What, specifically, is the right place at the right time?

Rooms where I wasn't, places I was

I spent Easter weekend with my father, stepmother, doggie sister Roxie, and other family in North Carolina. We went to Duke Chapel, where my parents were married many years ago, for Easter church. It was beautiful, the music was out of a movie but better, and the flowers were amazing. My stepbrother and sister-in-law have a very sweet dog, two loving cats, and nice kids too. I got to see my aunt and uncle, both retired history professors, and their dog. Being with family on Easter weekend was being in the right place at the right time for me, though I missed my mom, with whom I usually spend Easter. It is a strange thing that we can not yet be in two places at once. People try to change that by texting frantically with someone who is somewhere else, all the while trying to conduct their business in the here and now. This leads to heartbreak, running into telephone poles and missing your actual life. I have cut back on my recreational texting in part due to trying to be in the here and now, and in part due to a repetitive stress injury I acquired while on a phone banking job.

To be fair the last time I ran into a telephone pole was at Yale in 1995 and it was before cell phones.

While I have a million other things I should be doing, I’ve been puzzling for a couple of days now on where I was at some point a few years ago when I had planned to be somewhere else, and I can’t figure it out.

Being the kind of person who likes to make meaning out of everything, I could say that it was simply not meant to be that I would be in that particular room at that particular time in that particular year, and that if I had, any number of things might have happened that didn’t and any number of things that happened might not have.

But they didn’t (or they did. I got lost too.) So who cares? I do.

In the Yale Political Union, we used to call the practice of playing out what would have happened if someone who lost a YPU election had won it. It was called “retro-hacking.” I am a big retro-hacker, because I believe we can learn from the past. Even if our past behavior was unwise, it has a message for us.

For example, many years ago, I completely neglected to marry someone. In fact, it didn’t even occur to me to ask him to coffee. A terrible omission on my part, one might think (and I blame myself entirely, back in those days it seems the girls did all the asking out) but it all turned out quite well. He is happily married and I am happily not.

I almost didn’t end up in one room that completely changed my life. In 2009, I almost didn’t go to the Calorie Restriction Society Conference because - horrible to admit it - I thought I wasn’t thin enough! I was in yoga shape, you could crack an egg on my calves if you lacked a more convenient place to crack an egg, but I weighed 2016, up from my low of 99. I went anyway, heard the amazing Dr. Richard David Feinman speak on low carbohydrate diets, and immediately recognized a kindred spirit. Brilliant, always in an argument with someone… you know the type. We ended up working together on Nutrition and Metabolism Society things, I made the decision to apply for my Masters in Public Health largely as a result of his encouragement and the fun of working with real scientists, and to this day we work together. I almost wasn’t in that room for a stupid reason, but I was in that room.

You hear a lot of stories of people who were almost in a terrible place at a terrible time. One of my old friends was walking toward the Twin Towers for a meeting and watched the planes hit. He walked away. We remember those stories because the impact of not being there is so obvious right away.

Lately I’ve started to wonder what would have happened if I had gone to Israel when I was younger. Not being Jewish, that’s less likely, but lots of non-Jewish people go to volunteer in Israel. I can imagine marrying an Israeli, as one of my friends did, and maybe staying or maybe coming back. I always wanted to go but there was never a time - I started working as a union organizer as soon as I graduated from college and never stopped until I was 40. Like never, ever stopped. But I have not been to Israel, yet. I will go. Not sure when. But I will.

If we spend too much time obsessing about being in the right place at the right time, we’ll never go anywhere. I often have this delusion that if I can just come up with all the right routines - sleep, workouts, meditation, etc. - life will be ideal. This is absurd. Clinging too tightly to routines can make you miss something important. Yet having none of them turns my life into chaos.

I’ve written many times about how Jedi seem to perfect the practice of being fully present in the moment, so they are ready for whatever happens. They are not mentally writing their grocery list when stormtroopers attack. You do not see them planning for retirement, other than perhaps picking out a cave to meditate themselves to death in. In fact, when a Jedi dwells in the past, it is clear they have lost their connection to the Force.

So while one can learn from the past, one should not dwell on it.

I know what I was wearing on the day in question. I liked that dress, and wish I could find it. I threw it out some years ago.

I know where I was when I planned to be at an event that I am not almost certain I was not at.

My memory is incredibly good, the kind of autobiographical memory that universities actually study. It’s not as good as it used to be, but it’s still good. Was I actually where I planned to be and don’t remember?

Out of the question.

There is work to be done, a suitcase to be unpacked, floors to be swept (constant when one has an indoor cat), a vacuum to find someone else to fix, chicken soup to be made once the chicken thaws (thank you to Miriam’s cousin Mel for the accidental advice to put in tons of pepper!) clothes to lay out for tomorrow, jewelry to pick out (I love little necklaces!) and whole new wars to fight, as well as a few old ones to pick up.

I actually think I may have figured it out.

I read a quote by Stephen King over the weekend about writing:

There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it’s fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he’s got inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the midnight oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life.

That was in a Substack I follow called I Read This Over Shabbos. I highly recommend it whether you’re Jewish or not.

I am quite the opposite about writing. There really is a muse who comes fluttering down into my writing room and scatters creative fairy dust all over my computer. My problem is that the fluttery guy is always scattering creative dust around everything and I could write all the time but I have to make a living, plus, I do need to get out and be with people. But I never have trouble finding something to write about. In fact, I have to stop myself from writing sometimes.

But this morning having just returned from a trip, I needed some time to get back to feeling like myself, and there is no better way than a good workout, a fast walk, or a quick post. It’s raining, so here I am.

And here I was

Right place, right time.