All the time, on this stupid little blog, I’m yapping about my terrible taste in music. And it’s true, I like a lot of really bad songs. But guess what! I like some good ones too. One of them is this:
It’s called “Five Colors” by Sam Phillips, in case the above embedded video isn’t working for you.
I know absolutely nothing about Sam Phillips, so if you’re looking to learn about her, sorry, move along. This is actually the only song of hers that I know. According to Google, this album was released in 2001, which makes sense because that’s approximately when I became aware of it, or soon thereafter. I was in middle school (’01-’04), and my parents owned the CD, so I’d hear it sometimes in my mom’s car.
Middle school was around the time my social anxiety/AVPD began to amp up to adult levels. In a way it was even worse, back then, than it is now, because at that age you haven’t developed any defenses yet, and minor things still seem huge, in that childlike way. Yeah, middle school sucked. I don’t remember the first time I heard this song. It was just there, in my house; it seemed like it had been around for a long time. I always found it soothing. I have a distinct memory of listening to it and like intentionally memorizing the words and installing them into my brain prior to this big social event in seventh grade, because hearing it made me physically relax, made me feel like everything was going to be okay. Something about its peaceful sound — but also the lyrics, somehow, although I couldn’t really make much sense of them at that age.
A twelve-year-old’s brain is an impressionable thing, and things inscribed upon it tend to stick there for life. This song has stuck with me for life. And I don’t even listen to it that often — almost never, tbh. It just kind of lives in my brain. (You may have seen me mention it on this blog before.) It pops back up at random times. Specifically, those lingering last two lines:
“I tried, but can’t find refuge in the angle
I’ll walk the mystery of the curve.”
I dunno about you guys, but for me, those lines pretty much sum it up, this whole “life” situation. In my experience, it’s been thirty-six years of repeatedly seeking refuge in the angle, in one way or another, only to eventually have to resign myself to walking the mystery of the curve.
Things are rarely as black-and-white as I’d like for them to be. The senseless, incomprehensible nature of being alive is, to put it lightly, frightening. Angles are comforting. We can explain them. Curves, though, are unknowable. Pi goes on forever. Like, what even is that. How is something as essential as a simple circle so mysterious?
Life is, essentially, crazy. I keep having to accept that.
But isn’t this incompatible with my TradCath POV? Au contraire. Some people like to accuse organized religion of trying to find refuge in the angle — of trying to put God in a nice angular little box. This is only true of those who are doing organized religion wrong.
As I was recently talking about in my post on C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, we humans can’t have a healthy attitude towards God unless we accept how terrifyingly unfathomable are His ways. Our little minds aren’t capable of fathoming Him. Innocent people suffer, and for what? “A loving God would never allow this!” — it seems that way to us, but God is way too big for us to understand.
It isn’t always nice. There isn’t always an upside. I don’t believe that “all things happen for a reason.” Some things are just purely bad, by our own standards. Yet God is good. How can that be?
Things rarely make sense. Accepting our smallness, our powerlessness, the mind-bending horror and brutality of life, the unknowability of God, or of anything important, really — this is a necessary part of being religious. Of being human. This, imo, is what Sam Phillips was getting at.
And so it keeps coming back to me. Still, twenty-five years after first hearing it, this song soothes me. Still, it pops back into my mind at odd times, like a friendly remimder, as life proves its lyrics true again and again and again. I’ll walk the mystery of the curve, it says, while the peaceful, simple melody suggests to me that that’s not necessarily such a bad thing.
Having some trail mix (then): Okay. Deep breath. Here we are. The time has come. The long awaited moment. Time for the serving of trail mix that I’ve been planning since last week. I get to have some trail mix! Carefully measure out three tablespoons. Scoop carefully to make sure it’s an even distribution of the different items bc if it’s too heavy on the raisins the calorie/sugar content will be higher than the label says, too many nuts = fat content higher, etc., and we have to stay on track here. Level tablespoons, don’t be a piggy now, you fat fuck. Make that scant tablespoons, to be on the safe side. Scrape some off the top. There. Ok. Here’s one serving. Now, I will begin with the boring raisins and peanuts as like a penance before getting to the coveted cashews and chocolate chunks. This is a process. This is the moment. This is all we get, right here. Slowly, one peanut at a time, to really draw out this experience, because even the boring bits are a decadent treat, and it’s exactly this many hours before we may eat again. Ok, now we have arrived at the good part. Soon we will get to eat a cashew. Here is the cashew. Savor it. Ew, you’re so disgusting for savoring it. What the fuck is wrong with you. Piggy. The serving is gone now. You’re still hungry?! After trail mix??! Why are you so fucking fat. Kill yourself. Better get the last crumbs because this is all you get. Ew, what kind of fatty licks the crumbs?! If they could see you now! Despicable! Ok, same time tomorrow? Shall we make this a daily habit? Shall we make 11AM 3Tbsp of trail mix a rule which, if broken, makes your whole day ruined and you an irredeemable failure? We shall!, whether you like it or not!. Now, go walk it off, fatty.
Having some trail mix (now): hungry. food time? food time. hmm. what’s this? ooh, trail mix. that’ll do. dump in bowl. looks like a lot. probably won’t finish. mm, cashews and chocolate chunks. take those first. yum. i wonder why they’re called ‘cashews’. funny. hm, looks like all the good bits are gone. now it’s just peanuts and raisins, boring. oh well, getting full anyway. Oh wait I had to go do that other thing i forgot about i’ll just leave this bowl here on the counter maybe i’ll
you’re sunk in the sofa beside your husband at night, bathrobes on, snacks out, fully vegetating, kids finally asleep, and you’re both transfixed, positively slack-jawed watching this whole stolen lego saga on youtube (fr though, are you guys seeing this?!), & it gets to the part where they’re out in friggen utah and the mormon mafia are on their tails, pulling them over repeatedly for literally no reason, just being bullies, going off about imaginary heroin & “not coming to a complete stop” & etc. etc., & sheesh, seeing all of this, your honest, immediate reaction that comes spouting up from your withered millennial heart and out your agèd mouth is “Why are they being so mean to them?! They’re just a bunch of 30-year-old kids!”
(& I remember when i thought 25 was full blown adult)
I’m not much of an “idea” person, but rarely, very rarely, a good one occurs to me — like, I’m talking good enough that I wish some smart, capable person would steal it and make it happen.
I’ve had exactly four really clever, marketable, steal-worthy ideas in my entire life, ideas that I’m actually proud of and believe deserve to be shared.
The first was the plot of this one book that I wrote/rewrote two or three times between 2009 and 2018, which I may or may not share here one day; I’m so proud of that story, because to this day, it’s the only plot I’ve ever come up with that made me go “wow! This is a really freaking clever little plot! I can’t believe I thought of this!”, because typically my stuff is very slow-paced, aimless, and character-driven, and plot is very much my weakest suit.
Anyway, my second good idea was the one for the Infinite Jest + Gorillaz music video, which I described in my post about music videos (I am once again asking someone with animation skills to steal this idea!). The third one, I have decided to actually try to make something out of, and is currently in progress, so I can’t talk about it here. 🤫 But the fourth one! The fourth one. Someone who’s not me needs to jump on this:
I call it The Brainrot Scale, and it’s a simple rating system for kids’ media. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a numeric scale from 1-10, with 1 being the most edifying, wholesome, low-stimulation content, and 10 being the most toxic, trashy, addictive, and destructive for kids’ minds.
Wouldn’t it be handy, for us parents who try to be careful about our kids’ entertainment, if all kids’ content came with a simple numeric rating? If the library shelves were organized by Brainrot rating, or if the spines at least had a sticker with the book’s number on it? If on YouTube Kids you could filter videos by their Brainrot rating? “Only show me videos that are 3.5 or below” would be such a great option to have. Obviously, I realize it wouldn’t be flawless in practice — and ideally, parents should still personally screen whatever their kids are viewing (which is hard to find time to do) — but I still think it’d help a lot!
It’s already helped, in my house. My kids are 6, 5, 3, and 1 (obviously the one-year-old doesn’t watch TV yet, but the older three sometimes do, especially now that it’s summer break and I’m busy trying to assemble our school curriculum for the fall). In the past, I have, admittedly, permitted them to consume brainrot, like while I was in the first trimester and too sick to do much of anything. But now that my youngest is a bit older and our lives are getting back on track, I’m cracking down on brainrot consumption.
Which can be hard for my kids to comprehend. “Why can we not watch PAW Patrol?” “You used to let us watch PAW Patrol.” Fair. When I was pregnant and in the newborn phase, things went to chaos. But my little ones don’t understand why the rules have changed.
It’s easier for them to understand if there’s some simple and non-debatable criteria, like a number. Ever since I implemented the Brainrot Scale in our house, my children no longer ask why, they no longer argue with me over what they may watch/read; now, they simply ask “How much is The Kratt Brothers?” “How much is Magic Fingers?” And if the number is 3.5 or lower, they cheer.
Here are some examples of how popular media might rank on the Brainrot Scale:
Cocomelon: 10
Super Kitties: 9.5
PAW Patrol: 9
Disney’s Frozen: 8
Bluey: 7.5
Veggie Tales: 5
Teletubbies: 4
Zoboomafoo: 3.5
Franklin: 2.5
David the Gnome: 1.5
The Moomins: 1.5
Little Bear: 1
Implementing this simple system in my house has helped us clean up our media consumption, and I think it could help a lot of other families as well.
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Since beginning the draft of this post, I’ve actually begun an experiment of removing the TV entirely. So far, so good — but the Scale is still applicable, because although we tend to think of brainrot in terms of screens, it also applies to music and books.
Most picture books on the shelf at the kids’ section of the library these days are somewhere between a 4 and a 9, honestly. To find the 0-3s, you have to put in some work. Quality is not the norm. Being old doesn’t automatically make a piece of media good. Nor does winning literary prizes.
I’m only just figuring all of this out — and am beginning to think it might be really important. To protect our kids from brainrot, that is.
And I’ll admit that I haven’t ironed out all the kinks yet. It still potentially has some major pitfalls, some potential risks to your children’s well-being. Because here’s one thing that weighs on me a lot: how can we implement the Brainrot Scale, or at least be good parents when it comes to screening and vetting the kids’ media consumption, without introducing shame?
My own parents were, rightfully, intensely judgmental of certain brainrot that I was enamored of in my youth. Their scorn and disapproval of things that I deeply loved and enjoyed and took very personally, had quite a psychological impact on me, and my preexisting Free-Floating Shame Syndrome (FFSS) (comorbid with AVPD, I guess) had a field day with it.
I don’t blame them at all, and firmly believe that they were 100% in the right to discourage that content. (I really believe that it’s just my natural temperament that caused me to react so intensely to their criticism; I actually believe that I was born with FFSS, and there was never anything that could have been done to prevent it. Inherited generational trauma, maybe?) But I also know that, going forward, I need to find the fine line between screening and belittling; a way to protect my own kids without making them feel ashamed. (Especially if it turns out they’re built the same way I am, with FFSS, which, Lord, I hope and pray they’re not.)
