The ever after

On not desiring time-lapsed life

I have developed a little routine. Before I do anything else in the morning, I check on all the living things in my house. I tiptoe into the kitchen and switch on the electric tea kettle. While it warms, I inspect my sourdough starter. This is a new starter as my first one developed mold. It is bubbling and smells sweet, but it has not doubled in size. It will need a few more days, months even, before it is strong. I remove some starter, careful not to spill the sticky sweet substance all over my kitchen (as I have many times), and feed it with flour and tepid filtered water (I’m becoming obsessive) , excited to see how much it grows by tomorrow.

Armed with tea, I make my way to the living room and then the terrace. A week ago, I planted lettuce, zucchini, and beans. It is late in the season, but I figured I might just have enough time for one harvest. The lettuce has come up with small greet sprouts, overcrowded, though too young to be thinned out yet. Of the five zucchini seeds I planted, only one brave plant has emerged so far. It has dark green leaves, yellowing a little bit on the corners. I wonder if I have given it enough water, giving it an extra splash, careful not to disturb the baby plant too much. Most remarkable of all are the beans. Four plants have emerged from the rich dark soil, their green leaves like open hands to the sky. I wonder if it is already time to make a wigwam for their viney arms to climb.

When I was twenty years old, I wrote a song. The bridge went “all I really want is a garden that grows, and a hand for me to have and hold.” I flinch a little transcribing my young, earnest confession. But it was what I wanted, then and for many years after that. And, somehow, now, I have it: my garden, my hand to hold. I have reached, as they say in the romantic stories, my happily ever after.

So much is contained in that little phrase— to live ever after, to unfold happily together. But the ever after is a lot of work. It brings with it new horizons of hopes and wishes. This applies not only to romance but to so many areas of life. We wait to finish our education, for the money saved to find a good place to live, for a well-suited job to come through, to build a family. And then, if you’re lucky, these things may come to pass. But that is only the beginning of your “ever after”: once your education is complete you have to look for a job, once you find a place to live it is long road to move and then settle in, and if you find your dream job, you have slowly gain expertise and prestige year by year, and if you’re blessed with children, you begin a long journey of caring for little souls through many demanding stages of life. Often, receiving what we desire (in my case, the garden that grows, the hand to have and hold) is not an object we possess; it is gift of a beginning. The seed is finally planted: now to tend to it watch it grow.

My parents at All Soul’s Langham Place on Regent Street <3

I was thinking of all this over the past week while my parents visited me and my husband in London. It is the first time in my adult life that both my parents have visited me together. I witnessed myself, as if from outside, busying around our little home, spreading clean sheets, buying flowers, stocking the refrigerator, being house-wifish. I looked with satisfaction on how much more settled we are than when we moved in a little over six months ago, but also with some consternation about how far we still have go. Half a year on and we. still have unpacked boxes and corners with piles of things that still don’t have a “place."

We moved to London after a long period of job precarity. After several years of disappointments, endless applications, and false starts, my husband secured a job that suits him very well. After all that straining towards the goal of getting a job, it seemed like everything else should just fall into place. But things go slowly when we two people have full time jobs—his brand new— and are settling into a new city. There is still a large mattress leaned against in a wall in our hallway. Sometimes I lay in bed and fret to my husband about it, beating myself up for being so slow about settling. He tells me it’s alright, that there is no rush.

Perhaps this is unfair, but I blame short form videos on Instagram for some of my angst about how long it takes to settle in and make a home. I really enjoy Instagram. I have trained my algorithm to present me with cooking, gardening, and home project videos. I have taken ideas and recipes and inspiration. However, due to the limitations of the platform, Instagram videos are almost always some version of time-lapse or editing. In ninety seconds, you will witness a zucchini plant grow from a seedling to a harvest, or watch a room transform form drab airbnb grey to French countryside, or a fresh summer salad materialise with little mess. Perhaps this is really silly, but I’ve realized consuming this kind of content sometimes makes me expect life to go at time-lapsed speed. I find myself sometimes aghast at just how long things actually take, how slow life is. I find myself wondering if I’m slothful and slow, if I’m doing something wrong.

But this morning, as I sit listening to the rain fall outside and thinking of how happy it will make my seedlings, I am very glad my life is not on timelapse. I am thankful for the unfolding of this life I (and we) prayed for: a place to call home for now, a job, a good partner. Here is a life I can watch grow, day by day, like the little living things I check on each morning. Unpacked boxes accepted, I don’t want these days to rush by. I am happily living this ever after.

everything is coming up beans!