#8 / Adventuring
Hi everyone,
I took Thursday and Friday off. This corresponded nicely with spring’s long-awaited arrival. The weekend has been so nice that it feels like summer—actually it feels like summer vacation. Maybe that’s what quarantine has been like all along, only I didn’t make the association because we haven’t had weather to match.
As a kid my life revolved around school. So when there wasn’t any, there was this feeling of absence, of something missing. Right now most of my “normal” life isn’t happening. This leads to boredom, but also to creativity. I have to come up with new ideas to fill the space.
On Friday Ashley was also off work—so we went on a trip! Her boss lives in Wilmette, a nearby northern suburb, and she informed us that the town’s lakefront is open. And right by the lakefront is the Bahà’ì Temple, which we’ve been meaning to check out and must be seen to be believed (I won’t be mad if you skip to the pictures).
It was the first time I had been somewhere other than work or the grocery store or the doctor’s office in almost two months, and it was the first time in weeks that we woke up feeling anticipation for the day.
The most remarkable parts of the day were the little things. All the stuff we take for granted: a leisurely drive in the car with the windows down; being in public without feeling anxious about “how quickly can we get out of here?”; having some personal space; sitting or walking outside without a mask on.
We started the day by visiting the garden center on our street, which just re-opened. It was fantastic to see (and purchase) some fresh plants and herbs, but it was definitely stifling. Masks are required, and entry is limited, so we definitely felt like we were on the clock. There’s a specified route through the aisles, and trying not to get too close to other people demands constant effort. And I mean, shopping makes me anxious in normal times.
The lakefront, then, was finally a break from all that. It’s a beautiful 20-minute drive past Loyola University and Northwestern University and a lot of grand old mansions. Since the weather was nice I was worried the park would be mobbed, but it wasn’t bad at all—lots of room to spread out. Going on a weekday must have helped.
The temple was amazing. Standing in front of it, three levels of all-white intricately-detailed majesty, you’re transported to some other country, some other century. I even felt like I was in Game of Thrones, because it reminded me of the Great Sept of Baelor. Starlings and red-winged blackbirds were active in the gardens and pools surrounding the temple; they’d fly up and up and up, and perch for a moment on a buttress or balustrade—Ashley swore she could see Cersei Lannister sipping Arbor gold from a window.
But I think it was just a bird.
We walked from the temple, past some more gorgeous homes, to the lake, where we sat on the sand and beachgrass and watched the waves come in.
Writing
I finished my short story last weekend and submitted it to the University of Iowa’s flash fiction contest! It clocked in around 750 words—very flash indeed. I’ve posted the story, “Visiting Hours,” on my new website. (This is the first time I’ve told anybody about my new website.)
Reading
I finished the David Klinghoffer book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, and picked up The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, which has been at the top of my list for a while.
I might write a brief review of the Klinghoffer book, but the bottom line is that it’s a worthwhile read if you’re into the origins of the Old and New Testament and the Talmud and are curious about how they’ve been interpreted over the ages. Also, if you don’t know a ton of about the life of Jesus and the birth of Christianity, which I didn’t, this is a good intro. In the end Klinghoffer makes this grand argument that the Jews’ rejecting Jesus is a gift that enabled the flourishing of Western civilization as we know it, which I am not sure I buy.
The Brown book, I’ve just flipped through and read the table of contents and the first several pages so far—but as someone who constantly battles perfectionism, it’s already what I needed, for sure. The idea is that perfectionism gets in the way of living a full life by generating anxiety and making it harder to feel joy and gratitude. Imperfection, by contrast, brings gifts: it allows for courage, which is to accept incompleteness and act anyway; it also enhances your compassion for and connection to others, since you more easily recognized your shared imperfection.
Brown’s antidote to perfectionism is to elevate self-compassion above self-knowledge; this is backwards from how I’ve always had it. I like this inversion. You can have tons of knowledge about yourself, which will necessarily include your inconsistencies and self-defeating patterns, but if you’re just going to savage yourself for it, what good is the information? The point of all that introspection isn’t to make you depressed, it’s to help you live more wholeheartedly. It’s to help you live in accordance with your values—live the life you want to live. (I wonder… who other than myself is holding me to such impossible standards, anyway?)
Mood
Belle & Sebastian — “Write About Love”
You’ve got to see the dream
through the windows and the trees
of your living room
Write About Love - song by Belle & Sebastian | Spotify
Belle & Sebastian · Song · 2010
Thanks for reading. Please take care, and write back if you can!
Love,
Aaron