Or, at least, without making them believe that they are bad people for finding brainrot appealing. Shame is not such a bad thing in itself. It’s a healthy response, sometimes. And maybe grown people past a certain age should be ashamed, for being obsessed with brainrot. But if my kids do happen to get sucked into something brainrotty at some point, I don’t want to make them feel like they need to hide from the world, that they’re some kind of retarded freak who’s undeserving of love or respect.
How will I do this? I’m not sure exactly. It will require a lot of careful thought and prayer and discernment. “Brainrot” isn’t just about pleasure and mindlessness. It’s like a weight that pulls your soul downward. There can be healthy mindless enjoyment: sitting outside with a cup of coffee staring at natural beauty; playing silly games with the kids; eating dessert with your husband after the kids are in bed. But brainrot is a different thing. I begin to think that, contrary to popular belief, it might never be good or necessary. It’s dangerous. You have to be really discerning, and you have to understand why it’s bad.
You can’t blink, as a parent. You have to be constantly on guard. I do think the Brainrot Scale would help with this, if it were widely implemented on TV, the internet, movies, books, and music. But it’s not a perfectly neat solution. Alas, nothing important is easy. What are your thoughts?
To clarify: music and I, we don’t have a very healthy relationship — not anymore, anyway.
I’m one of the only people I know who doesn’t identify as a “music lover.” Even though I do find some music highly pleasurable, it’s really not something I celebrate, or take pride in, or like to share with others, or personally identify with — it’s not something that I devote a lot of brainpower to. My music listening life is riddled with guilt and shame, a lot of sick pleasure and emotional avoidance. I use music like an illegal drug, not like the wholesome, nourishing meals that it’s meant to be. It’s just bad. As my regular readers know, music, tbh, stresses me out, more than anything else, and I feel like I’d be better off without it.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
For my shitty relationship with music, I myself am mostly to blame, because I am, to put it simply, a terrible person (how could someone who hates music not be a terrible person, right?!). I’d say I’m 95% at fault here. If I were less lazy, if I exerted more effort to be better… but, there’s that remaining five percent: I think there are other, external factors that are also responsible for the rift between music and Mith.
One of these reasons is technological advancement, which hastened the death of my dear friend Clarence.
Ah, Clarence Phineas McLoughlin: a flower too soon faded. A hero fallen. Who, you ask, was Clarence, and what does he have to do with technology or music?! To clarify:
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Another thing about me is, I’m not an Apple person. No iPhones, no iPad, no iAnything. I don’t own any Apple products, not anymore, and actually don’t vibe with their interface at all (although I do have fond memories of those transparent-shelled monitors from the early 2000s; I still remember how exciting it was when my elementary school library replaced their plain old boxy gray computers with the futuristic see-through blue ones that looked like candy! Ah, the thrill of the y2k era. If only we’d had foresight.).
However, there was once one Apple product that was, imo, worth the exorbitant price tag, and which I wish they’d bring back, and that was: the iPod.
Marvelous little thing, the iPod. Technology should have stopped there. “We’ve done it! We’ve completed music listening devices, we’ve completed cell phones. Now let’s move on to curing cancer.”
I was sixteen or seventeen when I got an iPod. (Friggen autocorrect keeps trying to change it to “iPad” — fie upon thee, autocorrect! Have some respect for your elders!) Might have been a seventeenth birthday present, now that I think about it. My family couldn’t afford the regular iPod so I was given an iPod Nano. A little plain white one. I loved him. Being a weirdo, when my iTunes application on the old family desktop computer told me to “name my iPod,” I named him not something obvious like “ipod nano” or “Mith’s iPod,” but rather chose to dignify him with the legal name of Clarence Phineas McLoughlin. Although he always just went by Clarence.
Up until Clarence, I had always listened to CDs, as we all did in those days. CDs were great. I miss CDs. I miss CD stores, I miss hearing a great song on the radio and begging my mom to take me to the CD store ASAP to buy it with my allowance money — that was the only way, back then, to acquire that song! I’m even nostalgic for the anxiety I’d get, worrying about the CD store clerk judging my taste in music, lol! I miss wondering if the rest of the album would be as good as the one or two songs that I’d heard. I miss the little pop-click of loading a CD into my walkman, and the inky smell of the fresh CD jacket. I’d sit there with the new disc playing in my headphones, checking out the jacket art (look at what the artist made for me!) (back before social media, when musicians and celebrities were like otherworldly figures, cloaked in mystery and intrigue!) and reading the lyrics and making note of which track numbers I liked and which ones I’d be skipping. But then sometimes you just let the thing play, and the weaker tracks start to grow on you, and you start to appreciate the album for a whole complete work, like a symphony.
With Clarence, that started to change, but I still enjoyed albums because it was still pretty convenient. I loaded all my old CDs onto Clarence, bought some albums on iTunes, listened to whole albums on Clarence — but also began to get more scattered about it, now that I could make my own playlists and employ the “Shuffle” function. Things were beginning to fall apart, I admit — but if we had stopped there, things might have been better. That was the last time I had a good relationship with music. Through Clarence.
The iPod was a happy medium between CDs and the modern world of Spotify and smartphones. It was still pro-artist, pro-album, pro-art. You hear a song you like on the radio, you log onto the Internet on your family PC and go check out the album on iTunes, listening to the thirty-second clips of each track, and if it’s good, you buy it for $9.99 (with digital jacket art that Clarence showed on his little screen as the song played!), and upload it to your iPod — the new CD shopping, minus the social anxiety. Pretty much perfect.
I miss albums.
I know some people, the music lovers out there, still go out of their way to purchase entire albums. Not I. It’s no longer necessary. It’s too inconvenient anymore. Now, I hear a song I like on the radio, I just add it to a YouTube playlist, and that’s that. I don’t have patience or energy to deep-dive into entire artists anymore.
It used to be that, because I had to pay $10-20 for a CD, I’d only buy music that I actually respected and believed to be worth my money, of which I’ve never had much. I never bought any hip-hop or rap CDs (unless you count Linkin Park/Jay-Z’s Collision Course, which was like my gateway drug).
YouTube is free — with ads.
So, I pretty much exclusively listen to assorted little bits of mainstream junk, now, mostly hip-hop. With ads.
By the time Clarence died, the age of the smartphone was upon us, the ephemeral age of the iPod already in the past. In a way, my love of music died along with Clarence.
I fully admit that I am to blame here. The advancement of technology only rots your brain if you were a weak-minded person to begin with. Brilliant people still exist today, and use technology as a tool rather than letting it use them. I’m not one of those people. I’m just another complicit zombie loser (why did autocorrect try to change that to “lover”?! Ffs! See?! Smartphones suck!) who’s allowed a piece of her soul to be eaten by the merciless mercenary advancement of technology. Or maybe I’m just feeling glum about all this because my husband and I recently watched Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. (Go watch it, if you haven’t yet!)
CDs are pretty much incompatible with life in 21st century America, but, imho, there’s still a place for the iPod — especially as more and more of us are trying to reduce our phone usage, but don’t quite know how to live without some degree of modern technology because that’s just how our world is built anymore.
And yes, yes, I’m aware that you can still buy pre-owned iPods, on ebay and such. Artifacts. That’s not what the world needs. That’s not what my soul misses. It’s not even Clarence himself that I miss, so much as the age that he was defined by. The iPod age — the pre-smartphone age. Sure, I could purchase a pre-owned iPod off ebay, but that would not turn back the clock. I don’t have the power to do that. Money is power, and of that I’ve never had much.
But we know who does. The big corporations. They own us. They run this place. They can do anything. Apple, if they wanted to, could virtually turn back the clock for us. They could usher back in the iPod era. They could make the sun rise once again on the Age of Clarence!
So please, Apple — this one little pawn is begging you!: bring back the iPod era! Give Clarence back his rightful place on the throne. Give me back my appreciation for musicians and their craft. Give me back my love of music. Give me back that piece of my soul. I’ll buy it back from you. I’ll give you my money, I promise.
I think I get it now… maybe. I think I can finally, officially, see it from the other side’s perspective.
As you all know, when it comes to vaccines, I’ve always been somewhere between cautiously pro-vaccine and furiously pro-vaccine; my attitude toward antivaxxers has vacillated between curiosity and rage. I know so many of them irl, and they are such smart people otherwise, much smarter than me – so how can they believe something so stupid?!
I’ve done the research. I’ve read all different opinions and taken them seriously. I haven’t dismissed either side, and I’ve continued to do my research, never quite satisfied with my existing knowledge. I keep landing on the pro-vaccine side, based on the available evidence – and thus, I keep wondering and wondering how it could possibly be that anyone with a brain could be antivax. Truly, it’s been bothering me a lot. I’ve been wrestling with this and wracking my brain trying to understand.
But I think I might understand now.
What finally got it through to me was not some personal experience (thank God!) nor reading some mind-blowing new statistic or evidence or personal take on the whole issue; no, it was, basically, a TV show.
The show is Widow’s Bay (2026), on AppleTV. And I didn’t actually even like the show that much. I liked season one’s beginning and its end, but it pulled a few stunts in the middle that were imo irredeemably stupid. I would have quit watching, but my husband was enjoying it. Anyway, the ending, like I was saying, was well done.
In the finale, we encounter a “trolley problem”-type scenario. Now, as a Catholic, I feel pretty confident about my answer to the trolley problem – the correct response is, you may not and must not pull the lever – and I was pleased to see my response represented in a positive light (even though it wasn’t the response that the main character went with).
In life, bad things happen; that’s inevitable. But when you intervene, that makes whatever bad thing happens your fault. In this life we can’t hope to eliminate all pain and evil. All we can do is try not to sin. That’s the only thing we have power over. And by choosing to harm someone… that’s something you cannot do. Good ends do not justify bad means.
It’s not often that my little personal worldview is depicted favorably on TV. Seeing my own philosophical stance represented so positively, so clearly and articulately, by such a good character, made me bask in a sort of self-satisfied glow, for a little while there.
And I started to think more about this whole position. You can’t pull the lever. You can’t intervene. What else does this mean, in life? And, hold on a second, does this apply to the vaccine issue?
What if vaccinating counts as pulling the lever?: Yes, you may prevent some bad things from happening (like serious illness) – but if other bad things do happen as a result (like serious vaccine injury, which is rare but real and very scary)… then that’s on you.
Now in the case of vaccinating, I don’t think it’s quite the same as the classic trolley situation in which a person is guaranteed to die. Because there’s no guarantee that vaccinating will result in harm. It’s more of a calculated risk. But, I also think that people who calculate and choose not to take that risk, are totally valid. Because the thought of being responsible for injuring your child permanently with vaccines… that’s a horrifying thought. Vs. if they got sick, then that would be tragic, but outside of my control.
