Pong: Part 2

Memory #2: When I was 10 years old, I went to visit CrazyAunt in Arizona all by myself.  I was thrilled.  CrazyAunt was by far my favorite person in the world, especially since Grandmother had died a few months ago.  CrazyAunt always reminded me of Grandmother.

CrazyAunt lived in the mountains of Arizona, which provided a perfect launch point for all kinds of tourist destinations, like the Grand Canyon, the Sonora Desert Museum, and Four Corners.  On this particular trip, however, I spent most of my time climbing all over the awesome rocks leading down to a creek in CrazyAunt's very own backyard.  Believe me, to a 10-year-old tomboy, that was/is the best backyard that ever existed.

But CrazyAunt had a big surprise for me.  She knew how much I loved the outdoors, and it was plain that I loved rocks of all shapes and sizes.  Consequently, CrazyAunt planned a trip to Rock Hound State Park.  That place is a very cool place.  It's a place where people who like rocks can go and admire all the really cool rocks that are collected in that one patch of desert.  I realize that that description sounds lame, but I was jumping out of my skin to go.

Now, I was only ten, so I can't be sure.  But I am pretty sure that even if you are a rock hound, you aren't allowed to take anything from a state park.  Like a rock.  Or, in our case, a bucket of rocks.  But CrazyAunt assured me it would be fine, and I should take whatever rocks I wanted.  Therefore, I gamboled around, picking up really huge, really awesome rocks with really cool colors in them, listening for the satisfying thonk! when I dropped one into my bucket.

CrazyAunt followed at a slower pace, picking up tiny little rocks and turning them over and over in her hand.  Every now and then, she would hold one to her mouth, and then drop it into her bucket.  Her rocks always made a wimpy little chink! when they hit the bottom.

Naturally curious, I asked CrazyAunt why she was only picking small ones, and why she kept holding the ones she wanted to her mouth.  CrazyAunt explained that since I was friends with all the big ones, she was making sure the small ones weren't getting their feelings hurt.  Then she answered the second part of my question by explaining that if you wanted to take a rock home, you should ask it if it wants to go.  Some of these rocks, she explained, might be very happy here in the Rock Hound State Park, and if they wanted to stay, that was their choice.

And then CrazyAunt walked slowly on, continuing her rock hunt.  Horrified, I plonked down in the sand and immediately started pulling out all of my rocks, carefully asking each one if it wanted to go home with me.  But there was a problem.  They weren't answering me.

Quite distraught by now, I raced after CrazyAunt and asked her how I would know if the rocks wanted to go or not.  "Oh, they don't talk," CrazyAunt told me.  "They'll tell you with their feelings.  You just have to close your eyes and feel what they are feeling.  That's how they'll tell you."

So I went back to my pile and started asking and feeling, feeling and asking.  Probably because I have an overactive imagination, I actually ended up discarding several, keeping a few, and carrying a few along in my shirt because they weren't sure yet.  I was super-nice to every single rock I picked up, trying to make sure they weren't afraid of me, so they would want to come home with me.

You may notice I haven't done any grown-up-girl analyzation on this memory.  That isn't because I believe rocks really do have feelings (necessarily).  It's just that, in the memory with my father, I could guess at his motives, because I realized when I got older that they were probably not the motives I had gathered as a five-year-old.  But with CrazyAunt, things are different.  I am now 22 years old, and CrazyAunt still tells me that rocks have feelings.  I think CrazyAunt really believed what she was telling me that day.

And I did get mind bullets from those rocks.  Some of them were angry with me for not asking in the first place.  Some were afraid of me.  Some were simply hesitant to leave.  Some were eager to go, some tacitly compliant, while others were uncertain, but open to the idea.

That was twelve years ago, and I don't know if I assigned those feelings to those rocks.  But I do know that I still ask rocks' permission if I want to take them home.  And although I don't ask their permission, I do at least give them some warning if I am going to throw them.

So you can see where I learned to think that all inanimate objects have feelings.  This belief manifests itself in other ways, too.  I apologize when I bump into things.  I say 'ow' when things fall and hit the floor.  I avoid stepping on things, and am horrified if I do it by accident.

