Wait your turn

There's a certain give and take that makes life livable.

I don’t like birds, but “Dinosaur” — the High Line pigeon — makes me happy.

I didn’t have time to write a long essay this week because I’m now spending about 13 hours a week doing PT. I’m not exaggerating. The rehab of my shoulder and bicep feels like a third part-time job, and it eats up all my free time.

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about while I do all those boring, painful exercises: taking turns. As a mom of young kids, I repeated the phrase “Wait your turn” ad nauseam. I used the timer on my watch to reassure my skeptical kids that everyone was getting the exact same five minutes on the swing, with the binoculars or holding the dog leash (back when they thought that was fun). There were fights over whose turn it was to sit on my lap, push the elevator button or choose the TV show. These were fun things, privileges, coveted positions, and I felt like the bickering over whose turn it was might never end. But one day, when I was too busy paying attention to something else or too tired to pay attention to anything at all, it did. And I didn’t even notice.

Now that I live in a home with just one other adult, I’m thinking about taking turns again. But it’s different now. At this stage of life, taking my turn often means doing the thing that isn’t so fun, the thing you kind of dread — getting up early to feed the pets, cooking dinner, dealing with the child in crisis. You take your turn so that the other person doesn’t burn out, so they don’t feel unappreciated, so that neither of you loses your mind. Whoever has the bandwidth steps up and, in a perfect world, the other person notices and is grateful (which is something I have the energy to be now). It brings to mind the image of a peloton, where cyclists take turns “taking a pull” or being at the front of the pack, breaking the wind, and then falling to the back when they run out of steam, letting someone else take the lead.

If you had asked me when the kids were little, I think I would have said that taking turns is something you eventually learn to do without thinking. But now I realize that it’s the thinking — the act of saying, “It’s my turn. I’ve got it.” — that makes taking your turn so powerful. You’re recognizing that there’s a certain give and take that makes life livable, that makes relationships work. It’s a simple act of generosity we can choose every day.

Have a great weekend,

Also on my mind

1. Before the ‘Hoos lost, I wrote about March Madness and family for Cog.

   

   The coveted family trophy

2. In this piece, a graphics reporter and a technology reporter explain which jobs are “most exposed” to being replaced by AI and which are the “most adaptable.”

3. While we’re on the topic of artificial intelligence, this piece about the “six loops” of AI helped me organize some of my own thoughts about the technology.

4. So far, I’ve only listened to the first episode of the new season of Serial, but I’m already hooked.

5. I’m past this phase of life, but maybe you’re not: Here are five tips for when you’re awake at 3:00 a.m.

6. “Mentally competent patients typically have the right to choose their medical care — or refuse it. But there is one notable exception: pregnant patients.”

7. An ENT recommended this saline nasal gel to my sister, who gave some to my mom, who gave some to me. I don’t know how this stuff works, but it does. If you’re suffering from a spring cold or allergies, check it out. (Looks like they have a spray, too, which is even more appealing to me.)

   

   Photo: B.F. Ascher & Co.

8. The great outdoors can be a scary enough place without the worry of an “alpine divorce.” I had no idea this was a thing (and I wish it had a different name).

9. Would you wear a piece of jewelry that takes notes?

Photo: Taya

9. And this week’s poem:

   Small Kindnesses
   —Danusha Laméris
   
   I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
   down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
   to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
   when someone sneezes, a leftover
   from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
   And sometimes, when you spill lemons
   from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
   pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
   We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
   and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
   at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
   to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
   and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
   We have so little of each other, now. So far
   from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
   What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
   fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
   have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”