“But it’s not outside of your control! You could have chosen to vaccinate!” — first of all, before you get mad at me, know that I do vaccinate my kids and will continue to do so (more on that below). Opting out of one risky preventative measure is not the same as accepting illness. I know plenty of antivax moms who are careful about protecting their kids’ health, not taking them places where there are contagious illnesses, etc. You can still try to avoid illness. But risking your kids’ lives to do so… I can see how that would amount to pulling the lever.
It’s not like antivax moms are out here getting their kids sick on purpose. They’d just rather accept consequences, the to-some-degree-inevitable consequences of humanity’s fallen nature, than risk being responsible for harming their kid, I guess.
But then why do I vaccinate?: because, I’ve calculated the risk in my unique situation, and determined it to be low: neither I nor my husband has ever had an adverse reaction to a vaccine, and our kids are generally very hardy and healthy. Vaccinating them is scary, but not vaccinating would also be scary. It’s a real life R.L. Stine “Reader Beware, You Choose the Scare” situation. Also, I do it for the simple reason that my husband is strongly pro-vaccine, and I pretty much follow his lead in big decisions like this. But if he were antivax, I’d probably jump on board willingly. Because philosophically I actually think the antivax position really holds water.
That does not mean, however, that I think antivaxxers should look down on those of us who do vaccinate. We’re not brainwashed government pawns. As I’ve said, we’ve done our research and chosen what we think is best for our families; “don’t tread on me,” isn’t that right? — I swear, the older I get, the more tired I am of people online trying to tell each other what to do. The internet is a curse. I’m about to go full Stoic and just stop having an opinion about anything outside of my direct sphere of influence.
In this post I haven’t delved into other reasons not to vaccinate, such as the ethics of how some vaccines are developed. That’s because I don’t see those reasons as particularly pertinent here. I identify as radically pro-life, but here’s the thing: (1) the few vaccines that were developed using aborted fetal tissue, those two abortions took place very long ago, and there is no remainder of the babies’ DNA in the vaccines; if the abortions were ongoing and every vaccine given meant one baby killed, then that’d be a very different story!, and (2) those are the only versions of that vaccine available to us, and (3) my obligation to protect my children outweighs my obligation to be a perfectly ethical consumer, and also (4) why can’t God bring about good out of evil? Human souls, souls loved by God, are born as a result of IVF and surrogacy all the time!, so clearly God can bring good out of evil, which is not to say that we should support the evil, but by enjoying the good fruits I don’t think we are necessarily supporting the evil.
I’m back again to defend (and briefly complain about) yet another Harlan Coben series on Netflix! Recently my husband and I watched I Will Find You, and tbh I loved it; but after finishing it, I went to look it up online, and discovered that, apparently, everyone hates this one too, possibly even more than they hated Run Away. Why, I wonder? Why are people so mad at what is basically the quintessential crime thriller?
Apparently, folks’ issue with this limited series is that it is exactly that: the characters are all two-dimensional and tropey, and the plot, while addictive and gripping, is basically junk food.
All true, for the most part! – But so what! What were you expecting? Who comes to a Harlan Coben thriller on Netflix expecting a mind-blowing literary masterpiece? He does what he does, and he does it well; let it be what it is. I love literary masterpieces as much as the next person, but personally, I found this series a great deal of fun, pure escapist fun. I appreciate these Harlan Coben shows because they don’t claim to be anything other than what they are. And for what they are, they’re really well done.
I will admit this, though: after watching Run Away a while back, I decided to try reading the book. And I was surprised and disappointed to find that, although I’d loved the show, I couldn’t really get into the book. Harlan Coben’s writing style just isn’t as fun for me on paper as it is on the screen – and normally, I like the book better! It just feels like he’s writing for the screen specifically. If I want to watch Netflix I’ll watch Netflix, but if I want to read a book, I want it to feel like a book, and to have a bit more, I dunno, finesse, or depth, or something.
But this show was great. Don’t let the haters sway you.
What I liked about this one specifically: often, in these shows, the police are incompetent and the real work of solving the mystery is left up to the characters, the rogues, the private investigators. But in this one, the cops are actually really smart, really quick, and right on the main characters’ tail, right from the get-go. That really amped up the suspense!
Also, I liked that I didn’t see the big twist about the villain coming. If you’ve watched it, you know what I’m talking about. My husband, who’s a major cinephile and watches a ton of shows and movies, always guesses the plot twist before it happens, and he predicted this one about ten minutes before they revealed it; when he guessed it, I was like “no, please, don’t let that be it!”, because I really didn’t want it to go that way… but I knew it probably would because my husband is always right. Damn!
I also am willing to die on this particular hill: the aforementioned villain was actually a well-fleshed-out and sympathetic character, the most interesting and complex one of the whole show. I think this was mostly due to the actor who played them – phenomenal job. I actually felt genuinely sad for this character at the end of the show, which is a mark of incredible storytelling work imo, considering what this villain had done. I’m trying not to give any spoilers here because I really do think you should go watch the show.
One last little silly thing that I loved: it’s almost an Easter egg how Madeleine Stowe has a major role, and if you remember, she played Cora in Last of the Mohicans (1992), which of course had a noteworthy song on its soundtrack called I Will Find You, named after one of the most poignant and oft-quoted lines of dialouge in the whole movie. Did anyone else find that amusing, or just me?!
However, I do have one complaint – and this is where the spoilers come in, so if you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading here – and I’m willing to bet that it’s simply a case of the show being created by mostly men who don’t know much about this topic:
One of the big surprises that’s revealed is that the wife, Cheryl, was already pregnant at the time that she went to the fertility clinic for artificial insemination. She didn’t realize it, but the day after the procedure she took an early HPT and it was positive.
This, I simply did not believe. I don’t agree with artificial insemination or reproductive technology in general, ethically, but I know enough about it to know that artificial insemination is done during a very specific point in your cycle. They’d probably want to do it on ovulation day or the day before, so they’d be really careful about charting the woman’s cycle and make the appointment for a specific day. There’s simply no way that this appointment would be booked late in the luteal phase – 9 dpo is about the very earliest a woman could possibly see a + on an early-result HPT. And a reproductive clinic simply would not book her insemination appointment for eight days past ovulation. That’s ridiculous. You cannot get pregnant after ovulation is over, at all! There are even be physical changes post ovulation, things like the position of the cervix actually moves, which I imagine a reproductive medicine practitioner would catch immediately.
Now I guess it’s possible that her cycles were wonky and ovulation was unpredictable, and maybe it came eight days early that cycle – but if it had, she would have known. She definitely would have known. A woman who’s been TTC for a very long time, as she had, is not going to miss her fertile window like that. She’ll have been charting intensely and obsessing about it for many months. She will always be aware of exactly where in her cycle she is, whether she wants to be thinking about it or not.
So yeah, that’s the only part that I found distractingly unbelieveable. Maybe it’s explained more convincingly in the book somehow, I don’t know. I’m not going to read the book. I probably will watch more Harlan Coben shows on Netflix though!
The usual disclaimer: I’m not an expert. I’m not like Kennedy Hall or Dr. Kwasniewski or Taylor Marshall or any of those super-smart TradCath commentators. I’m just some little random mom who comes to WordPress to process my thoughts & feewings and to seek out companionship & feedback. Please don’t take any of this seriously. It’s just my scattered little thoughts and impressions, as a lay follower of the SSPX.
I know I said a few days ago, before the consecrations, that I wasn’t too worried about the impending excommunication, because I was confident that I was on the right side no matter what. And that was true.
Now that it’s happened, though, I admit to being kind of troubled about it. Not troubled enough to stop supporting the SSPX or to stop going to their Masses – but because it’s an objectively very troubling thing to be told by the Pope that you are excommunicated. That is never a negligible thing, imo, no matter what.
And I’m troubled by all the vitriol and accusations and assumptions and threats from the modernist side. It’s troubling to see all this infighting within Catholicism. It’s ugly and shallow and it’s a really bad look for us. – “But this isn’t infighting,” you might be saying, “because the SSPX isn’t Catholic” – but how are they less Catholic than any of the bishops and parishes who’ve strayed so far from Catholic teaching without being penalized? “Catholic teaching = doing absolutely whatever the Pope says, no matter what,” you might be saying – but that’s not true. The Pope exists to uphold the faith, not vice versa. We worship Christ, not the Pope. How did we lose sight of that?
It’s just very sad.
I’m trying to figure out whether I, personally, am excommunicated or not. Rome said that all the lay faithful who “formally adhere to the doctrinal positions” of the SSPX are automatically excommunicated along with its Bishops. – but, which one of the Society’s “doctrinal positions” am I supposed to disagree with? They published that profession of faith shortly before all this, explicity stating all of their doctrinal positions for all the world to see, and it was literally just… the Catholic faith?! I’m confused. So by professing the Catholic faith we’re schismatic?
I guess the part we’re not supposed to agree with is that the modern Church is heading in the wrong direction — which is not stated as a tenet of doctrine in their document, but it’s obviously implied, it’s painfully clear from reading this actual Catholic doctrine! It’s so clear that it’s the modern Church that’s becoming less and less Catholic. From my little uneducated lay POV, I really feel like this misunderstanding about schism stems from a misunderstanding about what the Catholic faith is. Like I said, we’re not Pope worshippers, contrary to what Protestants think of us. Apparently this is yet another way in which a great many modern Catholics think like Protestants. Just another symptom.
Some article I read clarified that not all lay faithful are in schism, and that it’s a case-by-case basis. Am I among those in schism? I admit, I hope not – I don’t think I have a schismatic attitude. I love the Pope and my diocesan Bishop and believe in their legitimate authority and pray for them all the time. I keep apprised of what’s going on in my diocese. I mingle with NO Catholics (at least, I have been doing so, up until now – now, I’m kind of afraid to, given the atmosphere). I wish we could all just get along – I don’t see why Rome can’t just let the SSPX in, formally. There are so many different flavors of Catholicism within the Church, even the Melkites, Maronites, et cetera, who look very different from your average Roman Catholic and don’t even share many of the same rituals; but it’s the Society who has to be excluded? Why?
– I feel like it’s just that Rome doesn’t want any of its members to speak up about what’s wrong with the modern Church. Which feels, imo, not very “synodal” of them. A little hypocritical, I daresay.
It’s really sad. Reading the commentary online, it’s obvious to me that it’s the modernists who are being hateful and divisive. The Society and its followers are expressing only sadness and sorrow and a humble resolve to keep the Faith – meanwhile, all the NOrmies are name-calling and saying we’re all going straight to hell and making wild assumptions about the mindset of individuals within the Society. Just very poor taste. I’ve even seen people making fun of the way our new Bishops look (as if it’s not the modern Church that embraces ugliness). Just petty, sad, immature stuff.
