Jack, Part Five--I Love You More

“A long time ago, there were no humans here on this land we call North America.” As Nana spoke she very quickly got a faraway look in her eye and an almost-musical tone to her voice. Jack found the look on her face a little disconcerting, so he focused his eyes on the cone of light and the dancing snowflakes. The ballet of flakes combined with Nana’s resonant voice to put Jack in a spell and he didn’t move---hardly even blinked—for the entire length of her story.
“In fact, a long time ago there were no creatures at all in North America or anywhere else on the Earth or in the seas. Manitou, the Creator, was alone up in Sky Country and for a long time, He enjoyed just looking at the play of sunlight and shadows, dark and light, as the Earth rotated and revolved through the Heavens. There was land and there was water and after much experimentation, Manitou decided he liked a 25/75 split between the two best.
“Manitou had been around forever, so to Him millions of years were like a day to you and me. But then, one day, Manitou was watching the shadow of night make its way across the face of the Earth and He realized He wanted more. He didn’t know exactly WHAT He wanted; He just knew He wanted MORE. He found a spot beneath His favorite oak tree, made Himself comfortable, and fairly soon—just a few thousand years later—He drifted off. And He began to dream.
“Now, you know how in a dream weird things can happen yet they don’t seem weird to you at all until you wake up and look back at them?” The tone Nana used for this question somehow yanked Jack right out of his spell and made him realize she really was expecting an answer to her question.
“Yeah—I once had a dream that I had a horse, only the horse had wheels instead of legs and it rolled instead of ran,” said Jack.
“Exactly!” said Nana, “That is exactly what I mean.” Quickly her voice changed back to the story voice and Jack understood that he was free to disengage his mind once again and just be in the story she was telling.
“Well, what Manitou dreamed about was a planet very much like Earth, only it was covered with all sorts of interesting things. Some of them were tall and green and stiff. Some were soft and low to the ground and they Had colorful parts facing the sun. Some could actually move from place to place. It was such an incredible dream that when Manitou awoke, He decided to make much of it come true.
“He liked the idea of things that could live on Earth. Earth felt more alive to him when it was home to so much creativity. So, He set about making all the plants and animals and bacteria and virus and fungi and everything else that lives in or on or under the Earth..
“And as I said, Manitou is patient. He certainly took his time. For each living thing, Manitou sat under His oak and he gave His full attention to picturing every detail of a life before He would give it a name and bring it to life outside of His head and on the Earth. Each life had His full focus and the benefit of His boundless imagination. Manitou thought about how each creature would need to take in nourishment, would need to protect itself, would need to meet others of its kind, and would need to produce more creatures like it.
“ And to meet each of these needs He gave each life a set of gifts. These gifts came from Manitou and they were given free of charge. The only thing Manitou asked was that each creature be aware of the gifts and use them the way He had intended. After a billion years of our time, Manitou felt like He was just about done. He was running out of ideas.
“As Manitou put the finishing touches on a creature, He would close His eyes, picture the creature whole in His mind, see where it lived and imagine it in its place in the web of creation he was weaving on the Earth, and then slowly open His eyes again. And as He did so, that creature would appear on the Earth. Not just one of that creature, but an entire population of them. They would be there, newborn and blinking in the sun if they were daytime animals, or peering around them in the dark if they were nocturnal, feeling nothing but joy at their situations.
“Each felt blessed to have everything it needed to survive. Are you still awake, Jack?” Nana asked, because Jack’s eyes were closed and his breathing had become pretty deep and regular.
Jack peeled his eyes open slowly. “I’m awake, Nana.”
“Okay. You just started to look pretty comfortable, that’s all.”
Jack answered, “I was trying it myself.”
“Trying what,” asked Nana, though she had a pretty good idea what Jack had been doing in that head of his.
“Trying to do what Manitou did. Trying to think of a new animal and give it everything it needs.”
“What did your new animal look like?” asked Nana, truly curious.

Running on the Hedonic Treadmill

One excellent benefit of being married to an academic who studies human behavior is I sometimes get to learn about fascinating theories and ideas of human thoughts, motives, and actions. Lately, I have found myself thinking a lot about one particular theory. It is Brickman and Campbell’s idea of the Hedonic Treadmill. Brickman and Campbell gave this name to the idea that humans develop a happiness “set point” early in life. This set point is fairly stable and it is the level of happiness to which we return after our temporary highs and lows fade away. Other researchers have expanded on Brickman and Campbell’s idea and now there is a Hedonic Treadmill Theory. It describes “the tendency of a person to remain at a relatively stable level of happiness despite a change in fortune or the achievement of major goals.

