Gravity Is the Thing

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Wilbur took a length of red wool from the couch beside him and wound it slowly around his thumb. ‘A local had told me the clouds looked like snow clouds. I’ve hardly ever seen snow, I was excited.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry I misled you.’

  The wool wound tightly around his thumb. We both watched it.

  He’d been just as disappointed, I realised. He’d stood on the beach, facing the wind, eyes closed, wanting snow.

  Now he let the red wool slip from his thumb, and smiled. I looked around his apartment.

  The Guidebook was over. Flight class was over. This was the last time I would see Wilbur, and I knew almost nothing about him. Despite spending a year of Tuesday evenings in his apartment, I didn’t even know what his day job was.

  I considered asking him now, but then my eyes ran over the bank of windows, the prints of hang-gliders, the tiny hot-air balloons, the patch of wall that Wilbur had repainted in a slightly darker shade, the circle of armchairs, and at Wilbur himself, in his jeans and t-shirt, his bare feet, his rumpled curls, and I decided it was better to keep him like that, to remember him this way, his name in my phone: Wilbur: Flight instructor.

  ‘Goodbye, Wilbur,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye, Abigail.’

  He closed the door behind me.

  part

  14

  1.

  Now I have to tell you about Tuesday.

  I woke from a dream that spun with sorrow. Then I frowned, seeing that it hadn’t been sorrow at all, in the dream, but a roll of paper towel.

  It seemed to me, as I lay in bed, wondering why I’d dreamed of paper towel, that it was time to reach conclusions. I had read so much self-help! I’d googled, followed Facebook trails, collected instruction manuals! I was surely an expert now.

  For example, I knew exactly what you must do when you wake up in the morning.

  You wake up in the morning and you write your dreams down in a diary.

  No. You wake up in the morning and drink a glass of water.

  You wake up, you greet the sun. You send out a note of joy to your god or the universe.

  You wake up, you go back to sleep. You need more sleep.

  You wake up and you list all the things you’re grateful for in life.

  You wake up and, first thing, you exercise. Answer emails. See to your skin routine. Self-focus. Think about your goals.

  Wake up and hang out with your kids! Let them choose their clothes for the day!

  Or, like Winston Churchill, stay in bed and read the newspaper.

  Wake up and ask yourself: If today were the last day of my life, would I do what I am doing today? (But then you’d never go to the dentist.)

  Wake up and make the bed at once.

  First thing, squeeze lemon juice into hot water.

  First thing, water your plants.

  First thing, consider what you’re going to have for dinner. Get out the necessary pots and pans.

  First thing, meditate.

  First thing, drink a green juice, spinach or kale.

  First thing, jump on a mini-trampoline.

  There goes the day. Full of its first-things.

  I pulled the quilt higher. From Oscar’s room, I heard giggles, and I turned my head to look at the pillow beside me. I’m always turning sideways, looking for somebody who loves him, and loves me, ready to share a smile at the sound of his giggles.

  The giggles drifted closer and here was Oscar himself, climbing onto my bed with Bumblebee. My mother keeps sending him Transformers.

  ‘Why are Decepticons bad?’ he asked, his opening gambit for the day.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Do you mean, how have they acquired that reputation? Or why have they become bad: was it intrinsic, biological, or was it their upbringing? Or do you mean, to what end—what do the Decepticons hope to achieve by their misdeeds?’

  Oscar looked at me with disapproval. He twisted Bumblebee in various directions and told me he’d dreamed a monster was chasing him down a street. Him and his friend Lachlan, from day care.

  ‘You were there,’ he added, jutting his chin in my direction. ‘But you just walked away.’

  Often, when he tells me his dreams, he refers to me in the third person. Mummy is a character. ‘What’s going on here?’ Mummy often says, in a friendly-enough voice.

  But in this dream it was me, abandoning him and Lachlan to a monster!

  ‘You know I would never do that,’ I said. ‘I’d always protect you from monsters!’

  I tried to wrap him in a fierce hug, to demonstrate my protectiveness, but he wriggled away. ‘Well, you didn’t this time.’

