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Growth is only possible when we’re in an environment that supports it. A part of that environment is the people who surround us. These people act as teachers. If we’re lucky, we might even find masters—people who walk the walk rather than talk the talk.
I’m more of a talker; my partner, on the other hand, has walked many miles and keeps on going. One of the steps she takes that I find particularly enjoyable is her work at the food cooperative. She invests time and energy in organizing and buying seasonal, local, organic produce together with twenty or so other families in the neighborhood. Fruits and vegetables; dairy, poultry, and meat; jams, bread, and tofu; and a long list of other delicious food products made with care. The evenings our order comes, with all its colors and smells and flavors, are a casual domestic celebration. It’s a recurrent reminder that I’ve found a master.
My partner places the order every Sunday—I usually forget to and wouldn’t even know how to if I remembered. It’s our intimate expression of the division of labor, one which I very much hope is satisfactory, as I wouldn’t want to forego its benefits. Last Monday evening, when we were on the couch spending time with each other in the pleasant-do-nothing way people who love each other do, I reminded her about the order—only a day too late this week. The long evening with a lazy sun taking its time to sink under the horizon reminded me it was spring. The stream of consciousness took hold of me, and in reflex I asked:
—Does the cooperative have strawberries yet?
—I already ordered some; they’re arriving the day after tomorrow.
The look in her eyes was that of an adult giving a child good news. The look was called for.
I love strawberries. They’re not always great, but when they’re good, they’re delicious. Where I grew up, my birthday was during the first days of spring, when strawberries started to arrive at the neighborhood shops. I’d often ask for strawberry shortcake and, after a few arguments about prices and quality with the greengrocers, my mother would make it. A towering four-tier homemade sponge, doused in booze and layered with Chantilly cream and strawberries, waited for me in the fridge the day of the celebration. They were early strawberries, a bit sour, the perfect touch for the sweet cream and drunken cake. The news about the strawberries coming didn’t bring the memory of that taste; it made me feel it.
So began, as a child, my love affair with strawberries.
One of the few remnants of a time when software companies had a credible façade as cool and forward-thinking places to work—you know, where CEOs call their employees “family”—is the daily organic fruit basket that gets delivered to my office. It has tasty stuff, and because I’m an early bird, I usually get the best picks. After my partner told me on our couch that the strawberry season had been inaugurated, the vacant look I had on my face as I walked into the office the next morning turned to life when I saw that the day’s basket had strawberries.
The 20 strawberries were for 40 employees, so I only took a few. I didn’t eat them straight away; I was keeping them for the right moment. The first couple of hours, the open floor plan is empty and quiet. By mid-morning, most people have arrived, and I need a moment of rest from the droning sound of other people’s Zoom calls. Usually I go for a cup of coffee in a quiet corner. Not today; I had a box of cornflakes in my locker that would be delicious with a couple of strawberries.
I went to the kitchen, filled a bowl with cereal, diced and added the strawberries, poured the milk, and mixed. I looked at the bowl and then I looked at the box of cornflakes. For once, they looked exactly the same. I was captivated. You see, strawberries aren’t alone. If there’s something I’ve learned over the last couple of years writing here, it is that I have a love affair with food altogether. Good food and junk food. Healthy food and unhealthy food. Sweet and savory. Warm and cold. Refreshing and hearty. And breakfast cereal is one of my earliest childhood crushes.
As the youngest of six, the economy was sometimes tight, and we didn’t get the cornflakes that came in a fancy box. We got the economy-bag kind that went soggy within 10 seconds of adding milk. The Kellogg’s ads during afternoon cartoon commercial breaks, with the crunchy flakes and the juicy red strawberries, were a fantasy at the time. Although my loving mother would never deny me a strawberry shortcake for my birthday, I didn’t get strawberries in my cereal. Even in season, they weren’t cheap. If I wanted my cereal sweet, she’d add a couple of spoonfuls of sugar—sometimes salt when her mind was elsewhere. Now, here I was, middle-aged, standing in the office kitchen with the bowl of cereal, staring at the box, realizing I had made one of my many humble dreams come true.
We can struggle through our midlife crises—and god knows I have—but it’s not all bad. Some of us are very lucky, and by the time we’re in our forties, we’ve achieved some level of stability in our lives. Sure, life has its quirky little sense of humor and can throw it out the window on a whim, but in our forties we’ve added some tools to the toolbox and, with a bit of luck and some help from our teachers and masters, we have a better chance at weathering the storms. One of the multipurpose tools that can help us on a rainy day is something we could call “the little things.”
All jokes aside, my entire life leading up to this point prepared me for that moment in the kitchen at work. The little things, like a perfect bowl of cereal, remove all complexity and noise and condense the ineffable meaning of our lives. As I stood there, I understood that at midlife, the few decades at the apex of our mental and physical capabilities, we can make dreams come true, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant—it can be a springtime evening on the couch with a partner or a bowl of cereal from a childhood memory. With the acquired knowledge of the power of the small, we can focus on the wellbeing provided by the little things that bring some order to the chaos.
The grand ideas, the great philosophical frameworks, the groundbreaking technological and scientific advancements aren’t what move us forward. We’ve got it all wrong if we think we can think ourselves into understanding. The value of these endeavors lies elsewhere. By making possible what before seemed impossible, they give us an insight into the enormity of the unknown. They let us see how incredibly complex the universe is and how it’s full of surprises. They show us how small we are. They put the true scale of our needs right in front of us.
If we want to leave something to the generation that follows us, rather than being blinded by the next great thing, we need to grow up, be the midlifers we are, and take stock of the little things. The ones we must do and the ones that give us pleasure—they’re one and the same. It won’t change things overnight, but it’ll make taking the first steps a hell of a lot easier and a hell of a lot nicer. I mean, who doesn’t like it when dreams come true?
What a deceptively simple yet profound essay to wake up to. Being single and a bit older than middle-aged, I find that my modus operandi is to bumble my way along but with a warm-glowed flashlight (not LED) that I swing behind me often as I try to go forward in a world that feels less welcoming. Kellogg's was in my childhood pantry—but my strawberry shortcake was store-bought yet served with love. And Reddi-Wip. I now live in a town that has an annual strawberry festival on the Hudson River with homemade everything!
Thank you for doing the writing ☺️ and documenting the beauty of walking together and life in such witty and warm ways. And as usual, for reminding us of the importance of small, seemingly insignificant things to live a more loving, caring, and aware present.