And it’s really sad to me that the Society tried to reach out to Pope Leo for like a year prior to these consecrations, begging him to meet and talk, and they kept getting ignored. Until literally a day or two before the consecrations, when everyone was already on site and getting set up – then he sends a letter saying “no, wait, let’s talk!” – isn’t that just blatantly recreating exactly what happened to Archbishop Lefebvre prior to his consecrations?! He begged Rome repeatedly for permission and they kept ghosting him, and he was literally worried that he wasn’t going to live long enough to get it done, which was why he made the call. To me it seems obvious that the Society has always acted out of a sincere desire to uphold the Catholic faith in a state of emergency, and Rome has been rather mean to them.
So yes, I do believe, earnestly, that I’m on the right side of this argument. Given the way that the Society’s been excommunicated in the past, then un-excommunicated, then given faculties, now excommunicated again – to me, that just shows that it’s Modern Rome who’s being inconsistent with their position, not the SSPX. You can belong to something and disagree with some things about it. You can believe in someone’s authority and still take issue with how they exercise it. Who among you readers has never once disagreed with a single one of your parents’ decisions? But does that mean you’re not a member of their family?
It’s sad. I’m just trying to do the right thing for my family. I want to bring my kids where they will be taught the whole, real Catholic faith, and where they will experience real beauty and reverence, as a remedy to all the evils that surround us in the secular world. That’s what religion is supposed to be. I’ve literally seen Catholics in Facebook comment battles arguing that “the Church needs to modernize to keep up with the times” and “our interpretation of God’s Word must be perpetually changing and fluid” and stuff like that – good grief! Are we for real?! It’s just really sad.
As you all know, I’ve been Catholic for almost twelve years, the last two of those with the SSPX. I don’t think the world of the Society is perfect by any means, and have certain issues with certain apsects of the lay subculture – but, the real Catholic faith is more important than any of that. (One upside to all this, for me, is it’s renewed my commitment to the SSPX way, when for a minute there I was starting to waffle due to the social pressure.) It’s been very difficult for me, personally, to figure out how to go about all of this. I have four kids and a husband, and in my family I’m the spiritual decision-maker, the one who teaches the kids the faith and takes us to Mass and all that. And I’m no expert – I’m just some girl who converted from atheism! It’s been really hard, honestly, probably one of the most difficult decisions of my life if not the most difficult, to determine whether to stick with the modernists or to go the way of the RadTrads. I made my choice from a place of sincerity and prayer – at least, I hope I did. Only God really knows my soul, doesn’t He, and I guess it’s possible that I’m operating from some secret arrogance or pride that even I can’t see – but, to the best of my knowledge, that’s not the case, and all I can do is keep praying that He will help me to know myself and know how to follow Him.
As of right now, I still think the SSPX is in the right. I still sincerely believe that they will, one day, be vinicated, and that the Archbishop will be canonized and recognized as a hero who singlehandedly saved Catholic Tradition. Hopefully within my children’s lifetime.
So yes, I’m confident that I’m on the right side, but I’m still sad and troubled about it all. I know some lay faithful out there just totally don’t even care – “Rome isn’t even Catholic anymore,” they say, “so anything they say is meaningless” – I don’t agree with that. It does matter what Rome says, even though it’s also true that there are problems with modern Rome. I wish people could be more balanced about all this. I wish people could have some compassion. The way the modernists get so heated about the traditionalists – to me, it shows very plainly that they know something is wrong with the way they’re doing things – otherwise, why would they get so affronted? I think they know, in their heart, that something is wrong, but they’re too afraid to do something about it for fear of being labelled “schismatic,” which, if I’m being really cynical and conspiracy-theoristy, might be exactly what Modern Rome wants – to use fear to suppress Tradition. I hope that’s not true but that’s kinda how it looks. It just feels to me like a big ugly family feud.
Well, this has all been a bit rambly and pointless and venty, but I’m going to put it out there anyway because, as usual, it’s my silly little personal blog and I can post what I want on it. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, but know that any hateful and bigoted comments will be deleted.
It was dark out, long past any child’s bedtime. In a humble brick ranch house on a suburban street lined on both sides with near-identical brick ranch houses, a yellowish light glowed in a living room window.
Inside, by this overhead living room light, two grown adult men hunched over a coffee tabletop that was covered with hundreds of tiny Lego blocks of various colors. The men were building something. The lankier one, the one with the slick swoop of dirty-blond hair and the neon graphic tee and rectangular glasses, who sat on the edge of the couch in baggy black basketball shorts, elbows on his knobby knees, was Pete; he was a guest here, technically, although this was his home away from home really, because the second guy, Roger, the one sitting on the carpet with forearm resting on the table, was his best and closest friend. Roger, in a holey gray t-shirt and cargo shorts, looked like your typical tired blue-collar guy who spent his days out under the sun working hard and building stuff – because that’s precisely what he was. He had reddish-brown hair pulled back in a messy half-ponytail, and stubble that was beginning to go gray on his jaw. Tonight happened to be the eve of his birthday. He was about to turn thirty-seven.
Imminently. It was almost midnight. The two had been building and talking and laughing for hours. As they were sitting there, building something out of Legos and deep in conversation, having accidentally stumbled into a topic that was actually very serious, Roger’s wife, Jordan, emerged into the living room from the adjacent hallway, for the first time all evening. At first they didn’t even notice her there.
“You’re doing Legos?” she asked. Her tone made it clear that she was irritated.
Roger lifted his gaze. Pete turned at the waist and looked over the back of the couch. It was he who replied:
“Fuck yeah we’re doing Legos. You got a problem?” But he grinned to show that he was just playing. “What’s up, Jo?”
Jordan didn’t smile. It was no secret that she had had it up to here with her husband and his annoying friend. Thirty-seven years old herself, Jordan was big and tall and her glossy brown hair was currently in a tight bun. Her hair being pulled back away from her face was not flattering for her head shape, and her milky-fair countenance was shiny with the moisturizer and anti-aging serum that she wore to bed, but her resting bitch face was otherwise pretty. Dressed in a baggy old tee and black yoga pants, she was holding her iPhone up as if to show them a picture on it, but its cracked screen was black.
“I can’t find my charger,” she said. “Have you seen it, babe?”
“No.”
“Fern probably did something with it.”
Fern was Roger and Jordan’s two-year-old daughter, who was constantly misplacing their items and generally wreaking havoc in their house. Jordan gave Roger a look that said that it was his fault this had happened, because it was his fault that Fern existed, and he should be sorry.
“I’ll find it,” Roger said, taking the hint. He stood up. Jordan hadn’t remembered that it was his birthday tomorrow. Pete had, of course. He’d brought cake that his wife had made. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. Like an eager lapdog, now, Pete sprung up to help look for the charger. While Jordan stood scrolling, the two friends searched the small house, but after ten, fifteen focused minutes, found nothing.
“It’s not here, Jo,” Roger declared.
“I’m at five percent. I need a charger.”
Pete wished aloud for the seventh or eighth time that he had brought his, but he hadn’t. Roger, unfortunately, didn’t care enough about phones to spend money on an iPhone, and his little Android charger wouldn’t do the job.
“Does Sheetz sell iPhone chargers?” he asked.
“Hell yeah it does!” Pete exclaimed. “I love Sheetz! Midnight Sheetz runs are the best. The mozzarella sticks! They’re calling to me.”
“We’ll head out in a minute.”
Jordan gave him a look that said that they would head out now. But Roger turned away from her so that he didn’t see it.
“We’ve just got to finish the temple first,” Pete explained. “Check it out! It’s an Aztec temple. It’s almost done, kind of.”
“Well hurry up,” Jordan said. “And clean up the Legos before you leave, okay? If Fern finds any of those in the morning, she’ll put them in her mouth and choke.” She turned and started to walk back down the hall without even looking at the Aztec temple. “I’m going to bed.”
“We will. Night, babe.”
“Nighty-night! Good to see you!” Pete called after her.
In no hurry, though, they returned to their Legos and the serious matter that they’d been discussing prior to the interruption, which was: religion. Pete’s wife, a devout Catholic, had been urging him for some time to officially convert, to get baptized and confirmed and received into full communion. Pete wasn’t opposed to the idea. He’d become more religious in the last four years, made friends with the parish priests, listened to the Bible in a Year podcast during his work commute, and, for reasons that he himself barely understood, started to believe in God; under his t-shirt he was even wearing a Miraculous Medal, on a steel chain around his neck. But something about officially converting gave him cold feet.
Meanwhile, Roger, who was clean and sober and had found God in A.A., attended church regularly, and had been saying for some time now that he was willing to get baptized – but simply hadn’t done it yet, and kept finding reasons not to. Like maybe it had been done when he was a baby. He had no way to know, and didn’t care to look into it.
Or maybe it was simply too late.
“I dunno, man,” Roger said, as if they hadn’t even been interrupted. He pressed a red Lego into place. “I’ll do it if you do it.”
“Why do I have to go first? You go first.”
“Nah. Too lazy.”
“I’ll push you.”
“Into the holy water?”
“Yeah, like, just – ”
Pete made a splashing sound and with his hands pretended to push someone’s head underwater and hold it there, drowning them.
“Hey, fine with me. Straight to heaven,” Roger said dryly.
“Yeah, right, bro. Your criminal-record-having ass? Straight to heaven?”
“But isn’t baptism supposed to like wash all that shit away, though?”
Pete started to say something, at the same time moving to place a Lego on the temple – but in doing so, accidentally brushed one off the edge of the table.
“Shit.”
He bent down to look for the fallen brick, squinting through his glasses into the shadows beneath the table. Nothing there.
“I dropped one. Do you see it?” he asked Roger.
“No. You gotta find it, though, or Fern will.”
“And she’ll eat it.” Pete slid off the couch and got down on hands and knees to peer underneath of it. Nothing. He grabbed his phone and turned on the flashlight and used that. Still nothing. “Shit. It’s gone.”
Roger began looking for the fallen Lego, too.
“What color is it, anyway?”
“I think yellow?”
The radius of their search area increased from the coffee table and couch vicinity to the outer edges of the living room, under the shelf that held the TV, in the pile of shoes by the front door, around the fireplace, even into the kitchen, just in case the thing had bounced. But how could it have bounced ten or twelve feet?, because that’s how far away they were looking, now. Crawling around on the floor like overgrown rugrats with flashlights out, they looked for the fallen Lego at least twice as long as they’d looked for Jordan’s phone charger.
But to no avail.
“Man. What the hell?”
“Right? I have no clue where…”
They both stood up at the same time and faced each other, Roger scratching the back of his head idly, looking around, Pete with flashlight still in hand.
But at the very same instant, they noticed something.
“Wait.”
“What the – ”
“Do you see that?”
“Yeah I see it, are you kidding me? Is this a prank?”
“I didn’t put that there.” Roger looked away from it, at Pete’s face. Roger was a terrible liar; Pete knew right away that this wasn’t a joke.
They both stared. It wasn’t the missing Lego that they were looking at. It was a doorway – a doorway that hadn’t been there before. Had never been there, the whole time that Roger and Jordan had lived in this house.
“What the fuck,” Pete said, almost shouting. “What do we do?
“That… that doesn’t make sense,” Roger said.
