Curse of the Reverse Thermostat

​Dan was away last weekend.

It was very hot.

He texted me and said, “Hey—don’t forget to put on the AC if you’re hot.”

“Will do!” I texted.

“Let me know if you need help with it.” Damn he knows me, I thought, but I was determined. 

“I just press Cool, Down dial and then Set, right?” I asked.

“Yep!"

“Then I think I got it,” I said. “Have fun in Cooperstown!”

I walked over to the thermostat next to the TV. I looked at it. There were buttons — set, hold and some third option. There were dials—On, Off, Cool, Hot, Auto.

“Huh,” I thought.

I felt a sense of de ja vu.

This thermostat undos me. All thermostats do. This happens at work too.

“No, no, Sara,” my custodian Richie tells me. “Remember, yours is a reverse thermostat. You spin the dial to a higher number, it gets cooler. You spin it to a lower number, it gets hotter. Reverse thermostat.” Richie has ruined me and thermostats forever. At work, there’s no science. I put it up higher, it either gets hotter, colder, or stays the same. Then David comes in with his little laser reader and points it at the vent, shows me a reading that means nothing to me, and then I sit back down at my desk and chime in when all my coworkers are mourning the [insert heat, arctic cold, stickiness, etc]. I chalk it all up to the reverse thermostat  

Now at home, with Dan in Cooperstown and heat bugs buzzing in the sky, I’m staring at the little white box that could have been writing in Arabic.

I press Cool.

Ok. I think. That went ok.

Then I press Set. The screen starts to dance—the words “6am Tuesday 81 degrees” ​flash. I press Set again. Now “Monday through Friday 11pm, 65 degrees”. 

Oh god, I think. ​

I’m pressing down and up and set and all sorts of buttons, none of which seem to be doing anything I want which is simply: Cool. Now. ​

I look at my phone. Not gonna call him, I think. I turn back to the thermostat, fiddle a bit more, and give up, praying that ​none of the settings that popped up have actually been agreed to in my confused state. 

During the weekend, I take naps, because I’m sick, and wake up with rivers running down my face. Rather than inquire about how to use the thermostat, I pick up coconut water to replenish my electrolytes. I open the windows, which doesn’t do much to begin with, but I close them at night, and wake up with wet hair in the morning. 

I survive. ​

Dan comes home Sunday night and says “What in the world? It’s ten times hotter in here than outside!”​

He looks ​at me. I avert my eyes and continue to chop lettuce.

”Did you try the thermostat?”​

”Um,” I say. “Ya, but, I couldn’t do it.”​

I put the knife down. ​”Let me show you what I did—I really don’t understand how everything went wrong so quickly.”

He follows me to the thermostat. I say, here I did this, I did that, what gives?!​

”Well, your first problem is that’s not the right thermostat,” he says.​

”What?!” I say.​

”Ya,” he says. He walks out of the room we’re in. I follow. “It’s here.” He is pointing to a box that’s right behind the other thermostat, only in another room. It dawns on me this is kind of another reverse thermostat situation in that sense.​ With Dan at the helm, in three clicks, the air is on and the sweat is drying off my neck.

The second problem is that you’ve seen me configure this thermostat a hundred times,” he says, shaking his head.

I smile. “It’s kind of funny though, isn’t it?” 

He doesn’t think so, but he mildly agrees. I however continue to laugh through dinner whenever I think of it.

I sleep like a baby all through the night.

floral resistance

Paul Harding describes flowers as an act of resistance in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers.  

Reading this on the bus heading into Harvard Square this morning, I thought: Yes.  

There are reasons I love flowers: they are beautiful, vibrant; many help the local bee population. Their seeds are all different—some the size of a dot of the i, some wispy and irregular like a burr.  I like to spill the packets out into my palm and marvel at the strange seeds with their universe of potential.

But I love them for something else: I love them for their reminder that things take time.   Texts, emails, posts—they seem to suggest a different sort of time. There’s an urgency, an immediacy, that they suggest. There’s something detached from reality, detached from Nature’s time, about technology.

Flowers unfurl cell by cell, leaf by leaf, and then, petal by petal. I stand in the garden, dutifully watering them, coaxing them out, as the sun and the rain has done, and the soil. I tap my feet, I long for the hot red of the zinnia to bloom, the lashes of the sunflower to blink, the airy heads of the cosmos to dance. 

They take their time. 

There is no explaining to them that “there’s a drop dead deadline and hurry up already!” They respond to no bottom line, to no key stakeholder who “wants them blooming by Tuesday!”

I love this.

Flowers have their function in nature, but I tend to think of flowers as an indulgence. When I plant them, I do think of pollinators that will benefit from their pollen, but I also think of the way their blooming masses of color and texture will alight my kitchen table. I think of their beauty, which simply gives me joy and peace.  

In both time and function, then, I see that for me, growing flowers is an act of resistance. They are proof that there is still a Time that exists independent of my Tweets, and emails, and buzzing cell phone. The flowers are not feeding me (though I grow edible flowers too)—not my stomach anyway. They are feeding my soul, with their head and arms reaching for the sky, and drooping their heads when they grow heavy. They are growing, then sitting patiently, and dipping happily when a fat bumbler alights. They are the proof I need.

fomo

FOMO stands for fear of missing out.  

When does one get it? 

Generally, one gets it looking at photos of old girlfriends/boyfriends with their new people, or photos of friends traveling, or photos of everyone hanging out and you couldn’t be there.  

I feel it when I walk into the bookstore and see all these titles in print from grand authors and people younger than me. I feel it when I see pics of babes surfing in the sun while I’m sitting at work. 

FOMO. 

The questions are: 

1. Can I live someone else’s life? Successfully? 

2. Can I go back in time and change things? 

The answers to these questions: 

1. Yes. No.  

2. No. 

Can I live MY life? Authentically, truly, flawed, beautiful?  

Ya. Ya I can. 

I can change my life but, I will always be inside this body—I have lived what I have lived. And my life has been so beautiful. My life IS so beautiful: 

Today, I had a picnic in the park with my sister and my niece and nephew. There were only a few roses left in the garden by where we sat. A wasp flung itself at us and caused momentary hysteria.  After we ate, we curled up inside a cleft of the jungle gym together, all tangled and clammy and happy, hidden from the afternoon sun.

I was presented with cards, the most beautiful birthday cards to match the beautiful, shy, proud smiles, the beautiful bed head, and sun freckles.

This joy amidst the sea of meetings and spreadsheets. The joy amidst the sea of life. My heart bursts with joy at the thought of it. 

FOMO?  Hardly. Where else could I want to be?

Be someone else?  Who else is as blessed as I?