 presidential election featuring two women of color, both of them first-generation American daughters of immigrants on the two main party tickets (Kamala Harris v. Nikki Haley) — but then I have to admit that I want this not only to show the promise of what America ought to strive to be, but also because I would enjoy watching some people’s heads explode at this very notion.

I try to find things to counteract my Eeyore-like tendencies. I read stories about people who change two lives by adopting unwanted dogs (their own, as well as the dog’s). I read about 10-year-olds (okay, it was just one in a sea of 10-year-olds) who take their $75 of birthday money to the grocery to buy the fixings for ham sandwiches, make the sandwiches and then deliver them to a homeless shelter. It was the first of his planned 10 projects for good to celebrate his 10 years. I’m 61 — I’d better get cracking.

But for every story of the man in Hinsdale, N.H., who lived a very quiet, unadorned life and left nearly $4 million to his town upon his death there seems to be a lot more of people only looking out for themselves. Sometimes they get caught at this, Sam Bankman-Fried and hopefully George Santos (although you almost — almost — have to feel sorry for someone so clearly clinical), and you’d like to think that at some point 91 felony counts and multiple civil judgments might make a dent in someone’s charmed life. But a lot of people invest in behavior that while not illegal seems selfish and thoughtless at best.

Here, for no particular reason at all, seems a good time to mention that Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame (or infamy) in October dropped $79 million on a mansion in Miami — right next door to the paltry house he bought in August for only $68 million. Because they’re on a barrier island, perhaps he can travel between the two on his $500 million yacht. Don’t forget the $165 million he dropped in Beverly Hills, the $60 million plus renovations in Seattle, the penthouse in New York, the ranch in west Texas . . .

Where was I? Oh, right. Selfish, thoughtless people. They bring me down, no matter how many 10-year-olds I read about spending the entirety of their birthday haul to feed others.

I can’t help but notice, today, that every newscaster out there has wished me Happy Black Friday, like it’s an important national holiday same as yesterday when they wished me Happy Thanksgiving. Give thanks and practice generosity, and that will lead to your personal mission of supporting the spending economy. It’s just a weird world we live in, that’s all.

And I — always back to I, right? — I am five years into this blog of diminishing returns. It has, over these five years, turned out to be quite cathartic many times, and you’d think in a year of worry and stress catharsis would be good. So much of it is not worry and stress about me, though, even if I do more of each than the people most impacted, and they are deeply personal stories that aren’t mine.

They are stories like Annika’s, a young woman I barely knew but whose mother is a lifelong friend. In June Annika turned 24 in a hospital intensive care unit, her lungs and heart pulsing with the aid of a machine that was not getting blood to her extremities, blackening her fingers and toes.

Annika, who had lupus, fought through the machine to start breathing on her own and pumping her own blood, but an infection grabbed hold of her lungs and ultimately she made the second-most courageous decision I’ve ever heard: she asked to be taken off her life support. Her parents then made the most courageous decision: they said yes. She died on Fathers’ Day.

I went to Annika’s service, an event filled with amazing joy and intense grief. I feel like I know this vibrant young woman so much better now: friend after friend after family member testified to her exuberance in life and her ability to pull others along on this mostly barefoot journey. (Her mother told us all she never came home with her shoes, and a friend described walking back from the beach with her, only realizing once home that his shoes were probably still by the seashore.)

Her mother and her aunt now sport tattoos in Japanese, one of several languages Annika spoke; the phrase translates to something like “Every day a good day.” That’s how Annika lived, and her wish for others as she lay dying: live in the moment, and make it a good one.

So Annika was definitely a glass half-full person in a way that I will probably never be. The best gift I could give her, and my dear friends who survive now without her, and to me, too, would be to try to be more like that.

I still don’t see me celebrating a “holiday” with a dreadful name like “Black Friday,” but I will wish my blog a belated happy anniversary and hope you all enjoy your day, whether it involves shopping or not.

At the service I learned the Indigo Girls were a bonding agent for Annika’s family. This wasn’t sung that day, but it seems appropriate for this one.