Kirilov: Ever seen a leaf, a leaf from a tree? I saw one recently—a yellow one, a little green, wilted at the edges. When I was a boy, I used to shut my eyes in winter and imagine a green leaf, with veins in it, and the sun shining…
Stavrogin: What’s this—an allegory?
Kirilov: No, not an allegory. A leaf, just a leaf. A leaf is good. Everything’s good.
Stavrogin: The man who dies of hunger. And the man who rapes a little girl. Is that good?
Kirilov: Yes it is. And the man who blows his brains out for the child, that’s good too. Everything’s good.
Stavrogin: When did you find out you were so happy?
Kirilov: I was walking about the room. I stopped the clock. It was twenty-three minutes to three.
That passage is from Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I envied Kirilov, in my youth. Envied his cool and savvy detachment. Envied it because I cared deeply, about everything, and it made life excruciating. Like an abscess and dry socket pain, without end.
I saw this last week on my Google home page:
“Atmosphere Co-founder D-Spawn Suffers Stroke”
That was the headline. But that wasn’t news. I don’t mean that me and the D go way back, or anything. I mean, I didn’t know who he was.
My guess, had you asked, would have been that “D-Spawn” is something one sprays to kill fire ants. And to me, “atmosphere” is the constant, unnerving sense I have that my chair is tipped backward, that I’m just about to fall flat on my ass.
Had, I should say. The constant, unnerving sense that I had. Falling on my ass doesn’t mean what it did. There was a time when my face turned red; oh don’t I look foolish, I used to say.
Now I’m the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” lady. I wear yellow T-shirts with gray sweat pants, and my face turns red now from hoisting my ass off the floor.
I don’t care anymore. That’s youth’s concern. You tell yourself when you’re young you don’t care. But you do. You care. When you’re young, you care what the world has to say and the world cares what you have to say when you’re young.
Now except for the makers of plus size wear and reverse mortgage vendors, no one cares what I think. No one cares what I want. I’m a white Southern woman in my mid-to-late fifties. My preferences, tastes, don’t mean diddly squat.
And that’s how it should be. There is a time and there is a season. Turn turn turn. I don’t mind getting old. Life hurts less these days. Or differently, at least. Sore feet and back strain. Not white-knuckled terror. Not raw exposed nerves without skin.
I was the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof, in my youth. I cared about everyone, everything, deeply, and the blades of the windmills I tilted at cut me to pieces.
Children are raped. Men die of hunger. Those things are real. They happen. The idea that I can prevent them from happening somehow is not real.
The green leaf with sunlight shining through its veins. The man who lies dead with a bullet through his brain. Everything’s real, I think Kirilov means.
Yellow T-shirt, gray sweats; I’m not hip. I’m not cool. “D-Spawn” was used to fight crop infestation, I guessed. But I know that all living things have a season. I know that time moves forward, not backward. Things are what they are. Life is what it is, and once I stopped screaming it hurt so much less.