“Do we call the cops? Do we call an ambulance? Are we both hallucinating?”
“That can’t be there. That’s an exterior wall. On the other side of that wall is the yard.”
Whatever lay on the other side of the open doorway was cloaked in black shadows; they could make out the vaguest suggestions of motionless gray shapes.
“The fuck,” Pete said – almost whispering, now.
Pete laid his hand on Roger’s shoulder, as if checking to make sure that he was tangible and this was really happening. Roger frowned. They glanced at each other, communicating without words.
And then, cautiously, they walked closer.
It just looked like a normal doorway to an unlit room — but that was impossible. They stood just outside of it, trying to peer in. Holding their breath. Everything was silent, just the hum of the AC and the whir of the white noise machine in Fern’s room down the hall. The air seemed to vibrate. Pete used his flashlight, but the light somehow didn’t penetrate the space beyond. It just stopped, like the beam was sliced short at the end where it met the doorway.
Roger waved a hand in. Nothing happened. He placed his sock-foot through the door and tested the ground.
“It feels hard,” he reported.
“That’s what she said,” Pete murmured, reflexively.
“Can’t see shit, though.” Roger frowned. “Should we try it?”
“I should text Lou first. In case we die.”
“We’re not gonna die. There’s got to be an explanation.”
“You go first.”
“Nah, you can.”
“I always go first. You go first.”
Pete gave Roger a light shove on the back, as if to push him in ahead of him. Roger didn’t move, except to reach his hand back, fingers outstretched. Pete grabbed it. Hands clasped, with Roger in the lead and Pete following close behind, they stepped across the threshold into the thick darkness.
.
(we used to have hope)
“Hold up. This is your living room. We’re still in your living room. How is that possible? How…”
Roger blinked. They were, indeed, still in his living room. They were on the other side of the living room, though, right where they’d been standing when they first noticed the doorway. While beside him Pete fidgeted and gesticulated and paced and narrated his entire thought process with panicked urgency, Roger looked around, studying, trying to do the mental math.
“Hey,” he observed, interrupting Pete. “There’s Jo’s charger.”
It was plugged into the wall right where it ought to have been: the white wall block with cable attached, dangling from the outlet by the armchair onto the carpet. Without thinking, he walked over and retrieved it. Pete trailed close behind.
“But this is just your house,” he was saying. “I don’t get it. Roger. Where are we? How did we – ”
“I dunno, man.” Roger, holding the charger, shrugged wearily. “I’ve seen enough shit. I’m gonna go plug in Jo’s phone.”
“Hey. Wait up.”
Pete chased after him as he started down the hall toward the bedrooms. The hallway was dark. Barely had they made it three steps, though, when it became, suddenly, too dark – as if they had dropped into the ocean depths where no light could penetrate.
The light was gone. Pete grabbed onto the sleeve of Roger’s shirt and started to blurt out some profanity or exclamation of terror – but before he could get a single word out, the lights came on.
They were still in a hallway.
“Okay, what the hell is going on!”
“Power outage?”
“Power out– what? No, retard, this isn’t a power outage, did you see how the – ”
“Hey, check it out.”
The hallway they were standing in was not the hallway of Roger’s house. It was dimly-lit and lined with shelves, shelves that reached from floor to ceiling. And the shelves were crammed with stuff, positively overflowing with a chaos of assorted items.
“What is all this stuff?” Pete asked.
“I was looking for this.”
From an eye-level shelf Roger took something small and dark brown: a guitar pick. He held it up for Pete to see. It had the peeling remains of a small yellow smiley-face sticker on it.
“My favorite one,” he said.
“What the fuck,” Pete said, reaching for an item on a shelf to his left. “My dental insurance card? I was looking for this last week.”
“Hey! It’s Fern’s sippy cup. I thought she left it at daycare.”
“Is this like some kind of like Peter Pan, Neverland, lost things shit right now? Are we in Neverland?”
Roger scoffed. He was putting the guitar pick and the sippy cup in the pocket of his cargo shorts along with the iPhone charger; laugh at cargo shorts all you want, he always said, but they did come in handy.
“You tell me,” he said. “That’s your area of expertise.”
Pete frowned. It was true that he’d been compared to Peter Pan more than once in his life, because of his elfin appearance and his utter failure to ever grow up and act his age (his “boyish charm,” he called it), not to mention, of course, the first name — and had even dressed as him for Halloween once or twice.
“No,” he said, with authority. “Can’t be. This is too creepy. Let’s get out of here.”
“Right. Which way?”
When they turned around, the hallway behind them was black. In front of them, it stretched on, apparently endlessly.
“Oh God. We’re gonna die here,” Pete groaned. He whipped out his phone. “No signal. Of course. Oh my God. We’re gonna die here, dude.”
“No we’re not. Come on.”
They walked on. But the farther they walked, the weirder things became. They started hearing things. First there was a song – an acoustic guitar melody, playing softly in the air around them as if through some invisible speakers.
“Hey.” Roger stopped walking. “That song.”
“Do you know it?” Pete asked. He stopped talking for half a second to listen. “It kinda slaps.”
“Yeah. I came up with it in the shower a few weeks ago. I was gonna write it down,” Roger said, “but I forgot it.”
“You forgot it?”
Roger was humming along, playing air guitar as he walked.
“So how’d it get here? This place just, like, pulled it out of your head or something?” Pete narrowed his eyes as he glanced around at the drop ceiling, the cold gray tiled floors. It felt like a basement. “Hell no. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Nah, this is kinda cool.” Roger noticed something else on a shelf as he walked by – an old paperback book. He opened the front cover, saw his own name written there in his own handwriting, and nodded. “Nice.”
“Nice?! How is any of this — “
“I wonder what other lost shit we’ll find.”
“Okay, cargo shorts.”
The passageway cut left. Rounding the corner, they suddenly found themselves in a waiting room.
A familiar waiting room.
“Wait. Why am I at work?”
Somehow they were in Pete’s office. He was by profession a psychologist (believe it or not), and owned a psychotherapy practice that also employed two other providers and an intern. As well as a part-time receptionist, Marissa, and it was she whom he and Roger were currently looking at: Marissa, seated at her desk behind the little window, while on the other side of the window stood a wan-looking college kid in a striped sweater that was almost comically oversized.
Pete wondered why they were here, why they were seeing this. He called out a greeting, but neither the receptionist nor his patient acknowledged him.
It was like they were ghosts – or like watching a muted film: they could see what was happening, but couldn’t hear the voices nor intervene. The patient was saying something to Marissa. Marissa was looking at her computer screen and then back at the patient. She was shaking her head, apologetic. The patient was stammering, jitterily pulling out his phone now, with hands that were starting to shake, and looking at his calendar app. The look on his face was about two minutes from puking.
Pete gasped.
“Oh, shit! No way! I completely forgot!”
“Is… that guy one of your clients?”
He couldn’t say so. HIPAA and all, so he managed to keep his mouth shut. But the horrifying truth, which he just now realized, was: he had rescheduled the client’s appointment for five on a Friday, because they couldn’t make it to their usual time — but then he’d completely forgotten to put the appointment in his calendar, and when Friday came he went home at four-thirty. The patient already struggled with social phobias and crippling fear of messing up; he would be mortified, possibly even in crisis over this. Pete had to call him immediately.
Again he checked his phone. Still no service.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Pete said. “Come on. Vamos.”
The door that should have been the front exit out of the waiting room led them down yet another corridor lined with shelves; the items on them, now, as they passed, were old and long-forgotten things: Pete’s son’s first pair of glasses, which he’d lost at the park when he was three years old; a certain office key that a certain shift supervisor had once unwisely trusted Roger with at his grocery store job almost a decade ago; a long-outdated TV remote, which had once slipped between the couch cushions at Pete and Lou’s house, never to be seen again.
“This is getting really weird,” said Pete, shaken, as if it hadn’t been really weird this whole time. “I just want to go home. Where’s the way out? Like, why is this happening? Why are we here?”
“I dunno. Maybe we’re supposed to find something.”
“Yeah. Jo’s charger. We found it. So why can’t we leave?”
“Maybe it’s something else.”
The hallway was growing darker, the ceiling gradually lower. It almost felt like they were moving downhill, perhaps, deep down into the depths of who knows what. It was less of a hallway now and more of a tunnel.
But they came to a window on their right-hand side: an opening in the wall, through which a pale beam of sunlight streamed in. They stood before it, looking out.
“Wait a second,” Pete said, recognizing the scene before them. He knew it immediately; this, he could never forget.
They were looking out through the years into the sunny afternoon of Saturday, May ninth, 2015. It was as if they were standing just across the street, facing the front steps of the gray stone church with its rose window above the doors and flowering trees on either side of the walkway. The church was all decorated for a wedding: silky white ribbons, bundles of flowers on the railings. Rose petals littered the lawn, where a crowd of people in colorful springy attire, their faces blurred and indistinct as if in a dream, stood around the doors, waiting. Through the open window, Pete and Roger watched too.
Then the big front doors opened from within and there emerged the bride and groom: a beautiful young couple, both of them blond and beaming, the bride in a billowing white princess gown, clutching a big lush bouquet of pastel pink and pistachio green. You couldn’t tell from looking at her, unless you knew her very well, but she was eleven weeks pregnant. With a smile she tossed her bouquet into the air, and up it soared, like in slow-motion. This was Pete’s wife, Lou, and the groom at her side was, of course, Pete himself.
If he leaned far enough out the window, he could smell the flowery spring air of that day, and a sugary ghost of wedding cake.
“Damn,” he said, softly, watching. “Back when I believed in happily ever after and shit.”
Roger put his arm around Pete, and they watched for a moment longer.
Things had been so good back then. They were not so good anymore. In the last eight years, Pete and Lou had been through a lot: a traumatic premature birth and long NICU stay, subsequent postpartum depression that drove them apart, leading to infidelity, leading to resentment – and just when things were starting to heal, they’d agreed to try for another baby, but that had been a year and a half ago now, and it felt hopeless, and things were freezing over, again, between them, and Lou barely even seemed to like him anymore. But back then, things had been so much fun, and he’d been so happy, back when he thought that a romantic relationship was the very alpha and omega of existence, the solution to the emptiness. He knew better now.
But the sunshine and roses beckoned from without.
“Hey, what do you think would happen if I just – ”
“I don’t think you should do that, man.”
“Fuck.” Pete shook his head, blinking, and forced himself to step away from the window. “You’re right. Let’s keep going.”
.
It felt like somewhere you’d been in a nightmare once. They passed windows and doorways into memories they didn’t care to see, and saw more lost things, older things that they didn’t even remember losing: a flip phone that Roger had left at a bar somewhere during his drinking days and never seen again; a pair of ripped-up acid-wash skinny jeans that Pete had lost at some house party once upon a time; a favorite lighter, a vintage Pokemon card, a mix CD that Roger’s ex-girlfriend had made for him back when they were seventeen, decorated with swirly spirals and hearts and their initials in black Sharpie. This, Roger stared at with a faraway smile, mesmerized, before carefully rubbing clean on his t-shirt and then slipping into his now-bulging cargo pocket.
