Dear Kate,
Itâs hot in Texas. Itâs hot all across the country, heat and drought ravaging cities typically temperate and cool. Our water is drying up. What will become of us?
Thatâs a question Iâm too sleepy to think about. Here, the heat doesnât feel dire, it feels lethargic. July in Texas languishes like your laziest middle school friend. âWant to lay around and watch movies?â she asks. She tosses her bike in your front yard, helps herself to a Gatorade, and plops down on the couch, remote in hand. Youâre at your weakest. You should do your summer reading, or go outside and play a game, but Uptown Girls is on, your mom wonât be home until dinnertime, and a nap really does sound nice. You wake up at sunset, covered in drool, another day of youth helplessly wasted.
When youâre 13, summer ends. A note on the calendar ââBack to school shopping!â â is the expiration date for sunshine and irresponsibility. All too soon, classes and lunch bells will create routine. Quizzes and semester grades will mark success or failure. Thereâs a clear rule for how to spend your time: During the summer, enjoy. During the school year, work.
With that structure, a few weeks of freedom is a special indulgence. Without it? An endless summer becomes a terrible, terrible thing indeed.
This July, as the pandemic concludes (?) and something (?) new begins, each day feels like swimming through quicksand. Iâm trapped in time, trapped by the heat, trapped by indecision. Movement makes it worse.
Each morning, my eyes fly open at 7:00 am. I need to get up! my brain says. There are things to do! Then I look at my phone. Oh. Itâs just another day. There are emails, there are tweets. The weight of stagnation is like gravity, plastering me to my sheets.
Why bother getting out of bed before 8:00 am? So I can get a jump on a day that will look exactly the same as the last? Iâll eat the same breakfast I always do, clean the same dishes I always do, sit at the same desk I always do, and start on the same work I always do. During the day, the average temperature in the house will hit 82 degrees. My wall unit AC will clamor and bang, working its hardest to provide even that comfort. At night, Iâll sink back into bed, tired for no reason.
Another day of youthânow scarcely numberedâwill be wasted.
The problem is one of structure: I have none. Every day is foggy and full of choices: Which pants to wear? What to make for lunch? What to work on? Who am I going to be as a person in this world? What do I want to do?
4:00 PM is the worst; for both the heat and the existential angst. Itâs the end of the day, and the questions should be answered. They arenât.
Itâs not as though we havenât had plenty of time to sit and think. By now, we should be taking action: planning for the future again, taking control of our lives and rebuilding routine. But how? With what priorities? Making money, or making friends? Getting a job, or writing a novel? Wandering, or buying a house? Anything can be possible, but not everything. Choices must be made.
But how? Itâs so hot.
Iâm reminded of middle school science class: An object in motion will stay in motion, but an object at rest will stay at rest. I remember the term âactivation energy.â Something to kickstart the system, a change agent for a chemical reaction. Where do you get such a thing? Iced coffee and earnest ambition do not seem to be doing the trick.
Last weekend, I decided enough was enough. I woke up Sunday morning and flung off the sheets. It was time to act. I rose, dressed, and drove 80 miles per hour to the most productive place a person can go on a Sunday before dawn: Home Depot.
Sneakers laced, shorts drawstring tied, I pushed my cart with gusto. I would spruce up my front garden, I thought. Pluck weeds, repot my plants, clear out the throngs of flying, nibbling devils lingering in the bushes. I would work.
As the morning light spread across the yard, I swept dirt off my picnic table, put down bark mulch, and sprayed insect repellent along the siding of my house, taking care not to hit my basil or oregano. I would combat chaos. I would create order. In a few hours, with sweat and dirt streaked through my hair, the job was done. I lay on my floor, indescribably pleased.
Progress. It could be made.
Flat on my back, eyes beginning to close (this Sunday nap was earned, after all) the roof started to tremble. Tick, tick, tick. Something hit the shingles.
I opened the screen door just in time to see the sky turn inward and crack. Even the heat could no longer bear itself. Storm clouds broke open, rain obscuring my view of anything past the porch. I worried briefly if the house would hold together.
The rain fell so hard it snapped my sunflowersâ stems. The bark mulch washed away. Potted plants tipped over, MiracleGrow fertilized the street. The chemicals â carefully, strategically placed â washed away too, headed toward streams and creeks and watersheds. Fish and frogs and sparrows would soon take their bathes in my poison.
Nature is opportunistic. Rains in Texas are never wasted. By the next morning, the green tops of invasive bamboo began to poke their spears through the ground. Mushrooms flourished. Green weeds sprouted where they had just been removed. My yard turned to sludge, mud sticking to my shoes and caking the floors of my house, turning my white bath mat a dark brown. I needed to fix my yard (again), then I needed to clean my house.
One day of work. Still another day, invariably, unavoidably wasted.
In this season of life, itâs impossible not to ask: Whatâs the point of trying to make progress when everything returns to chaos?
Itâs a law of nature that entropy propels any system toward disorder. Things break. Weeds grow. Well-kept gardens become tangled and overgrown if left to their own devices. Gardeners arenât only responsible for creating a system, but for mustering the effort to sustain it. If we stop the work of maintenance, of pulling weeds and raking bark mulch and potting flowers, the system will go to hell. Our upkeep is the only thing that prevents it from falling apart.
Thatâs why the choices we need to make about this fresh chapter of life feel like big onesâbecause they are. Weâve been given a blank slate. Whatever we choose to build will require dedication to succeed: Maintenance and upkeep. The question, âWho do I want to be today?â can feel like something more dire: âWho do I want to be forever?â
With stakes that high, how could you ever choose?
Perhaps the answer is not to fight the chaos, but to learn from it. Have you ever looked at a mushroom? Fungus thrives in the places no one else wants to go: The muddy, the dark, the damp. Each mushroom cap is a beautiful collective of cells working together, forming intricate structures. Chaos is everywhere in nature: Birds nibble on seeds and scatter them to the wind. Honeybees spread pollen on their wings, flying in random zigs and zags. They perfume our world through indecision. Chaos, in fact, might be the most perfect order.
We all want to feel productive, to earn a sense of achievement and accomplishment. We want to be in control. But look around at what our efforts to tame, manage, and control the wilderness have produced: Drought and desperation.
Maybe strict regimens, clear goals, and adult to-do lists arenât the answer. Natureâs chaos is not unproductive: Even rainstorms make things grow. Maybe we take our cues not from the systems designed by man, conquering through brute force, but by the systems of nature, striving and growing a little each day â with the sun and with the rain. Maybe we let time offer us an upward trajectory that canât be explained, only watched, embraced, and enjoyed.
xoxo
Ali
My book rec: Bowlaway
The book: Bowlaway
Why you should read it: Written by local Austin, Texas writer Elizabeth McCracken, this book is just absurdly delightful. Itâs about a woman named Bertha Truitt who opens a bowling alley. The characters are weird and lovable, they make mistakes, fall passionately in love, and die in freak accidents. Thereâs so much life in this book. When Iâm feeling bored of my own reality, I dive into McCrackenâs characters. In her world, you will not be bored.
What else you should read: McCracken published a new book of short stories this year, and it looks exceptional.