There are times in life when you know exactly what is it you want. I’m not talking about dreams, or life-altering decisions here. I’m talking about moments, mere hours.
It’s Friday. And what I want tonight is a long, leisurely meal in a small trattoria thick with bursts of laughter and the scent of rosemary. I’m trying to focus on the menu, trying to put my meal together course by course, so that I can move on to the wine list. There will be sangiovese tonight. Vin santo with dessert. And who knows, maybe grappa too. My appetite is good. I was out trekking through the Tuscan mountains all afternoon, taking deep breaths and sweating off this morning’s breakfast. Now I’m all cleaned up, amongst friends again.
Actually, I’m underground in Stockholm, writing this on my iPhone, which seems like a degrading way to articulate these current desires. They deserve to be scratched onto real paper, by hand, letter by letter, forming phrases like RISOTTO AI FUNGHI PORCINI, or CROSTATA DI MARMELLATA. The page ought to be stained in red blotches, where the “blood of Jove” has trickled down my chin.
Yet, here I am, clucking these words out on a florescent screen. The boy sitting behind me is frantically kicking the seat, which doesn’t help when the iPhone keypad is half the size of my fingers. Nearly every word is misspelled.
I’m reminded of the essay that Wendell Berry once published in Harper’s Magazine, titled Why I Am Not Going To Buy A Computer, and his follow-up essay, Feminism, The Body, And The Machine. People kept telling him that a computer would aid his work by helping him writer faster, easier, and more. Mr. Berry actually took a moment to ask himself: Do I want to write faster, easier, and more? No, he decided. “My standards are not speed, ease, and quantity. I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with a pencil, I have written too fast, too easily, and too much. I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine.”
God, I love Wendell Berry, and I can assure him that technology does not always quicken one’s task. What a laborious process this was, trying to construct a few sentences on my iPhone, especially with that kid behind me, pounding his feet into my back, and his mom standing above me yelling, “Sluta! Kom hit nu!”
I turned around to get a good look at the rascal, and what a surprise to find a head full of silky black hair. No way that fair-skinned woman with flaxen curls could have birthed him. Obviously he was adopted. And I guess there ought to be a special allowance for adopted kids, right? They probably come from a rough place. Maybe they were abandoned, or abused, and imagine how displaced they must feel now.
He didn’t seem damaged in the least. With eyes closed, he’ thrown his head back and swayed it to the rhythm of his legs, swinging passionately now, as if guided by an upbeat song that only he could hear. And judging by the enormous smile on his face, it was a glorious piece of music.
I wanted to take his picture so that I could pull it up whenever I was having a bad day. My iPhone was in hand, after all. But wasn’t that like turning him into a Hallmark card? And plus, my iPhone is a piece of crap. 3G. They don’t even make software updates for the 3G anymore. By the time I could’ve gotten the camera open, that little guy would’ve been putting his pajamas on and picking out a bedtime story.
So I’m with Wendell Berry. Technology is useless when it comes to real life. I’m with him on many things, actually. Particularly on topics of agriculture, community, education, good work, care of the earth, economic health, technological heroism, and the corruption of wealth.
Just this morning, I was reading about Bill Gates’ new partnership with Monsanto to “end world poverty.” I read it about it from many perspectives - North America’s, Africa’s, India’s - and the more I read, the more despair I felt. Sometimes I can feel so hopeless about the world we’re living in.
But what is the use of despair, especially when I’m riding the train with a little Asian boy who is filled with music and unbridled joy? Or when there are things in this world like oak-aged wine and gnocci slathered in truffle oil? When there are days, like today, when I know exactly what it is I want - even if I can’t have it, because having it is not the point. The point is knowing. Hearing the echoes deep inside. And giving them a voice, a human language, or at least trying to. These things take practice, I think.
So take heart and carry on with the scraps. Whether they’re carved beautifully onto paper or stuck in a mechanical device with red squiggly lines under most of the words; whether they’re constructed of memory, or desire, or the here and now, just continue.
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