But it wasn’t just lost things. There were people, faces, watching them from the shadows, looking back at them through the windows — you had to remind yourself firmly that it wasn’t real — and voices, haunting echoes in the air that you couldn’t quite be sure if you’d heard correctly. Up the hall, a dog ran by, its toenails clicking on the tiles. Roger called to it by name, but it didn’t come.
Around the next turn hung a large round analog clock on the wall, glaring at them with its yellowing face. The clock had no hands, but tick-tick-ticked loudly at them as they passed by. Ticking just slightly, maddeningly, barely-perceptibly, too fast. Each second a little too short. They could still hear it long after it was out of sight.
It was all beginning to feel heavy, oppressive. Somewhere had to be the way out. But it just kept going deeper. Gradually, the hallway widened and became less claustrophobic, and soon they came to another open window that looked promising, this time on their left-hand side. Maybe an exit. Together they approached this opening in the wall and looked out.
“What’s this place? Do you recognize it?”
Roger shook his head no. It appeared that they were looking in through the window of some sort of classroom – but it had only three complete walls, one side of the room being virtually open to the sun-scorched outdoors. More of a modified shack, really. Children, a dozen or so of them, all apparently African, sat at desks with books open in front of them, their eyes pinned on the teachers at the front of the room, one of whom was standing off to one side while the other wrote an equation full of letters and numbers across a smeary green chalkboard. These teachers were both twentysomething men dressed in matching Peace Corps t-shirts, sunburnt and smiling. The one off to the side appeared dreamishly indistinct, but the one at the chalkboard was –
“Dude, is that you?!”
“What the hell,” Roger said slowly. “But, I…”
“You never got to do that,” Pete said. “You applied, but they turned you down, ‘cause of – ”
“Yeah.”
Peace Corps volunteers who taught abroad had to be of good health, physically and mentally. Having spent time in jail, psych wards, and rehabs, and having survived not one but two suicide attempts, basically destroyed your eligibility, no matter how much of a knack for math and teaching you had, nor how badly you’d always wanted to see Mount Kilimanjaro and wild elephants in real life.
It was a dream lost long ago.
The alternate-universe Roger at the front of the classroom pointed to one of his students, a boy of about twelve or thirteen who was sitting in the front row. Teacher Roger smiled and nodded an invitation, gesturing for the child to come up to the front. The boy did. Teacher Roger handed him the piece of chalk and talked him through solving the equation. At one point, the kid looked up at his teacher and laughed, a genuine laugh, at something he’d said, some joke perhaps. The rest of the class laughed too. Teacher Roger looked like someone who ate a lot of fresh vegetables and called home every week and had never been arrested. He looked so healthy and well-adjusted. He made it look so easy. Glowing, he offered his star student a high five.
“I’m sorry, dude,” Pete said, standing next to the real Roger, back in the real world, if that’s what this was. He touched Roger’s arm. “I know you really wanted to do that. You would’ve been great at it.”
Roger turned away with a half-smile.
“Is what it is,” he said.
There was nothing to do but walk on. They must be getting closer, it seemed, to whatever it was that they were supposed to be looking for – but this wasn’t it.
.
(someday you’ll set it down for the last time)
It felt like this had been going on for a long time – an hour, maybe? Two? The basement tunnel-corridor had become wide and spacious, now, even peaceful, almost, softly illumined by a white light that seemed to be glowing in a room just down the hall, although the room never got any closer.
They were tired. The Neverland novelty had worn off; Roger, who had been quiet since the classroom window, no longer stopped to look at or pick up items off the shelves on either side. The only thing Pete paused to reach for was a familiar green Beanie Baby with the tag missing: it was Legs the frog, his Legs, given to him by someone, he couldn’t remember who; the toy used to ride along in his backpack every day when he went to kindergarten, and he’d had a habit of sucking on one of its feet.
When had Legs gotten lost? And where? Pete hadn’t thought about him in decades. They had to get to the bottom of this soon. There were only so many years’ worth of memories, of failures, of disappointments, left to traverse – and what then?
“Fucking hell,” Roger muttered.
“What?”
“What if we’re stuck here?”
Hearing the idea suggested out loud, the possibility made real, caused something in Pete’s brain to snap.
“Fuck, dude, I told you we shouldn’t have gone through that fucking door. I told you.”
“So this is my fault?”
“As usual.”
“Man, if you hadn’t dropped that fucking Lego, we – ”
“Don’t try to blame this on me.”
Roger stopped walking, and Pete stopped too, a few paces ahead. In the silence between them, the air felt abuzz with something invisible. Good or bad, hopeful or dangerous, it was impossible to tell.
“I’m not blaming you,” Roger said, softer. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I think I’m just – ”
“Tired,” Pete said. He sighed. “Me too. I’m sorry too. Fuck, I’m tired. We’re old, Roger.”
“This has got to be over soon.”
“What, you mean life?”
In the dim-lit liminal space lined with lost things, the two tired grown adult men stood wondering what they were supposed to do now. The air seemed to vibrate, getting faster. You could practically hear it vibrating. There was a sound – they became aware, at the same time, of a high-pitched sound. It was a voice. A young child’s voice, laughing.
It was coming from the bright room down the hall.
They looked at each other.
“Let’s go,” Pete said.
This time, the light drew nearer, became brighter, as they approached. They were finally getting close. In no time the tiled floor beneath their feet gave way to a soft, warm carpet of dry grass. And now they were outside in the sun.
Like in a dream, the scenery was blurred around the edges, becoming unclear if you looked too hard at it – like being surrounded by a cloud. It was a backyard, and a house of tan stucco, bordered on one side by a fence with a glittering blue pool beyond — and above, a cloudless sky, and palm trees. The palms moved gently as if in a breeze, but there was no audio; the only sound was that of the voices, the voices of two little children who were sitting together in the very center of the scene, on some sort of patio near the house, playing.
“Dude,” Pete said. “This is my dad’s place. This is where I grew up.”
But who were those kids?
They moved closer. The children didn’t look up at them; they were busily playing in a scattering of colorful wooden blocks. About Fern’s age, they looked to be: two boys, both dressed in little white shortalls – bright, spotless, immaculate white. Their feet were bare, and their little toes looked so pink and pudgy and clean.
The blond-headed one on the right was the loud one, the one they’d heard from down the hall. He kept throwing blocks, banging blocks together, shrieking with laughter, – a little elfin thing, he was, in perpetual motion. The boy on the left, who had soft wispy auburn-colored hair and big brown eyes beneath long lashes, placed blocks in a row and counted them with his little outstretched finger, singing the numbers softly.
Roger and Pete looked at each other, understanding, and then back at the kids.
In real life, they had not met each other until they were thirteen, but it was clear by now that this place they were in was not bound by the laws of “real life.”
They approached and stood beside the children, but didn’t cast a shadow on them. The little boys just happily played in their pool of sunlight. The redhead stacked four blocks on top of each other, and the blond one, noticing, flung himself over and toppled them with a shout and a swipe of his arm, and they both laughed.
“Hey, guys,” Pete greeted them; Roger was, it seemed, too stunned to speak. “I brought you something.”
He tossed them Legs the frog. It landed between them with a soft grainy splat.
The kids craned their necks and looked up. They seemed to recognize them, and greeted them with big smiles, totally unafraid.
Then the blond child seized the toy, examined it briefly and promptly inserted one of the feet into his mouth and began to chew. Evidently, the offering was accepted.
.
For some time, they sat and played blocks with the kids. They were in no hurry; everything felt okay now, and they would go home when it was time.
After a while of playing the little redhead seemed to get tired. He toddled over to Roger and, without waiting for an invitation, crawled into his lap. Startled, Roger seemed not to know what to do with his hands, for a second; he looked at Pete, alarmed, clueless, begging for help — but Pete was distracted, watching the little blond kid chase a butterfly in the grass. The little child nestled his head against Roger’s chest and breathed deeply, his body fully relaxed. Roger relaxed too. He wrapped his arms around the little boy and held him, tentatively at first, and then with quiet desperation.
The butterfly got away. The little blond boy came bounding back to the patio and crash-landed in a pile of blocks, squealing giddily. And they played there a while longer.
The sun was starting to go down, the light deepening from whitish to late-afternoon gold. At last, Pete said:
“Roger. I think it might be time for us to go.”
Roger appeared reluctant to put the little boy down. He stroked the child’s hair. An idea occurred to him:
“Do you think I could just, like…”
“I’m sorry, dude. I wish we could.”
Roger nodded. The kid looked up at him, sensing that something was about to shift. Roger put on a happy face for him.
Then, obedient and trusting, the little boy got up and went back to his game. Arranging the blocks, singing softly. Roger regretfully stood up.
For a second everything seemed finished — everything seemed peaceful. But then, the blond boy, blissfully ignorant, scrambling around gleefully in the blocks, shot his little pink hand out and seized something off the ground and, for no reason at all, immediately popped it into his mouth.
“Hey,” Pete exclaimed. “What did you eat? Spit it out.”
The boy laughed through tightly-closed lips, clambered to his feet, and bolted. Pete chased after him.
“Hey. No. Don’t run with that in your mouth. Stop. Spit it out.”
Roger and the sleepy redheaded child both watched, amused, but Pete was worried: not only for the child’s safety, but what would happen to him in real life if his past self choked to death in this parallel universe? The kid was fast, for such a little thing, but Pete caught up to him and they came to a stumbling halt in a pile of limbs on the patio tiles. The kid thrashed and fought, giggling. It had been a while since Pete’s own two kids were toddlers, but parental instinct took over and with swift, deft hands he plugged a finger in the kid’s mouth and tried to swipe the object out.
“Come on. Spit it out,” Pete told the kid again, frantic, raising his voice to be heard over the maniacal laughter.
At last the kid did. With a popping noise, he blew into the palm of Pete’s hand, and something small and hard and slippery landed there. Pete looked at it.
It was a small yellow Lego.
The child grinned with his little wet mouthful of baby teeth. Pete laughed, too. He held it up so that Roger could see it.
“Hey, look,” he announced. “Found it.”
.
It was time. A door had appeared: in the wall of the house where, if Pete remembered correctly, the sliding glass door to the dining room ought to have been, there was a doorway – an open doorway. Pete looked into it, but saw only blackness.
“Let’s go,” he said. His fist tightened around the slimy Lego. “It’s time to go home.”
The sun was descending quickly now, sinking closer to the foggy dream-horizon, into a blur of pink and orange and red clouds.
Roger knelt down next to the redheaded boy. The boy gazed at him from beneath his long eyelashes, a gaze that trusted completely and concealed nothing.
Innocent.
Stroking his cheek, then resting his big tattooed hand on the soft little face and neck, Roger said something softly to the boy. The boy nodded, believing him. Roger kissed his forehead.