  We came downstairs and ants had got into the honey.

  It was crowded with them.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the honey. Dead ants poised like prehistoric insects in resin. Add a heaped handful of ants to the honey.

  While I stared, Oscar fell off a chair.

  I scooped him from the floor and he scolded me.

  ‘You didn’t catch me! Why didn’t you catch me?’

  ‘Well, I was over there,’ I explained.

  He found this an unsatisfactory defence.

  ‘Here,’ I tried. ‘I’ll give you a hug. Hugs make everything better.’

  We had learned this from a cartoon on TV. Formally, we hugged.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ he said. ‘It still hurts.’ He pointed to his elbow. ‘Why didn’t you catch me?’ he repeated. ‘Why weren’t you standing right here?’

  At breakfast, we played with everyone.

  ‘Let’s get everyone and bring them downstairs,’ Oscar suggested, so we went upstairs and gathered handfuls of toys.

  As usual, he got the good guys: Buzz Lightyear, an adult digital watch I’d bought for him in a pharmacy (he begged for it; it was only three dollars), a plastic spoon. I got the baddie—there was only one this morning: a small, wooden roof that belonged on a toy house. It was bright red.

  I held up Roof-guy and had him say, Ha ha! What wicked deeds shall I do today?

  This was a return to form. Prior to this, I’d been in a phase of having my baddies send invitations to the good guys to join them for peppermint tea. Oscar’s good guys accepted the invitation and used the opportunity to take out my baddies. I queried the ethics of this.

  Ha ha ha! cackled my baddie now, striding towards the good guys, and Oscar said, ‘That’s not how he walks.’ He showed me how to hold the little roof on its side.

  ‘Could we enter into peace negotiations?’ I suggested. ‘Could we discuss a ceasefire?’

  But the goodies stormed me back to my own compound.

  ‘Oscar,’ I said, ‘we have to collapse the goodie/baddie distinction. We have to ask, what is it that makes this guy a baddie and all your guys goodies? Those plastic passengers from the bus, that salad server, the dinosaurs, all presumably from privileged backgrounds, technically goodies, and yet always killing my little guys. Today I only have one little guy, not even any friends to help him strategise. We have to question the distinction,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Oscar agreed, and he killed my red-roof baddie.

  He decided to bring everyone to day care, but this was a different everyone. A plush lion dressed like a mad scientist, a bath-toy shark, Woody’s cowboy hat. I checked everyone, and they seemed safe enough.

  We stood at the open door while he counted these toys into his day care bag and I looked at the sky, deciding how I should approach my day.

  2.

  How you approach your day depends on what you’ve been reading.

  If you’ve been reading I’m OK—You’re OK, you go to the bus stop. The bus is late.

  Your Child stamps your foot. Not fair!

  Your Parent says, Well, ain’t that always the way? Your Parent’s voice is hokey.

  Be an Adult! Seek out other sources of information, study the timetable, consult your watch, weigh up the factors. On the bus, a stranger laments that it never stops raining these days. Calmly disagree. Point out to th
e stranger that it was sunny the day before yesterday.

  If you’ve been reading The Celestine Prophecy, go to the bus stop. Be still, be dreamy. Draw some energy from the universe and offer it to the roadside plants.

  If Socrates is your guy, ask yourself relentless questions about the bus.

  Or sit at the bus stop and be mindful. There is a breeze on your face. A blister on your heel. The sound of the approaching bus. Its gear changes. Old gum on the path.

  Or don’t go to the bus stop at all. Stay at home. Focus on placing wood elements by your front door.

  You go nowhere. You are nothing. You don’t exist. There is no bus, nor stop. Time is nothing more than intuition.

  Call in sick. Take a day off. Have some me-time.

  Stop on the way to the bus stop and get your hair done. It will give you such a boost! Do that every day. Nails and hair.

  Stay home and cut pictures out of magazines of places you’d like to visit and luxury automobiles you’d like to own. Glue these to a large piece of cardboard.

