I Like it Here

“The finite nature of us being here is the only thing that makes it meaningful.”

Andrew Garfield spoke with casual depth. I was midway through brushing my teeth, pulling on pants, reaching for a belt, and checking the time every 35 seconds. On a Wednesday afternoon, doggy-paddling through an ocean of a week, I was late for my only class. But I stopped the four things I was (poorly) doing at once so I could listen. 

Garfield was on the Modern Love podcast by the New York Times, featuring stories about people and all forms of love. I admire the work its first person non-fiction does to sneak meaning into narrative-- like disguising spinach in a strawberry and banana smoothie. Garfield’s name is in shiny letters in the title of the episode, but he did not write the piece that he read. Of the essays he was sent, he says, this one chose him--describing the feeling of reading it for the first time as “a combination of being dragged inside of it and diving inside of it simultaneously.” 

By the end of the episode, I understood what he meant. I felt the pull of the words. I needed to know whose ideas these were. And the writer needed to know that, for days afterward, I could not get his images out of my head: dirt roads in the rain like chocolate milk, a dead horse on the side of the street like an abandoned sofa, and the scratched crystal on a watch he chooses to wear anyway. These are the reflections of a man I did not know–that his “wife hasn’t worn a bikini for six years and probably never will again…which makes [him] sad” because “she’s a beautiful woman with gray in her hair,” that he wishes his “son’s birth parents could see him swimming”–yet I could not stop thinking about his words. 

The piece is called “Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss” by Chris Huntington, and centers around a reframing of time. He tells about an inmate named Mike, who he met in one of his 10 years working as a teacher in prisons. Mike believed he had a choice even in confinement: instead of spending his days angry because there are lives– ones that include marriage and a family– that he might never live, Mike would do something else. 

Mike would “be the best prisoner [he] could be.” 

Huntington weaves this concept from Mike’s story throughout, at one point noting that his own life is “constrained in hundreds of ways.” He writes about the love he loses in the form of an ex-wife and aging parents; he writes about the love he sees through small moments, like overhearing his mother and son “talking quietly in the kitchen,” remarrying, and the thumbs up his son gives him when they open a new box of cereal. When the battery on his watch dies, he takes it as encouragement to “think in months, years.” The watch seems to tell him “someone loves you. Where are you going? There are some things you will never do. It doesn’t matter. There is no rush. Be the best prisoner you can be.” 

After reading the essay on the podcast, Garfield identifies the prison as “this body, the gravity, the time of my birth to the time of my death.” He also connects Huntington’s story to the idea of onism, which he defines as “the sense…and the sorrow of knowing that you will only be able to live your own life,” meaning that you “won’t be able to read all the books in the library, see all the films in the cinema, know all the people on Earth.” 

I realized that, beyond Huntington’s language and Garfield’s reflections, this was the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about the episode. I wondered: how can I make sure I like my prison?

Wednesday evening, I had dinner with my friend Joey. We spoke about what good friends do in college--jobs, the future, relationships, projects, doubt, excitement, fear. I told Joey about a job I had become certain that I did not want to apply for, although I had already written my application. This is a job that aligns with my interests, but seems filled with busywork, far, and competitive. 

This was my way of saying I was afraid. Maybe of rejection itself or maybe that it would mean I could not blame my failure on an externality. Maybe I was afraid of wasting time or, worse, actually getting the job--having to make a decision to take it or not. . 

Joey responded with a story about an interaction he once had with his father. They were at the grocery store. Joey’s father told him that they were going to look for bread next. Joey responded that there was no bread. I can’t remember if he said he overheard someone announce it or maybe he saw a sign but, somehow, he knew.

His dad said “well, if you don’t look for it then there certainly won’t be any bread.”

Joey was trying to ask me: how will you know unless you try? He said to do the thing that scared me. Apply for the job that could open my next door. Leave home if I need to. He said to fail, and fail a lot so I wouldn’t mind it as much. He said to seek guidance from the people I admire. Even, and especially, when I feel shy. 

So I sent Chris Huntington an email to tell him that his work and life story moved me and that I would love to talk. I also included a link to my own writing. I felt nervous about sending this email the same way I hesitated to submit my job application; what if he thinks I’m annoying? Or stupid. What if he doesn’t want to be bothered? What if nothing comes of it? What if something does?

Here’s what he said: 

Dear Jenna, 

Thank you for the note, which made my day. You’re quite the writer yourself —I spent a little time on your website and admire your way of describing yourself in terms of the people you love. 

It’s a lovely gesture —and seems wise. 

I hope you keep writing. Even when you get out of school. 

I don’t know about a conversation in the coming weeks — I’m working very hard to be present for my own family at the moment (my son is 17, in the middle of FAFSA and common app season) (and so are my students —I’m teaching at an Indianapolis high school these days). But I do hope we can stay in touch. Send me notes when you start publishing (I say WHEN because you surely will) and I can spread the word among my own students and reading-acquaintances. 

You’re very kind. And gifted. A great combination. 

Thank you for the nice words. They weren’t wasted on me, I assure you! 

My best to you,

Chris

His response seems menial and a rejection of my request to connect. But, like a broken watch or a thumbs up from a son or some words I heard on a podcast and couldn’t let go of, this small gesture moved me. 

My exchange with Huntington felt like the difference between the years he “used to get up early in the morning to write” and these days, when he “[gets] up early to make [his] son breakfast”-- small but imbued with the change that tells me something here is alive. This exchange is embracing the precious finality of onism. Creating space for discomfort–to open one more door, have one more conversation, or ask one more question– is being the best prisoner I can be.