 

According to the hedonic treadmill, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.” (from Wikipedia) When I first started running, back in March of 2002, I wore Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops and struggled to go 2.3 miles. It hurt a lot. I slowly improved and by the summer I was upping my longest run by two miles every two weeks. I was training for a marathon and I began to look forward to my long Sunday runs. I got new shoes—shoes made for running. I can remember the first time I ran 10 miles. I was high as a kite, reveling in my accomplishment. I couldn’t really believe that I was able to run that far without stopping. 

The best training run I have ever had was one August morning when I stepped outside our house in Trumansburg, New York and ran across the rolling farmland and hills between Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake and ended up 18 miles away in Watkins Glen. Eighteen frickin’ miles! It was amazing. And then that October I ran a full marathon—26.2 miles. Sure, it took four and a half hours, but I did it. You would think the net effect of having run a marathon would be pretty positive and would last a long time. I would have thought so, too. But you and I would both be wrong. The actual net effect has been one easily predicted by the hedonic treadmill theory. 

In the last 10 months I have run four half marathons, one twenty-kilometer race, and one 208-mile relay race through New Hampshire from the mountains to the coast. Yesterday I ran a half marathon in Boston. It was a beautiful morning, I was with friends, and I had decided not to focus on my time but instead to just run at whatever speed felt good and to be happy with finishing. And yet today, when I went to the Cool Running website to check the results, I had a palpable sense of disappointment when I saw my time. 8 minutes and 50 seconds per mile. Just three months ago I ran a half marathon a full 58 seconds per mile faster. God, sometimes being a human is so stupid. Why can’t I just relish the accomplishment of having run 13.1 miles? It is not easy to run that far—not easy at all. T

he odd thing is that while I was running I was truly and fully able to set aside my expectations of finishing in a certain amount of time. I really did simply enjoy the company and the weather and the people on the sidelines and the feeling of moving strongly and confidently in my body through the world. I was happy. Yet not even 24 hours later, the happiness has faded away and the one feeling I am left with is a vague sense of disappointment. Given its name, it really shouldn’t surprise me that the hedonic treadmill theory applies to my running, but sure enough, it does.

Jack, Part 4--I Love You More

When they got to Muncie it was dawn and a steady snow had been falling for hours. James’s father met them at the station and they piled into his Pontiac for the ride to Grandpa Charlie and Nana’s house. When they got there it was Christmas Eve morning. The tree stood in its place in the corner, but it was bare. The living room, which Jack had never seen before, smelled odd to Jack. He could not quite place the smell, but he knew he liked it, whatever it was.
Nana ran over and wrapped each of them in a hug as they came through the door. She brushed the snow off of their shoulders and their hats and their sleeves, kissed Katherine, kissed James, kissed Jack about fifteen times right on top of the head, and then told them mock-brusquely to take their shoes off before they tracked snow through the entire house. She led them straight through the living room, past the undecorated tree, and into the dining room, where bacon and eggs were waiting for them on the table. That was it! The smell—bacon and Christmas tree melded together. Could any combination even be more incredible?
After breakfast they spent the morning decorating the tree. They popped popcorn to string on a thread, they hung family heirloom ornaments, and they made a paper chain out of construction paper. There was grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch—Jack’s first experience of that particular combination—and then an afternoon spent baking gingerbread cookies. Late afternoon Jack, Grandpa Charlie, and Nana went out to play in the snow.
Christmas Eve dinner was turkey, potatoes, cranberries, and corn washed down with non-alcoholic eggnog. It was a day of firsts for Jack and he went to bed that night reeling with the possibilities. After his bath Nana came in and sat on the edge of his bed. She gave him another peck on top of his wet head and then, almost as an afterthought, she said, “Do you want to hear a story before you fall asleep?”
No shyness. No hesitation at all. “Yes, please!”
“I know a story I used to tell your dad when he was your age. In fact, there was a full five months where he really loved this one—couldn’t get to sleep without it.”
“How old was he then?” asked Jack.
“Well…let’s see...I can picture him there now—right where you are. He had his cowboy pajamas on, so he must have been about five or six. Your age!” Nana said, and she smiled a smile at Jack that was just like the gingerbread.
She asked him, “Do you need some water or anything before I start?”
“Nope—I am ready to listen,” said Jack, snuggling down a little deeper under the comforter. From where his head was, he could see out the window to a streetlight that showed the individual flakes as they drifted down out of the orangey clouds illuminated from below by the lights of Muncie. Once in a while the wind would blow and the descending flakes would swirl and dance in the cone of light visible to Jack.