Then he stood up. Pete put an arm around Roger. Meeting his eyes, he nodded toward the door.
Before they stepped through, Pete took one last look behind them. The boys were gone. All was still. There was just the twilit backyard of the home that hadn’t been his for a very long time, and Legs the frog, lying alone, belly up, lost again — and, if he listened closely, the now-distant sound of a child’s laughter; the sound of pure and innocent joy.
.
The living room was exactly as they had left it: still and quiet, the Aztec temple standing three-quarters finished amid a scattering of Legos on the coffee table beneath the overhead light. Dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The low hum of the AC and, faintly, the white noise machine in Fern’s bedroom.
Roger took the iPhone charger out of his pocket and studied it.
“That was weird,” he said finally.
“Right? Why does weird shit always happen to us? We should’ve just gone to Sheetz.”
Dazed, not sure what else to do, they wandered back to their places at the coffee table. Pete pressed the yellow Lego into place at the top of the temple. It was dry now. Neither of them moved to place any other Legos. They were recalling their earlier conversation. As if they hadn’t even been interrupted, Roger said,
“You know, I think maybe we should just – ”
“Go through with it. Yeah, probably.”
They were quiet for a moment, thinking. Then Roger swore softly under his breath. He was staring at the Legos, looking troubled.
“Hey,” Pete said. “He’s gonna be okay, you know? Look.”
He held up his phone, showing Roger the time. It was nine minutes after midnight.
“You made it. Happy birthday, bro.”
Roger looked from the clock to his friend’s face. He trusted him. A new year had begun. Maybe all was not lost, not forever; maybe it was not too late, even now. There was much to do, and although time was running out, it wasn’t up yet. He smiled.
I write this here post not as any kind of expert — just as one little random layperson who doesn’t even worry much about Church politics or goings-on, and barely even reads the news. When it comes to matters of faith, my aim is to take care of my family, and so that’s where I keep my focus. I just attend Mass, at an SSPX chapel btw, and say my prayers and mind my own business.
Before you holler “schismatic!”, hear me out.
I’ve only been going to the SSPX since 2024. Those of you who know me will remember how I agonized for months, reading and studying and earnestly praying and waffling repeatedly back and forth, losing tons of sleep and basically losing my mind, over whether or not to switch from my friendly neighborhood NO to the nearest SSPX.
I always, on some level, knew that the SSPX was the right way to go. But all this complicated business about “obedience to Rome” and “irregular canonical state” and all that, had me over-intellectualizing the whole matter. I won’t go into all the issues here, or the actual reasons why the SSPX is right, although I kind of touched upon them, in my own humble terms, in a previous post.
Suffice it to say that at last I came to see that it’s actually very simple — the SSPX position is so commonsense, it was (and remains) truly painful to see how so many people seem to deliberately cover their eyes and go “la la la” real loud in order to not acknowledge what’s going on — and all my overthinking had been a laughable waste of time. I’m confident in what I believe now.
Which brings me to the point of this post: what even is belief? I know what I believe, which is why I’m not worried about the impending “excommunication.” I am confident that my family and I are on the right side.
I know what I believe — but what exactly is this action of believing, and how do we do it, and how do we know we’re doing it. My own answer to this question feels murky to me, so perhaps writing this little post will help me clarify it for myself.
I became Catholic in 2014, for reasons that were entirely intellectual. It was evident that I needed a religion; Catholicism was a logically watertight system, and seemed superior to all of the others for numerous reasons, so I went with that.
At first I was worried that I didn’t actually “believe” all the things the Church taught. This felt like an obstacle to conversion. But then I learned that “belief” is not just some feeling you have inside. It’s a choice. I could choose to believe. As long as I was willing and did my best to walk the walk, that was enough. That was groundbreaking!
Well for ten years I tried to walk the walk, but something about church never clicked for me. I felt uninspired — something about the NO world felt, in some hard-to-articulate way, shallow and fakey. Too normal. Too worldly. In that environment, I actually sometimes felt embarrassed for trying to take Catholicism seriously, like I had the strong sense that a priest would laugh and roll his eyes at me if I asked him a question about sin or doctrine, or asked him to make time to hear confession; like my fellow parishioners would laugh at me for wanting to wear a veil or kneel for Communion. I felt malnourished.
Until I found the SSPX.
On some level, I knew immediately that they were right about things. That this was real Catholicism. This was serious. These priests, I trusted their advice, I trusted them with the welfare of my eternal soul. I felt inspired! I felt spiritually fed. — But of course, I couldn’t trust that feeling, could I? Because belief is not just a feeling, I knew that! Belief is a behavior. It’s a choice.
So, I had to figure out what to choose.
Thus began the over-intellectualizing, the agonizing. For a while there, I even considered Orthodoxy, and the path before me forked off in not two but three directions. Each side, I found, had many intelligent people arguing in its favor. Each side could be described as “a logically watertight system.” So how on earth was I to decide?!
What it came down to, even before I was able to admit that that’s what it was, was: intuition. Just some feeling inside. Even though Orthodoxy seemed sound, it just wasn’t right for me, a white American; the arguments could go on forever (and indeed have been going on for a thousand years now), but the arguments in favor of Catholicism were, I decided, good enough for me. When it came to choosing between the NO and the SSPX, that took a bit more time. And what ended up swaying me, even before I’d made sense of the logical “why”, was: intuition.
And no, it’s not just about the “vibes.” I know a lot of modernists like to accuse RadTrads of doing what we do just for the vibes, because we like the aesthetic and enjoy LARPing the 1950s (actually, these accusers are even further off than they realize: if anything, it’s the 1850s these Trads are LARPing, lol). I can’t speak for everyone, but for me personally, I don’t care that much about historical reenactment. I’m no crunchy mom; I like modern medicine, Tylenol, rap and hip-hop, vaccines, TV, grocery shopping, alt fashion, tofu, the internet, and all kinds of modern conveniences. I live decidedly in the present day. But what the SSPX offers — not just their “aesthetic,” but the actual substance of Tradition that underlies and informs that — is timeless.
“You’re just boasting about how stupid you are,” you may be arguing: “you couldn’t understand the texts, so you lazily went with the place that ‘felt’ cooler, and now you’re romanticizing your own stupidity, calling it ‘intuition.’” You know, I’d be lying if I said this never worried me! I’m not that brainy; I simply do not care to pore over a jillion Vatican documents and dry old encyclicals and big thick tomes of nonfiction. Maybe if I forced myself to do all that…
But here’s the thing: I don’t believe that God requires that of us. I don’t believe He is hiding the truth behind some kind of intellectual paywall. He’s not a 400-level professor who’s going to assign a bunch of heavy reading and only award Heaven to A+ students who read the most books. Simple folks like me can find the truth too, even with the aid of intuition.
Which is obviously not to say that intellect is useless! The right Church does need to be logically watertight. They do need to teach things that are edifying and smart and challenging, and for that reason, priests do need to be disgustingly educated. Lay folks, however, do not. Lay folks like me, see, our job is to use our God-given faculties (including both reason and intuition) to know where to go to get our formation, and to be the best little lay folks we can.
Why did I need to overcomplicate things? I knew already, I feel it in my body when I’m in church: the SSPX teaches what I believe. It’s been a journey to get here. It’s taken me all these years to accept that belief actually maybe is, in part anyway, just some feeling that you have inside.
I think it’s got to be both, actually; for me, it can’t be one without the other. I can’t assent with my brain unless I feel it in my body too, and don’t get the feeling in my body unless my brain agrees with what’s being said. But the feeling in your body — it does matter, after all, which was news to me, a very cerebral person by nature.
So maybe belief is like a “whole person” experience, more real and tangible than I formerly thought.
All I know is, from both study and empirical/lived evidence, I believe the SSPX is right. It feels so good to be able to say, with confidence, that the place where I go to church really represents what I believe (even if I don’t always fit in well with the lay Trad community, socially speaking, as my readers very well know). It’s not just a placeholder or a franchise of some big organization. It’s real.
Which is why I’m not bothered by the impending “excommunication.” It’s sad, sure — devastating even — this is not how I hoped things would go, and I’m sad that the Church is splintering, and selfishly sad that I had to live during the crisis.
However, I’m not disturbed. I’m not rethinking my decision from a couple years ago.
Which is actually significant, because normally I’m extremely thin-skinned and highly susceptible to peer pressure; normally, hearing a bunch of people talk shit about something I agree with, would bother me deeply, or possibly even start to make me disagree with that thing. But not this. I see so much anti-SSPX noise online and it just makes me feel… kinda sad for the people who believe all that. And grateful to have found a safe haven where I can rest and tune out the noise. There’s so much peace to be found when you finally realize what you really believe, and can have confidence in that!
But so this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Is all of this to say that there is a subjective element to the truth? That it’s not 100% objective? — I don’t think so, and don’t want to be accidentally heretical or anything here, and am certainly not equipped to talk about this anyway; but it just makes you wonder. I guess “believe” is different from “know” for that reason; it’s a different action, and probably does involve more subjectivity, or something.
Anyway, I’m praying tonight for the new bishops and for the healing of the Church. I hope you are too.
When you’re married, it seems like everyone in the world wants you to have exactly two kids: one boy, one girl. No more, no less. You announce your first, and everyone is thrilled! “Oh goody! Oh hurray! You’re going to be parents! Babies are so wonderful!” Then: “When is the next one coming? I hope it’s a [whichever gender you didn’t have the first time] this time!” (And if it’s the same: “oof, I’m so sorry, what a bummer!”) Then, you announce a third, and people start to give you funny looks, raised eyebrows. Like: “on purpose?” “but why though?” God forbid you have a fourth or more. People, even strangers, seem to take that really personally.
My husband and I, we have four kids, the oldest being six, the youngest being almost a year old. And people around us are always telling us how much they love our kids. “They’re so wonderful! They’re the best kids!” (Which they are.) “You’re such good parents! You’re doing so great!” (Which I hope we are.) But then, practically in the same breath, with feverish urgency: “you’re done, right? You’re not having anymore? You’re getting a vasectomy, right?”
Good grief. Get your story straight, people.
For one, stop asking about the state of my husband’s/my reproductive organs and whether we plan to mutilate them. That’s no one’s business but ours, and why are you so obsessed about them anyway — gross. And for two: does you like our family or does you don’t? ‘Cause you’re sending pretty mixed signals.
(This hypocrisy annoys me almost as much as people who offer condolences & sympathy when you have a miscarriage, but then in the same breath are pro-choice. Did a human being die, or did one not? Did that baby’s life matter, or did it not? SMFH. Get your story straight.)
“But Mith,” you might argue, “of course we like your kids and your family. That’s precisely why we don’t want you to have anymore kids. Because the ones you have are so great that they deserve your full attention and all the nicest things you can afford for them. We don’t want them to have to sacrifice. And plus, having that many kids would be too hard, you’d be unhappy, and we want you to be happy.”
