iWonder.
Someone emailed me about my post yesterday with this question:
"How do you actually avoid being jaded?"
I thought about it for a moment. Then I thought about it for a series of moments: a moment cluster, if you will.
(Otherwise known as an hour.)
I know how to avoid being hit by a car (well, it only happened to me once...) and how to avoid falling asleep (two words: CAFF and EEEEEEEN) and how to avoid unsightly circles under one's eyes (never, ever get out of bed...).
But this was a bit more of a challenge.
I was going to write some long, meaningful post about how to retain
a sense of wonder in response to their question, but in the end I
realized that, well... I didn't know.
How do you maintain a sense of wonder? Apparently, they are in short supply, those senses of wonder.
CNN helps us maintain a sense of horror, but that's not even remotely
the same thing. A sense of humour can be pretty damn close but, in the
end, doesn't even start to approximate the magic of which I speak.
I suppose my only idea would be this: that jaded-avoidedness (how the heck do I
say that?) is a process at which you must work (which sounds ironic
as hell now that I think about it).
Work at wonder? Plan to be delighted?
Hmmm.
But you do! You do!
You must.
You have to make up your mind that the world still has surprises and
possibilities in store for you, even if everything -- every last
squidgy piece of evidence -- seems to point in exactly the opposite
direction.
Now, if you're an annoying type of person, you're going to ask me how to do that, too.
Again, I'm not sure. It's not like I always get it right.
Sometimes I stare into
space like someone stole my Slinky before I sent it down the stairs of
the Philadelphia Museum of Art... all wistful and detached and resigned
to a Slinkyfree fate.
Sometimes I'm even crabby; crabby like... see, there's nowhere good to go with that simile. I'm leaving it alone.
Ahem.
The point is this: I believe you have to work at experiencing awe... but it's less easy to say how exactly you pull that off.
So, this evening, having been divested of both crab and Slinky, I decided to do a
little wonder homework and figure out what it might take for me to be
less jaded and more joyful.
I ended up with a list of things that make me ticklishly happy. That,
in and of itself, is a recipe for at least a small dose of delight, by my calculations (done on an abacus). Here goes:
Smellygood things: I'm a highly congested, allergy-ridden troll with a deviated septum and at least 31 years worth of auxilliary snot built up in some hideous holding tank somewhere in my body (this could be the explanation behind my auspicious ass). If ANYONE (except for noseless people) could whine more about living a smell-free life, I don't know how. BUT... I LOVE THINGS THAT SMELL GOOD. Oh yessir, I do. I will shove them halfway up my nostril to experience their fragrance and I don't feel a mite sheepish about it. Why, just today, in a store that sells good smelling things, I spritzed Lemon Sugar perfume into the air (one of my signature scents) and snorted it like... well... something Al Pacino would have snorted in Scarface (without the guns, mind you). I own chocolate soap, apple cider shower gel, lemon scrub, and lotions with everything from mango oil to peppermint smelling them up to high heaven. And it's bliss, I tell you, bliss. I am always in awe about how good a spring morning smells, or the ocean in a storm, or a first snowfall, or a handful of soil, or a fire in a fireplace, or a cobbler in the oven, or even a slice of cucumber (fresh!). So many smells, so little sinus capacity.
Touchygood things: My fingers are not congested, so this one is a bit more easy on me. Baby skin, puppy fur, pashmina wraps, bathwater with almond oil dancing on the surface, velvet dresses... all exquisitely lovely to touch. I cannot believe how startlingly right salt water feels on my skin when I dive into the ocean. It's as though the waves are trying to find the gills that exist only in my heart. I love the heat of coconut oil on my legs when the bottle has been baking on a beachtowel for hours. I love the fluid silk and textured embroidery of cheongsams, hanging in a Chinatown shop. I love the papery dryness of arbutus bark, peeling like sunburnt skin from smooth, smooth limbs. There are so many beautiful things you can touch -- not the least of which are the people you love. Or even just like. But only with their permission.
Listenygood things: I cry like Halle Berry at the Oscars when I hear Handel's Messiah. My stars... I mean, how do you blend voices like that and not get overtaken by the shivers? And John Coltrane? Acknowledgement makes me feel reborn. Not to mention Al Green -- the voice of sensual romantic possibility; Bob Dylan -- the sound of a well-worn heart leaking light; Willie Nelson -- pitch-perfect weariness with a side of crinkly grin; Joni Mitchell -- the sound of windblown, riverwinding wisdom; Ryan Adams -- the sound of whiskeydrenched sass; Ella Fitzgerald -- the sound of an elegant soul with raw edges... I could go on and on and describe all of it much better, but brevity demands I stop. Music is my guts half the time. I walk differently when there is music in my ears. I think differently when music is a part of a moment. And I love better with it in my heart. Knowygood things: I know that some people stay married -- happily! -- their whole lives, even in this day and age. That's amazing! I'm the child of two of them! That's even more amazing! I know that there are a billion spots I have not seen all over this planet, just waiting for me to step into magic. I know that fish own the sea and birds own the sky and that I get to share their homes with them sometimes; they don't have that luxury, to switch it up, to get the best of all worlds, to go up and down at will. How blessed am I? I know that I get up every day and write, which was something that I had dreams about as a kid, but was never really sure I could do -- and here we are! It might suck but I write it and you read it. Thank you, by the way! Holy cow! Did you know you were a part of making my dream come true, right this second?
- Futuregood things: I know that eventually, this cold will go away -- which is so cool. When I wake up tomorrow -- tomorrow being the immediate future -- I will have a raspy voice and perhaps sound my age for ten minutes or so. I will gobble another Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen at some point in the next month regardless of the caloric trauma -- mmm, fudge! I will use my chocolatey soap in the shower tomorrow and smell more like a cake than a chick -- yay! I will probably sing inadvertantly along with my iPod in a public place and blush redder than a smacked ass -- eeek! I will write an email to encourage someone -- and it will work! I will dance freely and forget myself in the tunes. I will see Belfast and the home of my grandfather and his grandfather. I will eat grapes in Tuscan vineyards. I will jump off a cliff into Santorini aquamarine seas. I will feel sand like powdered sugar slip through my fingers and the sun on my face like a thousand votive candles lit for purely for my redemption. I will know what it feels like to be loved forever. I will hold my own babies in my arms. I will cry like a fool when my heart breaks and laugh like an idiot when it heals. I will see thousands of sunrises, thousands of sunsets, thousands of streets, millions of faces, gazillions of snowflakes, and seemingly the whole wide world stretching out before me from a few mountaintops. Do you know how much I have left to do? It boggles the mind. I boggle. And Boggle -- that game rocks!
So here it is, my answer (at long last):
The only wonder I can preserve is my own.
The only thankfulness I can generate is my own.
The only life I have to live is my own.
The only jaded heart I can really fight is this one that I pummel into softness on a daily basis.
This is a world of pain and sorrow and agony and loss. This is also a world where you can open or close your eyes to every other damn thing that isn't pain, sorrow, agony, or loss. You can use the latter to soothe the wounds of the former.
Or you could give up.
But not on my watch, baby.
Not a bloody chance.
12:03:44 AM 
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