As we try to manage our dispositions, we need two things. First, we need perspective; second, we need tranquility. And it’s voices from the past that can give us both—even when they say things we don’t want to hear, and when those voices belong to people who have done bad things.
He was known, within a wide circle of family and friends, for this dish, and for making it on request. He emailed me the recipe when I was in my early 20s — that was when we emailed each other a lot. I followed the directions as closely I could, but the dish wasn’t as good as his. Not because of the veneer of nostalgia. Not because he was the kind of cook guided by instinct, or the kind who withheld his technique — he did, in fact, measure things, and when he was asked for a recipe, he gladly shared those measurements. I think his kofta was better because he was really good, better than most other people, and definitely better than me, at every step of the dish. He paid attention. He cared. And that’s that.
Howard argues that decluttering is not just a personally liberating ritual, but a moral imperative, a duty we owe both to our children and to the planet. “As Boomers age, move into smaller places, or die, their Gen X and Millennial relatives are called on to step up and clean up after them,” Howard writes. To leave behind a mountain of belongings for others to dismantle, Howard writes, “replicates, on a personal level, the shortsightedness and abnegation of responsibility that have handed us climate change. It’s too much trouble to sort out all this stuff; dealing with it just reminds us that we’re going to die anyway and that none of it matters. Let the kids deal with it.”
If you weren’t here, I’d fear the surge
of surf. I’d watch the moon wax and wane,