I’ll cut the snark now. This is valid. Let’s not be radical. You may not agree, but I actually think I’m pretty moderate on this whole issue. If you have a legitimate reason to believe that having additional kids would put a family in a bad state — like, maybe the family is homeless or on the literal verge of homelessness, or maybe one of the parents is struggling with active addiction, or maybe there’s a debilitating genetic condition that they’re likely to pass on, or maybe the mom suffers from serious postpartum depression — those are valid reasons for the parents to avoid future pregnancies. (Still not valid reasons for you to ask them about their private parts though — come on now.)
But. If it’s just that you see the way they’re living and you personally wouldn’t want to live like that: stop projecting. Besides. You just said a minute ago that our kids seem so happy and well-adjusted, now you’re saying they’re disadvantaged and doomed to a life of abject misery? Which one is it?
Yes, there are valid reasons for a couple to avoid having kids. You not agreeing with their lifestyle choices is not one of them.
“We love you and want you to be happy, that’s why we want you to stop.” With this argument, you’re projecting your personal idea of “happiness” onto someone else’s situation. Just because you wouldn’t want to live like them doesn’t mean they’re doing something wrong.
“But it is wrong for them to put their existing kids in a situation where –“
Where what? Where they have to make some sacrifices? Where they don’t get to have every single material item they’ll ever desire? Oh, the horror! I also don’t get to buy every little thing that I want — may as well go kill myself immediately, because this is no life worth living!
Ahem. I said I’d cut the snark.
“But we love you and we don’t want to see you struggle.” Thanks, but isn’t struggling to some extent a part of the human condition? It just doesn’t seem to me like avoiding financial/material discomfort is a compelling enough reason to avoid what is basically the greatest thing a human can do: co-create a new human life. Because human life is a really good and cool thing. Even when it involves some discomfort.
I get that the people who make the “we don’t want to see you struggle” arguments are coming from a place of love.
But it’s also a place of fear, isn’t it? And I get that too. The two unfortunately tend to come hand-in-hand. I love my kids so much that I’m plagued by constant fear that something bad will happen to them. The fear is intense.
But you can’t let it rule you. You can’t let fear govern your every decision. If your objective is always “avoid discomfort and stay safe at all costs” — you’re going to have a bad time and an empty life.
Like, I have driving anxiety, and am constantly petrified of car accidents, especially when my kids are in the car — I never for a moment am able to forget how their risk of death or catastrophic injury skyrockets every time I put them in the car, and how I have zero control over other drivers. But if I let this fear govern me, if I opted for “safety at all costs,” I’d never take them anywhere — to friends, to lessons, to church — we’d just sit at home. And what kind of a life would that be?
You can’t just make major decisions out of a desire to avoid all discomfort. Being a parent at all means inviting a certain amount of sorrow, pain, struggle, and sacrifice, and accepting that those are part of life now.
“We just want you to be happy.” — Again, thanks, but for some of us, the “happiness” that we’re striving for isn’t about peace in this world. Not that I’m like super holy or anything. That’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s just for me personally, the good of a human life outweighs a bit of material discomfort.
“Easy for you to say now while your kids are little. Wait until they’re older and your house is crowded and they all want the bathroom at the same time and they resent you.” You know what: valid. I do worry about this. I do worry that my kids will resent me, for this or any other reason. I worry all the time about their mental health as adults, and do all I can to try to protect them and fortify them.
But, I also try not to make important decisions based off of fear of other people’s opinions — even people who are very important to me. I would like for my kids to like me, and I hope they do — but that is, to some degree, outside of my control. All I can do is my best. Life decisions need to be informed by my conscience and what I believe God’s will to be.
And I need to try to raise my kids to not care so much about this world, to not be so hung up on their physical circumstances in this life. Because this is not all there is. I need to keep in mind that I’m raising souls for eternity.
.
This whole idea of controlling how many kids we have, as if kids are not unequivocally a good thing to have, is, if I’m not mistaken, a pretty modern innovation. Even a great many couples who for religious reasons don’t use birth control are infected by it — this idea of “should we be open to life or should we not?” I think a more appropriate, sane, and healthy approach to the whole question is a respect and awe for the mystery of life, and gratitude for it.
So I guess if you believe that this life is all there is, then sure, I can understand your concern. But that POV just frustrates me so much — again, the hypocrisy. People rarely seem to think it through. People rarely seem to take it to its logical conclusion. If you really believe this life is all there is, then sure, why have kids — why do anything at all! Philosophically, I have more respect for those nihilists who say extreme stuff like “humans are actually morally obligated to commit suicide” than for people who just float through life trying to enjoy it as much as they can until they die.
But that’s just me. To each their own, right? Isn’t that the creed that y’all secularists claim to live by? I apparently can’t cut the snark, sorry. Unless you’re my husband, my parish priest, or my medical doctor, please leave me alone about how many kids I have. That is all.
I’m embarrassed to admit that this is the first thing I’ve read by Flannery O’Connor. 🫣 (Well, I have a vague impression that I might have been made to read one of her short stories once, in English class many ages ago — but if so I have no memory of it.) Downright shameful that I hadn’t read her before, not only because I’m a Catholic and 36 years old and someone who claims to love reading and writing — but also because, as those of you who know me IRL are aware, I have a certain personal connection to her life. So, for many years now I’ve been like “I really should read Flannery O’Connor one of these days!” and for many years now I simply haven’t. Until now.
Of her works, I wanted to start with this one, because I prefer novels to short stories, so that narrowed my options down to two; and between this one and Wise Blood, this one seemed more highly-acclaimed. Also I just like the title. I think of this Bible verse often:
This will not be any kind of intelligent analysis or proper “review” of the book, so if you’re looking for an essay worth talking about in your English class, please go elsewhere. No, as ever, this will simply be my little impressions and silly personal thoughts about the book, because I like to think of you, my imaginary reader, as a friend that I can just chat with, without pressure or expectations. So, if you’ve read this book, please feel free to chime in in the comments, because I want to hear your thoughts too.
Here are mine, although they’re probably not worth reading, because I am not anywhere near smart enough to have understood this book. I probably shouldn’t even bother trying to say anything about it. But maybe some of you will find it mildly entertaining to read one dimwit’s reactions to this literary masterpiece, the same way it’d be kind of entertaining to watch an average Joe try to compete alongside the actual world-class athletes in the Olympics. (Or, to use a baking show analogy: the way the show Nailed It! is entertaining.) I invite you to have a laugh at my expense.
Well, I was surprised by how enjoyable this book actually was to read. I think part of the reason I’ve been avoiding Flannery O’Connor is because she’s so, well, serious. So heavy. Such gravitas attached to her name. Was I up for it? Was this a good time? No, not today, not today. I finally decided to just do it, since I’m on a roll here with this Rediscovering Reading venture. And this book was surprisingly really fun and gripping, like, you’ll want to stay up late reading it. (Yes, you can tell I’m no great scholar; I like for a novel to be fun.)
The second thing that surprised me: and this is where my lack of understanding really exposes itself: if I had read this book without knowing anything its author, I never would have guessed that she was a Catholic. Everyone talks about how Flannery O’Connor is “A Great Catholic Writer,” but like where in this book do we see Catholicism? She wrote Rayber’s thoughts, feelings, and contempt of religion so convincingly, so sympathetically, that I almost at times was like: “is she actually an atheist/humanist herself?” But no, you can see the author’s faith shining through from underneath. The story is very much informed by belief in God. That much is clear, and it’s very thought-provoking. I just fail to see what makes it “Catholic” specifically.
The third thing that surprised me: I was not expecting there to be SA in this book, damn. That caught me off-guard! At first I was like: “did that really just happen?” and after finishing the book I had to Google it to make sure I’d read that right. I unfortunately did. I don’t know why that surprised me, considering she’d already shown us attempted murder and then actual murder, so it was hardly sunshine and rainbows up to this point. And it wouldn’t have been so shocking in a contemporary novel, but here, in this context, it was just really unexpected, which made it all even more dark and grisly.
But of course that scene wasn’t just there to be dark and grisly. There was all this symbolism going on — dense as I am, it didn’t elude me that Young Tarwater’s “friend” is the devil, and the stranger in the car who drugs him does seem to have a lot in common with that “friend.” Something about the violence done to him here is supposed to be symbolic, but exactly how — that much did elude me.
Another thing that, well, didn’t quite elude me, but made me wonder: what was the hunger/thirst thing about? I guess that Young Tarwater was unable to eat food despite being so hungry because his hunger/thirst was for the eternal Bread of Life, and he had to face that? Was that why the food that his great-uncle had fed him was satisfying but no “worldly” food or drink was? He had to accept the fate that he’d been avoiding?
We also see this avoidance of God in the schoolteacher, Rayber. He talks about this terrifying love that sneaks up on him sometimes and which he doesn’t like to look at or acknowledge; it’s frequently triggered by his son Bishop, but also, Bishop is like the only thing that keeps it at bay, because in Bishop it has a tangible form and a location, but if Bishop were not there, he’d have to confront it all around him — he’d have to face the staggering and terrible beauty of life as a human being? Am I reading that right? I found this a bit baffling because it was so unrelatable. I’ve never felt any kind of persistent, overwhelming, terrifying, nameless multidirectional love (except maybe back in my drinking days, lol). I wish I did because that seems very obviously like an acute awareness of God’s presence — something I honestly don’t have too often. I guess maybe we’re supposed to see that it’s true, that Rayber has the prophet blood in him. You have to wonder what will happen to him now that Bishop is gone. I guess he’ll have to finally confront it.
And I couldn’t help thinking at the end, even in the midst of the burning bush and the Voice of God and all, about the boring logistics: Rayber still, legally, owns this land, right? Do you think he’ll come back to it? Will he and Young Tarwater join forces? (It was interesting how, once he was away from him, YT started to think Rayber wasn’t all bad…) Or will YT really just live here alone until he manages to somehow rebuild the house, just out in the wilderness like some actual John the Baptist?
No need to point out how great Flannery O’Connor’s prose is. She’s obviously a genius at things like metaphor and describing the environment, both external (the silence was corrugated by the trucker’s snores… the column of puke into the lake… Old Tarwater’s fish eyes…) and internal (“He saw with perfect clarity that the only feeling he had for this boy was hate,” “He was not deceived that this was a whole or a full life…”) — just so many lines like that, that make you go “how does anyone think of these things? How would she even know to say that?”
I think the most interesting thing for me was Rayber’s relationship with Bishop. It’s plain that he loves him (that scene where he strokes his ear absentmindedly and then recoils once he catches himself doing it) but I mean also he tried to drown him, so. Is it just that he’s that afraid of a love that knows neither limits nor rationality nor logic? Is the message that to avoid God is to avoid all love and even forfeit life itself? Or what was going on there?
Overall, this is a 10/10 for stretching my feeble brain and giving it a good workout while also satisfying my hunger for delicious prose, for smart, thoughtful writing that’s also fun as heck and hard to put down. If you haven’t read it yet, you should go do that and then come back here and chat with me about it.