  Miss the bus. Deliberately miss the bus. Go to the airport instead and fly somewhere remote. Sit in the desert and think about things and stars.

  Miss the bus. Go to the airport instead and fly to a third world country. Help the local villagers dig a well.

  Enrol in a college course! Make an appointment with a hypnotherapist to help you give up smoking! Do some yoga! Consult a tarot reader!

  Do nothing. Wait for the full moon. Walk beneath it.

  3.

  The café was full when I arrived. Oliver lounged on the counter, chin in his hands, face morose, while banana bread burned beside him.

  ‘He’s in one of his moods,’ Shreya told me gleefully. She’s always sunny when Oliver is low.

  The balanced universe.

  Considering I’m his boss, Oliver is not remotely bothered by me.

  ‘I’m in a funk,’ he confided, as I skirted around him, reaching for tongs, tossing the burnt bread, starting another slice.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to fear unhappiness.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t fear unhappiness. I read it somewhere.’

  ‘That sort of talk,’ Oliver said, rallying enough to push me away from the kitchen space, ‘is going to put us out of business.’

  ‘I think it might be the new zeitgeist,’ I said.

  ‘It’s ridiculous. Of course you should fear unhappiness. It hurts.’

  I told him I was going to figure everything out today.

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘I’m reaching my conclusions.’

  Oliver said that was good news. It was! I set my mind the task of sorting out the chaos of self-help, while I got on with more practical tasks.

  Self-help is built on fear and hope, with splinters of truth to catch you.

  Categories of self-help: assistance with issues (love, sex, money, career, health, beauty, death); improvement of the self (character, soul, essence); explanations of the universe (its point).

  There is self-help that requires you to lie to yourself. It’s not the situation but your thoughts about the situation that make you unhappy! Straighten up, smile, declare that it is what it is. Acknowledge it and let it go. My brother is gone, my husband is gone. Here, let me feel that, and release.

  There is a recurring promise of limitless potential, either out there or within you: ANYTHING is possible, ANYTHING! (So why not flight?)

  A sound like trolleys colliding in a supermarket turned out to be a toppled tin of cutlery on the counter. Shreya had knocked it over as she swept by.

  Also: a lot of talk about the moment.

  We all need to be in the moment. Everyone rushing there. It must be crowded there, in the moment.

  At table six, an elderly woman entwined her hands. ‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘Well, it’s hard. Forty years is a long time to wake up next to the same person. To look forward to chatting at night. Cinnamon toast and so on.’

  There is always a tone. Wise and gentle, or wise and sad, or wise and happy, or shazam! Or fierce. A lot have a shrug to them: Here it is. Take it or leave it. Or sensible as Mary Poppins, spit-spot, clap-clip, or the ancient art of men telling women what to do.

  At table five, a toddler turned page after page of our bumper colouring book, swiping each with a single stroke of green. Wasteful. Her mother played with packets of sugar.

  Popular self-help teaches you to ask for help, accept help, set boundaries, say no.

  So you ask for help and the person you ask politely refuses. Because he or she has learned to set boundaries and say no.

  *

  Two women, both thirtyish, at table eight.

  ‘The piano is half a tone out. It’s by a hot window. It can never be properly in tune.’

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? We expect the four classic elements of balance, restraint, form and clarity.’ Their words fell beautifully, like stars.

  If you’re sad it could be that you have unresolved abandonment issues, or it could be an imbalance in chemistry, or not enough sunshine.

  Or a reaction to the chemicals in food, or your kundalini energy is awakening too soon—before your nadis are pure enough—or blockages in your chakras, tears in your aura, mistakes from your past life.

  It could be that your blood sugar levels are awry and you need a banana.

  It could be that you’re tired, or you’re a woman at a particular point in the cycle. It could be the darkness of the clouds, the colours or absence of colour, the placement of your couch. It could be you are lonely, or not meeting your full potential.