Jack, Part 3--I Love You More

Jack continued to grow, his body fed first by his mother’s milk, then by cereal and eggs and pancakes and hamburgers and milk and a hundred other good old-fashioned solid foods. And by malted milk balls. Jack LOVED malted milk balls. His mind and his spirit continued to grow, too. Fed by the love of his parents and his grandparents, whom he would visit pretty regularly. Oh, and by stories—lots and lots of stories. Katherine’s parents still lived in Mrs. Brock’s apartment over in Brooklyn and it was easy enough to go and see them every weekend.
As is often the case with grandparents, they doted on Jack. Sometimes Katherine was jealous of her own son. Her mom and dad were never very demonstrative or silly with her, yet here they were dressing up in aprons and hats and marching around with wooden spoons and metal pots in a Cook’s Parade. She could not remember them ever once doing something like that with her. Of course, times had been different, and harder, when she was a girl.
James parents lived in Muncie, Indiana so visits from them were a once-a-year occurance. Jack thought of these grandparents, Grandpa Charlie and Nana, as a different sort of relation than his other grandparents—Poppop and Grandma Jean. Though there was one particular Christmas—the Christmas of 1957—when Grandpa Charlie and Nana featured heavily. James had been steadily building up quite a body of work and, cumulatively, his books sold fairly well. The family was managing to save some money.
They decided to use a little of that money to take a trip across the eastern quarter of America on a train to see James’ parents for the holidays. Jack had never been out to Indiana before—Grandpa Charlie and Nana always came to New York to see him. Jack remembered that train trip to this very day. He was thrilled to be getting on the silver train that was hissing and venting little eruptions of steam there at the platform at Penn Station. He felt like a character in one of his mother’s stories. HE was having an adventure like some of them did. In so many of Katherine’s stories a journey turned into an adventure, an odyssey, a quest. In Jack’s mind (and in his heart) magic was always possible whenever you put yourself in motion out in the world.
And he was certainly out in the world. He took his aisle seat on the train and turned to look directly at every other face in that car. A coach class inter-city train car in the North in America in 1957 was a fairly diverse place. There were a few men who were obviously traveling salesmen. There were a couple of families like theirs. There were two soldiers in uniform. There was a black-skinned woman and her daughter, who looked to be about Jack’s age. They were all dressed in what one might call traveling clothes.
People today don’t seem to place much distinction between everyday clothes, work clothes, and traveling clothes. People in the 1950s did. Going across the country on a train was a special occasion for most people and special occasions required special clothes
So there was Jack, in his traveling clothes which looked good to Jack when he saw himself in the mirror, but which were scratchy at the neck and cuffs. As he looked around the little girl six rows ahead looked him directly in the eye and gave him a face that seemed to be asking for something—though what it was Jack had no clue. He smiled and turned away, coloring pink as he did. Katherine saw all of this and wrote some things in a small notebook she always carried in her purse.

Jack, Part Two--I Love You More

James continued to write his books, and, as I said, his books continued to sell in modest amounts. They always received good reviews, but never glowing. When he ran low on ideas, he would simply write a retelling of an old Grimm story or a fable of Aesop’s or even a tale from the Bible. These retellings were fun for James to write and he would often run them by Katherine and Jack before submitting them to his editor. By the time Jack was two he had heard just about every story ever told in one form or another.
The ones he heard from James were always good. There were not the long pauses and gaps that filled Katherine’s stories, as she struggled for direction. But Jack always seemed to prefer Katherine’s tales. Jack could not have put into words exactly why he liked his mom’s stories better than his dad’s. But, with the benefit of hindsight, I think I can shed a little light on the reasons for his preference.
Katherine had a way of telling a story that cast a spell. When she talked, a net weaved its way around Jack and her and held them in a place outside of the regular world. When James told a story, Jack never forgot that he was in a chair in an apartment in New York City, listening to a story. When Katherine told a story, the world lost form and the words created a new place to temporarily replace this one.
Jack would never had a said it out loud, (he was two, so he COULDN’T have said it out loud), but he preferred his mom’s stories to his dad’s. Don’t get me wrong. He loved them both fully and madly. And he liked his dad’s way of playing on the carpet better. But when it came to stories, he liked the ones told by his mom a little better. Okay—a lot better.


It was about this time that Jack and Katherine started a game they would continue the rest of Katherine’s life. It went like this: Whenever they were saying goodbye, both Jack and Katherine would try to arrange things so that each could be the one to speak last. If, for example, James and Jack were heading out for a Saturday morning at the Central Park Zoo to see Cuzco and all the other animals, Katherine might say, “Bye James. Bye Jack. I love you.” Jack would not reply right away. Instead he would wait until he and his father got to the door of their apartment and as the door was closing behind them he would yell back over his shoulder, “I love you MORE,” and hope that the door would latch before his mom could reply.
Of course, in keeping with the game, Katherine would then run to the bedroom window, throw it open, and lurk in the shadows of the room until she heard James and Jack out on the front stoop. She would slink over to the open window, thrust her head out, yell, “I love YOU MORE,” and then slam the window shut before Jack could respond. The winner was whoever got the last word in. Many was the time the phone would ring while James and Jack were out doing something somewhere in the city. Katherine would pick up the receiver and say, “Hello. MacArthur residence,” only to hear a giggly, “I love you MORE,” practically shouted into the phone, followed by a quick click.