Monthly Archives: March 2026

Expressing Seasons by Abnormal Means

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I have a shelf up high in a bathroom cabinet where I keep my contact lenses. I wear daily disposables which I purchase once a year. The lenses come 90 to a box, which means I need to buy four boxes per eye to get me through a year. This also makes for a nice reminder; when I get to my last box I know it’s time to make another eye doctor appointment.

Another weird thing my contacts do is mark the seasons. Each box of 90 is roughly three months of lenses. So on days like today, when I have to get out the step stool and pull down two new boxes from their storage up high, it means I can tell you with some precision that a season has passed since the last time I did this. In today’s case, it’s been exactly one season since I got my lenses. Three months ago I was sitting in my eye doctor’s office marveling at his cool lens holder for reading glasses (a contraption right out of a Thomas Dolby video, which sadly I did not get a photo of). This is not quite accurate. Three months ago I received the lenses he prescribed me, but when measuring time by boxes in the bathroom cabinet, a few days off is close enough. 

This is admittedly a very strange way to mark the passage of time, and yet I have this same idea every time I reach up and pull out two new boxes. Unlike the regular ways to mark the seasons, there is no snow or falling leaves, there is no bright sun or newly sprouted green buds. There is just a step stool and boxes stretched for inside a dark cabinet. And yet I feel them just the same.

I supposed this kind of ritual might come in handy on a ship making a long journey through space; a way to mark the seasons that our bodies must yearn for but can no longer experience inside the cool confines of a space ship.

A mother might turn and say, “Did you get the Winter boxes down, son?”

“But, Mom!” Her son might reply, perhaps with a foot stomp of frustration, “we just started Autumn!”

“I know you don’t like the cold, sweetie, but our bodies need the Winter. Besides, Captain Wethers said there’ll be snow this year.”

“Great. Cold wet stuff all over the deck.”

“Cold wet stuff that’s fun.”

“So you say. But it means I have to wear shoes again.”

“Only when you want to honey, and only on the rec deck. There’s not going to be snow down here.”

“How do you know? I thought snow fell everywhere.”

“It fell everywhere that was cold and wet. Even though it will get cold enough, I know for a fact there’s not going to be any snow on this level.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no place for the water to drain. The Captain may want your body to experience Winter, but she’s not going to flood the rooms where we live. Besides, the Captain’s quarters are the lowest on this level. Any snow here would flood her rooms first.”

“Really?”

“Who do you think engineered this part of the ship?”

At which point the son might relent enough to say, “Yeah, okay, but I don’t have to like it.”

To which the mother would smile and maybe tousle his hair before saying, “No you don’t. And no one is going to make you like it either, But in case you do change your mind, I drew up plans for a sled. I figure we’ll have enough credits to print one in the expresser before the snow starts.”

“What’s a sled?”

“Remember the tube we rode last summer down the water slide?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like that, only faster.”

“Faster?” Now there is a gleam in the boy’s eye.

Then the mother will wisely seal the deal. “Much faster, but its also dangerous. Younger kids aren’t going to be allowed. It’s only for you and Mable, and the other fourth graders.”

A grin would now spread on his face. “So Christy can’t ride on it?”

“Your sister is too small, unless you want to take her with you. But it’s up to you.”

“Okay mom. I’ll get the winter box.”

“Don’t forget your shoes. You’ll need them if you want to go fast.”

“On the snow?”

“Bare feet will slip too much. Shoes will give you traction on the slippery surface.”

“Snow is slippery?”

“Google skiing after you get down the box. You’ll see.”

Unnamed Riches Found in Our Society

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We live in a hugely complex social structure, that is organized in the slimmest of fashions, and yet it is pretty darn good at giving us staggeringly impressive lives, yet we seem to have no words to describe the thing we all live inside. For instance, in almost every language I can tell you my exact relationship to almost any kin member (Margie is my second cousin, twice removed, on my father’s side), but I have no words to describe my relationships to the people around me whose efforts are far more important to my health and happiness. Not to slight my imaginary cousin, but her connection to my well-being is not nearly as important as the eye doctor I see once a year, or the unnamed driver that delivers produce to our local grocery store twice a week. And none of these individuals are as important as Guillermo, the guy who makes the buche tacos I love so much that we frequent the little hole in the wall where he cooks at least once a week. 

To be fair, most of the connections in our lives, especially if we live in a modern city, are historically brand new. Our languages have not yet come up with words to describe their importance to us. In the not too distant past, kin relationships were about the only resource a poor person might call upon, so of course developing words to describe our relationships (and thus defining our obligations) were essential for survival. In the last X number of years our social organizations have branched out into so many different specializations — ways for humans to be and work, and thus connect — that our languages have just not yet caught up. The problem, as I see it, is not that we don’t have words for these connections, it’s that we don’t have words to describe the obligations such connections entail. 

