Dessert Island with a Buzzing Fridge

When I moved into this apartment, my brother gifted me his fridge.
Gifted is a funny word, actually. This fridge is a hand me down. In many ways, a subtle reminder that though we are both adults, he is still bigger and taller and two years older. The pattern of outgrowing and handing down is a familiar one for us-- the well-worn, squeaky pair of rollerblades that were passed down to me when I was six, the musical theatre club clout when I was 16, and at 24, the fridge. Like the blades, the fridge isn’t exactly in full working condition. It makes an inconsistent humming noise.
Apparently, the noise had been making him miserable for years. For context - and in his defense - my brother Gabe writes music from home for a living. It is tedious work, and this particular fridge’s low, inconsistent hum tampered with the melodies. As the sixth-term president of the Gabe-is-Being-Overly-Dramatic Club, and the first in line for hand-me-downs, I welcomed the free fridge into my little home with open arms.
Now, sitting in my kitchen in the third month of isolation, I am eating the words of the adventurous, unbothered woman I was six months ago and will spit out my three least favorite words: Gabe was right.
This villainous fridge will start out silent, unassuming. Then there is a loud click. Following the click there is a low humming noise that mimics a laptop fan (akin to a 2008 Dell.) Objectively speaking, and under normal circumstances, it is not a highly annoying noise. It isn’t too loud and in a bustling house full of people, full of chatter and the sounds of co-existing, it could go unnoticed. However, in Month Three of Isolation, it has become a painfully loud reminder that I am alone in a silent room. Still. Still sitting alone in my 500 square foot apartment. The same 500 square feet as the day before. And the day before that. The same 500 square feet of alone that I will be sitting in tomorrow. And the day after that. The inconsistent humming is a cruel reminder that I am indoors--trapped in a tiny stagnant land, designed by me to suit me. A reminder that here, in these four walls nothing shocking will happen. I will not run into a friend. No grand adventure will take place. This place will look and sound the same tomorrow, give or take the coloration on the bananas on my kitchen counter.
The humming of the fridge looks at the song the trees sing when the breeze massages its leaves and challenges it to an arm-wrestling match. Often, the humming fridge has much bulkier biceps. In my darkest moments, the humming fridge wins.
I am sorry that I laughed at Gabe for hating this fridge.
I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that I am late to many intellectual parties. The most recent realization being that the whole “tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it” bit was never really about a tree. Even as I type this I feel so silly for not parsing this out before today.
If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The charm of this brain teaser, it seems, is that we will never know the answer. Or rather, we will never agree on one. (Surely, it was concocted by someone who gets off on arguing...who loves to take dinner parties as the moment to power up on seemingly silly topics. A sick, twisted joy that does not jive with my own). Given the proper crowd, there is a sort of bemusement that comes with the low-stakes musing: do there have to be ears present for sound to exist? Does outside acknowledgment bring legitimacy to an experience? My ever present human-centric way of thinking nudges me to ask; does the event even matter if it happens outside of my awareness?
To chug along the track of old sayings and idioms; what I don’t know, can’t hurt me. Right?
I consider the theory of the butterfly effect. This theory would suggest that this tree falling in the forest may be the reason that I give birth to my first child, pick a certain ice cream flavor, or have an untimely death. This connectedness is often described without an ounce of spirituality, as if cause and effect is void of any God. I choose to believe that any form of connectedness must have a God, or even be God. (At the present moment, I am still unsure if there is a difference).
Gracie once told me over onion rings and burgers that she believes herself to have a “rich inner-life.” She sat across from me at our window side table in a white and red “Bob Baker’s Marionette Theater” tee shirt. She had just purchased it after the odd little show we had seen moments before. I resonate with a person who puts a shirt on immediately after buying.
“Rich inner-life.” I liked the way she said it. Gracie talks like she is a character in a movie, which is delightful to me since it gives me permission to do the same. There were four of us at the table, Gracie, her partner JD, me and my partner at the time. With the hectic environment, and the equally hectic new-friend-energy we were all exchanging, I think I was the only one who heard. We spoke about the connectedness we felt to our romantic partners. She went on to clarify that her connection with JD was only because she was so beautifully attuned to herself.
The thing I like most about Grace is that she is the type of woman who would agonize over what color she would like to wear to a desert island. She would consider how it made her feel, her nostalgic associations with the color, and how it would age as she sat alone in the sun. That day, she gifted me the phrase “rich inner-life.” Unlike Gabe with the fridge, she was unaware that it would drive me crazy. We didn’t rest long on the idea, the conversation quickly shifted into discussion about film, career, and finally, a valiant couple-versus-couple fight over the bill. I believe we lost.
Though a lovely afternoon, I can’t recall any other details of the odd historic puppet show, or the conversation that followed. The phrase “rich inner-life” nagged at my heart, because I knew I did not understand it in the way that Gracie does. I know that if I ever find myself on a desert island, I will not see a point in caring what color I am wearing. After all, no one is there to see me wearing it.
An inner-life... Come to think of it, do I have one of those? I have always liked myself. I have always known myself or worked to know myself as best as I could at the time. That has always seemed like enough. Aside from some poignant moments that I can remember feeling too big, too loud, not smart enough... I have felt fairly confident for a majority of my life. Growing up in a larger family, my understanding of who I am has always been as a part of a “we.” I know who I am based on the contexts I am a part of (girlfriend, teacher, friend, sister, and daughter). I see myself as I imagine you see me.
I could get by doing this for so long because those closest to me (my dad, mom, older brother, etc.) have, for the most part, loved me well. My reflection has been made clear to me my whole life and those words were largely positive. This inner circle made it clear that they thought me to be smart and beautiful for as long as I can remember. My leaning on their reflection of who I was has always been, for the most part, a positive experience. I could get by never weighing the notion that there is another level of knowing myself. Learning that there is a chance I am supposed to be friends with myself has been a completely new and (as an extrovert) wildly unattractive notion.
Now, in isolation, with no romantic partnership to hang my hat on, I find myself utterly alone; a desert island with a buzzing fridge. Most moments, failures and victories, are spent with myself. In my darkest moments, it forcefully poses the question: “If I live my life, in all of its tragedy and its elation with nobody around to know me, do I really exist?” Like the tree in the forest, I have always felt that without someone knowing when I fall, it didn't happen. I am not alive without a person to reflect myself back on to me. To touch my skin and assure me that I am still here.
Whole days go by where no one sees me cry. No one eats the chicken rosemary pasta sauce I made from scratch. No one sees me dance in my kitchen because the song I was listening to made its way into my legs. There is no one to say “good morning” or “do you smell that?” or “look at this burn on my finger!!” to. When I laugh, I do it alone into a quiet 500 square foot apartment. The sound is eerie and unfamiliar to me. Laughing alone has proved to be sort of puzzling.
With most modern storytelling and holiday cards offering the perspective that togetherness is the meaning to life, I have some serious shifting to do. I am not my mother’s daughter in the way I once was. I am not someone’s lover. I am the only one responsible for my current loneliness and for my future happiness. And so, I suppose, I will have to be a friend to me.