I had a thousand different ideas for this article, but every time I attempted to put pen to paper, there was a huge disconnect between my thoughts and my ability to articulate them, as per usual. I’ve been struggling with this for the past few days–writing a few paragraphs of a draft, then realizing they’re complete garbage and rightfully scrapping them. I had regular homework to work on anyway, right? So anyway, I put this off really until about half an hour ago, when I decided to go down to Mass St, sit at The Java Break, and actually work on this. I mean like completely lock in. So now I’m sitting at the bar in the back room, wearing an outfit that my best friend will almost certainly laugh at when she sees me later. I ordered a bowl of Raisin Bran with chocolate chips (yum), but what’s left has gotten soggy in the time I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out what to write. I remain at a complete loss of words.
I text my mom about some things. She asks:
Mom: How’s it going today?
Me: i’m good
i finished basically all of the things I needed to get done today
just working on an article now
or trying to
i’m uninspired
Some discussion ensues. Two people sit down beside me, hug. Girl goes to order drinks for two. Guy sets up a game of chess.
Mom: Maybe you can write about something that you experience on our trip.
The two of us are going to Chicago for spring break. I’m excited to see The Art Institute. She knows this, and this is probably what she’s hinting toward. I always have some sort of breakthrough when I go to a new art museum.
Me: i probably will but that’ll be for the week after spring break
Mom: Write about the people you’re watching. Who they might be or where they might be going.
I had just told her about the chess players. I thought that there was really no better idea. I don’t want to assume things about people, and I don’t want to be creepy or weird, so I’ll deviate off Mom’s idea a little bit. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking about right now. Their game of chess isn’t very strategically advanced. I know this because it looks like a game that I would play, and I’m not good at chess. Does that really matter though? I don’t think so at all. The chess game is a mere medium of communication. Whenever I play chess, I tend to not really think about the game, which is probably why I’ve consistently lost against my boyfriend every time we play. I guess I would like to get better at the game, but then again, who really cares? Instead, while I play, I’m thinking about what he’s thinking. I’m thinking about if he’s preoccupied with something other than the cheap wooden pieces in front of us. I’m wondering if he’s trying to remember the complex openings and gambits that he’s learned before while playing the game online. I’m thinking about the possibility that he might feel somewhat superior to me in some way when he wins. I’m probably just projecting about that last part, though.
The man beside me is now winning. He has one of the woman’s bishops, a rook, a knight, and four pawns, their onyx glass glimmering in the dim light emitting from the lamp above them.
For the past couple years now I’ve been obsessed with this idea of The Big Picture. Ever since reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, I’ve been in constant pursuit of trying to figure out how to articulate the looming feeling of being human, a seemingly insignificant piece in a much more significant puzzle, humanity. Tartt explained it well in the last few pages of The Goldfinch, so I would highly recommend that you give it a read if you want to learn more. However, sitting here now, I feel that my surroundings have afforded me insight into the question I’ve been attempting to solve for a long while.
Above me, hanging above the bar, there’s photos lining the walls. They each include objects that resemble faces. Some sort of two circles over a larger circle, creating the mental image of eyes and a mouth. The inside of a bell pepper, a door handle, a cantaloupe, a moka pot. Isn’t it so odd that the same human brains that play chess also recognize that these photos resemble faces? It is to me. Everyone in this room knows that these are not only pictures of bell peppers and cantaloupe, but instead they all see eyes and a mouth. They might even associate personalities with certain countenances. This is important.
It might be valuable to tell you now that I’ve had a remarkably bad week. I had two and a half tests, about four hours of homework every night, and I had little time to do things I love or see people I love. I regret that it had to be this way, but I feel that I’ve done all that I can. However, at this moment right now, I feel extremely grounded. The faces on the wall are smiling down at me (mostly–some look surprised or angry at me. I hope they know I’m speaking well of them), as my own little audience. My soul is warmed by the bad music that’s playing over the speakers and by the dull discussion of the men sitting behind me. I feel like myself for the first time in a few days, like I’m back home for the first time in years. Gen chem really does take a toll on you.
I also need to mention that in front of me, along with the inorganic faces, there are numerous “we were here” messages scrawled across the entire wall in pen and sharpie and paint marker, left by everyone just like me that’s sat in this same spot, thought the same thoughts as me, and slyly observed the chess game of her neighbors. It reminds me vividly of one of my favorite archaeological sites, Cueva de las Manos. If you look up a picture of Cueva de las Manos, you’ll see why it translates literally to “Cave of Hands.” You’ll see multicolored hand prints painted along the length of a red stone wall. Oh God, I love it so much. It used to be my phone’s lock screen for the longest time. I’m pretty sure I saw this for the first time from an instagram post talking just about how old they are (9,500-13,000 years old, according to UNESCO). I was reminded of la Cueva once again when reading John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed, in which there’s a chapter about the Lascaux Cave Paintings in Lascaux, France. Green gave them 4.5/5 stars, but of course, I would give them 5 stars time and time again. To think that humans so long ago were so impassioned by themselves and their surroundings that they just needed to make art about it, that they just needed to make a record of it to tell others (you and me) 15,000 years in the future that they were there, that they lived, that they loved. It’s the exact same scenario as it was when A and E wrote their initials in sharpie in a heart on the wall in front of me, among the many others that had the same idea. Maybe the plywood won’t last as long as Cueva de las Manos or Lascaux, but A+E are infinite.
In writing this, I would like to believe that you are reading my own ode to humanity. That in clicking on this you wound up in my web of desire to be known, to be heard. I hope that you too will find your own way of expressing your love for the world you know, and when you do, please let me know. I would really like to see it.
The chess game has continued to progress, albeit slowly. He is still winning. She is talking, he is mostly listening. I don’t really care to listen to exactly what they’re discussing. I’m thinking now, again, about what my boyfriend is thinking in this moment, just as I wonder what’s on his mind when we play our own chess games. This connection, between me and my boyfriend, between him and her playing chess, between A+E–that’s all that everything is about, ultimately. That is The Big Picture. The connection between the humans in Lascaux, France or Santa Cruz, Argentina, and me in this moment, this now, thinking about them in their now–that’s all anything is ever about.
Maybe I’ve been looking too hard, trying to find meaning in keeping myself busy, always on the go. Foolishly trying to find meaning in the stress and noise of a difficult week, thinking there would be some kind of honor at the end of Friday. However, the end of Friday is now, and The Big Picture might just be about faces in cantaloupe, soggy cereal, and valuable conversations spoken over a glass chess board. Do you understand? That’s all that is now, so that’s all that there is. Everything that has ever been, the people painting their hand prints on a cave wall, the groups of people that found those images, the person that cut open a cantaloupe and found a face, A+E, the person that prepared my cereal, and the people sitting beside me have all constituted what led to this moment, me writing this to you right now. So, this is all that matters.
I’ll text my mom soon and let her know that I finished my article. I’ll call her tonight, probably, and tell her all of this. She’ll read this eventually and tell me how amazing she thinks it is. In that moment, The Big Picture will be her voice and laugh.
But right now, The Big Picture is an old Nancy Sinatra song and a checkmate.