  It could be that you’re a member of a minority and have suffered centuries of oppression, a lifetime of cruel slights. Or your sex life might not be up to scratch. Or it could be that you felt insufficiently loved by a parent, have unresolved anger towards an ex, have consumed too much alcohol. You may have brought this sadness on yourself by sending inappropriate messages to the universe—inadvertently, you’ve requested sadness!—or you need exercise, a cup of tea, or the social order is awry, an inflammation of your brain, an infection, a virus, pollution.

  There could be residues of sadness caught up in your joints, your veins, your knuckles, from times when you had reason to be sad.

  You could be sad because you’ve inadvertently misfiled your sadness, labelling it ‘self’ rather than ‘memory’, so that memory becomes the essence of you.

  Or your sadness has been passed down in your DNA, from your ancestors, accumulated over generations. Or there is leftover sadness imprinted in the air, and you’ve gone and walked through it, got yourself enmeshed in it, strands of the past now wending through your heart.

  We must take care where we walk. There should be signposts.

  *

  A teenage boy in a school uniform ordered a banana smoothie, and his mother, checking her phone, said, ‘A long black, thanks . . . You know what? No. I’ll have a smoothie too.’

  Quantum physics is a handy tool for self-help, largely because of the metaphors, and because nobody really understands it.

  A group of regulars arrived and set to dragging tables and chairs around in their usual proprietorial way. I asked for the latest news—Joachim needed a root canal, and Rohinta had just been evicted. ‘So we really need happiness today, Abi!’ They make this joke often, always with an edge of: No, but seriously.

  A lot is about getting. Money, beauty, friends, love.

  For a while, ‘how to get’ was tied to elaborate instructions: a fellow should wear a hat and a tie; a fellow should work hard and buy his girl flowers.

  However, we got fed up with how much a fellow had to do, and things became simpler. These days, a fellow can get someone to fall in love with him in ten minutes. (Mirror their gestures, check their reactions when another person speaks.) Or even in two. (Gaze into their eyes.)

  Just ask. Snap your fingers. Ask the universe.

  The teenage boy with the banana smoothi
e fetched a pair of our Happiness is . . . cards and handed one to his mother. As they left, they pinned the cards to the board. Happiness is . . . getting my braces off, said one. The other: Happiness is . . . time off for banana smoothies with my boy.

  The universe features prominently.

  Sometimes it’s busy sorting things out and you just have to be ready to say: Why, yes! Thank you! when it makes an offer. Or else: Now I see why you did that terrible thing to me! It was so this good thing could happen! It all makes sense. Thanks, I guess, universe.

  Sometimes you have to set it tasks to do on your behalf.

  There is a real abundance to the universe. There are also exclamation marks!

  Sentences leaping from one thing to the next! Casual twirls in logic!

  Three young women sat at table two, one telling the others about a job she once had on a magazine.

  ‘There were these advice sections and I had to write pieces on, like—’ she lowered her voice so it almost disappeared ‘—how to give a good blow job. And I thought, Who am I? How did my life come to this?’

  The others laughed.

  There’s no room left to live—you can’t swing a cat in this life—instead you must deal with your teeth (brush, floss, strengthen with this product, rinse with this mouthwash), your face (cleanse, tone, moisturise, sunscreen, night cream, eye cream, Botox), your body, your mind, your spirit, your relationships (this is how you give a good blow job).

  Just spend five minutes a day learning a language, doing crosswords, doing Sudoku! Just spend thirty minutes a day walking, meditating, praying, swimming laps, learning a musical instrument, volunteering, having quality time with your children! Just the price of a cup of coffee. Line-dry in shade. Pop it in the freezer. Jump in a cab. Wash in warm, soapy water. Eat this, consider this, you MUST. READ. THIS.

  ‘Have you sorted it all out?’ Oliver asked, as I packed up to leave. He had recovered and was lively again, whereas Shreya was now sullen and scuffing.

  ‘You bet,’ I replied.

  4.

  Of course, all I’d done was circle back to chaos. I would have to choose a belief system and immerse myself in it. Otherwise I’d always be springing from one to the next, playing on surfaces, a postmodern frolic. Crowding myself out of my own life.