Norfolk Terrace, Day 51. [0:04] Relaxation 101 and the End of the World
It was a sick day, starting with the unstoppable urge to sleep longer and ending with me really hoping to get to bed before half midnight (a British quirk in saying the time, i.e. “Half seven” is 7:30).
Since my breakfast collided with my lunch hour, I had my peanut butter toast with sliced bananas and then directly after had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. With a befuddled expression written on his face, Dan asked me exactly how many sandwiches I was having, and I explained that I had “breakfast sandwiches” and was now having “lunch sandwiches”. Yes, I’m ridiculous.
I walked into the post room and finally received my parents’ parcels! I looked at the document-shaped one and hoped that it was—yes! Piano sheet music! I had only brought over a scant two or three sheets with me, for the sake of minimal luggage, but now, with my swipe card, the arrival couldn’t have come at a better time. The other package held a few books I had asked for: Wuthering Heights (bearing a “£2.50” price tag I had never noticed before…huh, it travelled from Britain to a Berkeley bookstore back to Britain), Heart of Darkness, and my copy of Stephen King’s autobiographical On Writing. I opened all the adhesive tape and envelopes in the library—I made more noise than I expected. Oops. I visited the piano practice rooms, got a bad pick for a room (piano out of tune a little, no working pedal), made the most of it, and realized my voice was terribly limited in my sick state. This thought encouraged me to decide against going to choir rehearsal tonight. Freeing my night/day from the one structured activity, I took a few liberties in being sick: watched an episode of Doctor Who and How I Met Your Mother, cooked salmon and broccoli (for the record, and to Vinnie, the salmon was cheap—I don’t eat posh food all the time), and emailed/IM’ed Katya. Oh, and I listened to music, which I don’t do as much as I should.
I enjoyed all these activities more because I had worked at my reading assignment earlier and felt like I was escaping it. There’s almost more of a cherished purpose when the “play” in the day counterbalances the work unexpectedly. At night, I did return to the library with Dan and I read up to 163. I appreciate Charles Dickens more than ever now: he described “reading” in the words “follow that passage with your eye” (119). Something so minor he reinvents with a description, reincarnating an idea in a new light.
In the midst of a school mindset (which begins every Monday and leaves on Friday, at least this semester), I taught myself to relax today—I’ll work the rest of my life, and despite my inclination to feel less worthy (of myself) when I am unproductive, I breathed in the air of a plentiful optimism. I have time to let myself not be confined in the library all day today. There is value in letting time be the lingering company on your porch after the day’s done, the empty space where responsibility is lifted and conscious reflection succeeds the refreshing inhale of the cool night air.
At dinner, Jen and Matt built up a morbid conglomeration of the statistics and dead ends for the world’s diminishing resources. By 2040, the world’s oil reserves will be depleted. By 2050, usable fresh water on the massive scale will be gone. The supply of fish will run out. And there’s already an unsustainable 7 billion people on this planet. So, this put a damper on things this evening as well. Imagine a world where your children or grandchildren will struggle for things we take for granted. Now, don’t imagine it because it’s an awful image despite being a good Malthusian reminder of earth’s finite fruits of life.
But there are moments when apocalyptic thoughts help bring up a new perspective. I hope that Doctor Who can be right in saying that humans will outlive their expected deadlines and find a way to survive (in the “End of the World” episode).
Meanwhile, Matt talked about saving up dough for space tourism in the long-term, but in five years, it will be possible. Can you believe it? As much as the present is always mundanely familiar, we are in the future. I’m writing this (for instance) and the minute I press “submit”, these words can appear on any computer plugged into the internet around the world—in less than a second. Or, if you like the more fun things, there are now high-speed hand dryers in public bathrooms—you go to a sink, the water pours automatically, the soap recognizes a palm, and then the hand dryer ripples your skin. You didn’t touch anything. On the flip side, you take out your handheld worldwide web of a smartphone, and there are no tangible buttons—all functions rely on touch, swipe, tap, tap, slide, swirl, zoom in, flick, swoosh.
But are we really in touch with reality?
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