After all, if Margie, my imaginary kin member (second cousin, twice removed, on my father’s side), were to show up on my door step on a cold rainy night, I would likely feel obligated to give her a warm dry bed for the night, and some food in her belly the next morning. Everything after that would have to be negotiated, depending upon what they needed and what I had to offer. After all, I live with other people who are even less connected by kinship ties to cousin Margie, but to whom I am far more deeply obligated. (You better believe my wife’s needs come before Margie’s.) But how much am I obligated to the guy who cooks my favorite tacos? We have a kind of convivial relationship, though neither of us knows much of the language of the other, but there is no good word for our connection outside of “commerce,” which sounds cold when put onto paper, and in no way describes the esteem I have for the man’s cooking. There is no language that I know of, no words that plots our relationship, and more importantly the social obligations we might have towards each other. And yet, we are very much connected. I see it in his smile every time I show up at his restaurant. Ola Amigo!

The term “found family” is especially popular among marginalized communities. I don’t know a single gay or trans friend who does not use the term frequently. So far, this is as close to the concept of the twined connection/obligation typically expected in kin relationships, but being used for those we feel obligated towards but have no kin ties. And found family is a very general term. It doesn’t carry the very specificity of  words like cousin or brother. I’m quite sure that someday there will be words for the concept of a found brother, or found cousin. Words that not only describe the connection, but also carry the weight of social obligation. We just don’t have them yet. Perhaps I’ll write a book with them just to get the idea started. Who knows?

Who is Really Saving Us, or False Centering of Individuals

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Imagine a scenario where a careless driver hits a young man riding a bicycle, causing him life-threatening injuries. A nearby witness quickly calls 911, a pair of paramedics arrive to stabilize the man, then immediately rush him to a hospital, where a talented doctor expertly repairs the damage, and starts him on the road to recovery.

My question to you is, who saved the young man? Was it the witness who called 911, the paramedics who got him safely to the hospital, or was it the surgeon? All of these people might have a claim to being a hero, but did any of them individually save him?

I would claim that the one who saved the young man was not an individual, but the society in which he lived. After all it was the society that created the 911 call system (plus wireless telephony for the call to be made). This same society also trained and paid for paramedics, evolving their job over the years into a highly effective medical intervention. The society is also responsible for having trained doctors at the hospital (for which it paid) not to mention staffing that hospital with all kinds of workers and specialists, who collectively developed a complex series of medical procedures, all to create an environment in which a terribly injured young man might be quickly and effectively healed. 

This may be the most logical answer to the question of who saved the young man, but it is admittedly a very awkward one. Humans do not tell stories like this. We like to center individuals in our stories, even if that centering is entirely without logic or reason. We like to say things like, “the President is responsible for the economy,” which is absolutely untrue, because it makes for a quick and dirty logical argument. Even then, if centering an individual into a place that they absolutely do not belong is somehow too unrealistic (a very high bar) then we will happily substitute that individual with a group of people. But then will conveniently speak of that group as if they were working in lock-step, exactly like an individual, even though we know this to also be impossible (that darn Congress better act soon). Hell, I can’t hardly get two friends to pick a time and date to watch a movie, and yet someone thinks that every Congressman (or every Jew, or every Conservative, or every Black person, etc) will somehow all magically work perfectly together? Have you been around people before?

The worst part of all of this “false centering” of individuals—sticking a person into the middle of a story where they really do not belong—is that it allows us to completely ignore all the social underpinnings that witnesses, paramedics, or even talented doctors rely upon to function. That is, it covers the truth. After all, none of these people (witnesses, paramedics, doctors, cops, etc.) are going to do anything heroic if the power is out, or if they are at the point of starvation, or cannot get to work because the roads need repair. In a complex society like ours, we constantly rely upon others to do our work, regardless of how heroic it might seem. Crazy as it sounds, doctors cannot do their work without real estate developers and plumbers. None of us can.

So why do we do this? Why do we make heroes out of ordinary people? Why are some people given the assumption of being heroic, and others not? It’s pretty weird when you think about it. Why do we center individuals in this way?

And why do we so happily ignore all the trappings of the larger society that supports us?

In reality, the only individual in the above scenario whose direct actions actually “caused” the young man to be saved is the careless driver. They are the only ones who had both the agency, and effect, that didn’t require support from others. But centering the potential villain in the story as a hero is just plain silly. Of course the driver is not the cause of the young man’s healing, but this does a good job of illustrating our rather insane need to order the events in our lives into some kind of narrative. 

Our culture is full of weirdness.