Finding Delight in the Absurd

peanut butter toast, amber rivers, and rebellion

The exhales from her petite lungs seep through her teeth, restrained to convey competence. She accepts no help because over 2000 days of absorbing the world around her are plenty. She is ready.

The golden remains of what once were homemade bangs sliced by her lime green Fiskars tangle in her eyelashes, and she quickly tucks the loose strands behind her ears. Her back arches, head thrown back to face the ceiling, as her 40-pound frame lifts the counter stool nearly as tall as her. She lugs it around the counter, past the dishwasher, sink, and refrigerator, and finds her way to her workbench.

The toaster's cord tautly extends to the edge of the butcher block, the farthest it can to reach little hands and arms. Tiny crumbs litter its wake—a trail of sesame seeds and burnt odds and ends. Two tubs of peanut butter sit on deck. Two furry dogs swarm at her feet like crocodiles, eager for any drop of the liquid gold. She watches intently as the two slices of bread sit in one slot so they can "hug,” When they pop up, she gasps— a tiny startle as it lurches toward her face. 

With careful precision, she extracts the bread, cautiously avoiding the hot metal, and places it on her pink melamine plate. Her tiny hand plunges inside the peanut butter jar with her utensil, and her knuckles graze the sides, coating themselves in the sticky substance.

***

***

Before I was comfortable accepting my introversion, I tried my hardest to contort myself into the picture of what I thought a girl should be— energetic, lively, fun, sunshine. I was never sunshine. A true November baby, the seasons of decay are a home to me. My disposition is naturally melancholy (bittersweet as Susan Cain puts it). 

A quick look at the news shows me children killed in war, rhetoric that dehumanizes, and election heartbreak. People fill every category: Anxiety. Outrage. Turmoil. Mourning. Fury.

This time of year gnaws at my subconscious. She's mostly polite these days, less prone to erratic tendencies like impulsively painting her kitchen coral pink. But this season is when she comes out to reign, feeling everything a bit more.

How can we be okay while the world is burning? And after this crisis and after this war and after this pandemic, will we finally be able to breathe?

But the world doesn't behave long enough for such things.

***

I don't know when I stopped asking why shit happens and keeps happening. Perhaps there will always be a part of me that demands reason and another part that understands reason is obsolete. Maybe I rejected the idea that reason guides pain because I can't bear to accept that Reason would act so selfishly.

Albert Camus says: "Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."

***

I went to the river last weekend. While my husband and son kayaked, my daughter and I sat on the floating dock, our movements creating ripples that resembled the stretch marks on my hips. To keep the peace, we whispered our noticings.

The water flowed like amber glass, a mirror held up to trees as they watched their signs of aging—wet, black barks bearing remnants of hurricanes. Yellow-brown leaves clung like crowns, too dingy to be gold but worn proudly nevertheless. A blue-tailed damselfly dipped in and out, kissing the water's surface, catching rides on tiny crackled leaves.

Moss dripped from the branches in tangled messes, trapping air plants and dead leaves. The sun burned through the trees, and the sky stretched airy blue, streaked on one side like a child's paintbrush. A spider web connected the bridge to the dock, its strands dancing in the wind. In the Florida sun, even the spiders rest.

The earth spoke its poetry regardless of whether anyone listened. It was created for the sake of life, spilling its soul from tree branches and the rumble of its belly that moved the amber river. And for a moment, we listened.

***

The idea that we can turn away while the world burns doesn't align ethically, but sustained grief is also intolerable. This is where Camus' revolt comes in—not giving in to meaninglessness but defying it. We can rebel by finding delight.

To Camus, "Genuine rebellion " means recognizing our shared experience and finding solidarity with others who face the absurd and inexplicable. Or, as Florence Welch asks, "Is this how it is? Is this how it's always been? To exist in the face of suffering and death and still keep singing?"

***

I once thought delight was a betrayal, a turning away from the things that are very sad and very wrong and very not okay in our world. But delight, happiness, in Camus' logic, is an act of genuine rebellion—a way to acknowledge absurdity and defy it.

As I watch my daughter, cheeks rosy and rounded, eyes alit with pride over her peanut butter toast, I wonder: is it really that simple? The peanut butter trail from her knuckles to her cheeks, the opportunistic dogs drifting to sleep as she wiggles her feet in delight—dancing upon the air.

I think about the earth, worms wriggling in soil, golden crowns atop trees, amber glass of water writing love letters to sky. I think about the tender things— like wagging tails, sandwiches cut criss-cross, and little hands wrapped in mine. It's all too much to bear, too sweet and pure.

And maybe basking in that is one tiny act of rebellion, sent out into the universe. Even in seasons of decay, we can find within ourselves moments of delight.