But there are less ridiculous side-effects too.  By my logic, animate creatures must have at least double the amount of feelings as inanimate objects.  Therefore, I don't step on ants, I move turtles out of roads, and I never squash a bug (unless it's a mosquito -- I'm sorry, I just don't care if I hurt a mosquito's feelings).  This belief has also led to a firm recycling policy.  Metals, papers, plastics, it doesn't matter.  I feel like something has died to give me a small useful thing, so I give back to it as much as I can.

But before these more adult-like symptoms of my belief had surfaced, I was six years old and playing Pong.  That poor little dot!  I hated that little dot, and loved it at the same time.  Whenever it bounced past my bar, I hated that I had lost, but simultaneously loved that the dot was free (for now).

But in the meantime, every time that little dot ricocheted off of the wall, or a sidebar (including mine!), I imagined what a sad, sad life that little dot must lead.  Wouldn't it have a headache all the time?  Wouldn't it get tired of sliding back and forth like that?  Wouldn't it get dizzy?

Eventually, my imagined empathy with the Pong dot became too much for me to bear.  I stopped playing the game, and, because I am fond of overkill, asked my mother to delete the game from our computer.  I went back to playing math games (which is an oxymoron) and LodeRunner, proud to have liberated the dot.

Now that I am older, I think I understand a little bit more about my feelings concerning that dot.  You see, sometimes I go through these weird periods of time in my life.  Most people call them roller coaster times, but I don't call them that.  I don't call them anything.

These times in my life usually begin with a downward spiral, which ends with me at rock bottom, curled up in the corner under a red plaid blanket, downing a Dr Pepper with one hand, watching NetFlix streaming with the other.  If anyone dares to get near, I hiss, snarl, blatantly ignore, or otherwise offend the encroacher.

After I have hit this point, as I did recently, I wallow in self-pity, self-loathing, and any/all other bad emotions directed at my own pitiful self.  After I have wallowed for a bit, I start to think, "This is stupid."  Then I start to think, "Yeah, it's really stupid!  What is wrong with me?  Why can't I just grow up?!"  And that is when the upward climb begins.

The upward climb is always way more difficult and time-consuming than the downward spiral, especially since it's easy to slip and fall back to the red-plaid-cave-in-the-corner phase.  But the upward climb isn't all bad.  I get into what I call "efficiency modes," in which I clean, organize, and schedule to my little heart's desire.  I feel awake and alert and happy.  These "efficiency modes" often have the added bonus of making me a little more observant than I already am, leading to random and inexplicable moments of complete, all-encompassing happiness.

One such moment occurred a couple of days ago, when I began Part 1 of this post.  I had gotten up early, in accordance with my New Year's resolutions, which left me feeling very accomplished and confident and proud of myself.  So I exited my apartment, full of breakfast, ready to tackle the day.  But when I reached my car, it was evident that I was going to have to remain in the 15 degree wind chill to scrape the frost off my windshield.  On any other day, this would have depressed me.  But not today!  I merely reached into the car, pulled out my scraper, and began the task.

As I scraped and shoved, I noticed that this frost was no ordinary frost.  This wasn't the cover-all blanket frost that normally mocked me from my windshield.  This was a beautiful, intricate frost.  Branching out in all directions, this frost was like feathers.  This frost was like feathers on feathers on feathers.  The closer you looked the more you saw.  In fact, I was so taken with this beautiful frost that I almost stopped scraping it away.  That was before I noticed that the same frost skated across my passenger windows and my back windshield, so I continued to clear a pathway for my vision without further guilt.

When I stepped into my car and curled my fingers around the ice-cold steering wheel, I glanced at the feathery frost on my window happily.  I kept thinking about it the whole time I was driving to work, until I decided that there was no other explanation except that I had been visited by ice fairies.

The visions of the ice fairies figure skating over my windows, leaving their feathery trails behind for my gazing wonder, danced in my head all day.  And even though I am perfectly aware that my overactive imagination is at it again, I can't shake the image of those perfect little fairies, creating a masterpiece that most people scraped off the windows without appreciating.  It makes me happy to remember the beautiful designs in the cold.

So I wonder about that dot.  Did every moment of victory, when it finally bounced past the sidebar to freedom, perhaps feel like these rare moments in my upward climbs?  Were we actually more alike than I thought?  Because even though I sometimes hate these cycles in my life, these roller coaster times, these levels of Pong, I like my life.  I always think the rock bottoms are worth the upward climb moments.  I savor the joys, and learn from the bad times.

And now I'm just a little bit happier.  Because maybe that dot didn't have it so bad after all.