World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

How I wish I could fold inward and shut down and shake off predators with one touch. What a skill, what a thrill that could be: Touch me not on the dance floor, don’t you see my wedding ring? Touch me not in the subway; touch me not on the train, on a plane, in a cab or a limo. Touch me not in a

funicular going up the side of a mountain, touch me not on the deck of a cruise ship, touch me not in the green room right before I go onstage, touch me not at the bar while I wait for my to-go order, touch me not at a faculty party, touch me not if you are a visiting writer, touch me not at the post office while I’m waiting to send a letter to my grandmother, let me and my children and everyone’s children decide who touches them and who touches them not, touch them not, touch them not.

Instead, I began scribbling in notebooks and notebooks, trying to write my way into being since I never saw anyone who looked like me in books, movies, or videos. None of this writing was what I would remotely call poetry, but I know it had a lyric register. I was teaching myself (and badly copying) metaphor. I was figuring out the delight and pop of music, and the electricity on my tongue when I read out loud. I was at the surface again.

I emerged from my cephalopod year, exited my midnight zone. But I’m grateful for my time there.

There is a time for stillness, but who hasn’t also

wanted to scream with delight at being outdoors? To simply announce themselves and say, I’m here, I exist?

perhaps you could try a little tranquility, find a little tenderness in your quiet.

Sometimes I’d say no, just to say no. I wanted to eat an orange of my own volition. My own thought.

When daily news seems to bring forth another fresh grief—more children killed, the Amazon rainforest ablaze for weeks—I

think of this orange, its sweetness and the smiles it brings to so many families. For the daily tragedies, I try to do what I can to help—donate money, gather bathroom supplies—but my heart longs for a place of tenderness. Where people offer each other, offer strangers, a fresh globe of fruit.

Maybe that is the loneliest kind of memory: to be forever altered by an invisible kiss, a reminder of something long gone and crumbled,

Maybe what we can do when we feel overwhelmed is to start small. Start with what we have loved as kids and see where that leads us.