{"id":82757159,"date":"2022-11-08T15:32:42","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T15:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=82757159"},"modified":"2022-11-08T15:32:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T15:32:42","slug":"remember-that-you-and-your-little-pumpkins-too-will-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=82757159","title":{"rendered":"Remember That You (And Your Little Pumpkins, Too) Will Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We did not have to knock down the door, as we had thought, for the main door seemed to open by itself with just the push of a voice…” – Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH<\/h2>

We took the toddler to smash pumpkins this weekend. Little more than a month ago, the promise of a pumpkin softened the blow of moving to a new house: \u201cwe\u2019ll get a pumpkin when we move.\u201d Barely three days after we were settled? \u201cCan we get a pumpkin? Let\u2019s have a pumpkin party!\u201d Pumpkins were painted, carved, seeds separated for roasting, pumpkin donuts and pie baked. Unfortunately, the world is a vampire, and the march of time demands that pumpkins die. The local composting company hosted a pumpkin smashing party. We semi-agonized over whether or not a four-year-old would be okay with his pumpkins meeting such a violent end. <\/p>

He wasn\u2019t sentimental about the move. The internet told us that sometimes it\u2019s a good idea to give kids a chance to say goodbye to the old place. He had no interest. Still, the minds of the children are a mystery, so we couched the day\u2019s events with softening language: a different kind of pumpkin party. \u201cWe\u2019re going to say \u2018thank you, see ya next year!\u2019 to the pumpkins!\u201d In the end, we got rained on, meaning a giggle-fit-inducing sprint through wind and rain. Then more good vibes chucking chunks of gourd in a big truck bed. No tears at the death of these seminal seasonal icons. More pumpkins next year.<\/p>

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The proudly ostentatious goofballs Polyphia<\/a> are my absolute go-to writing soundtrack when I\u2019m working on horror projects. Instrumental, mathy almost-metal that has more in common with jazz\/classical than djent, delightful to listen to with stereo headphones thanks to melodies and counter-melodies cascading out of a two-guitar setup. Their latest album, Remember That You Will Die<\/em>, came out at the end of October, featuring tracks like \u201cMemento Mori”,\u201d \u201cChimera,\u201d and \u201cEgo Death.\u201d It\u2019s an excellent album. <\/p>

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The Field Museum has a special exhibit called Death: Life\u2019s Greatest Mystery <\/em>right now, Mal and I went last week. The exhibit opens with a diorama of a whale fall: when a whale dies, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean, and all those pasty, eyeless weirdos down there get the sea monster equivalent of a trip to Golden Corral. Death as ecosystem. Death as beneficial to your environment. From a human perspective, death is examined from cultures around the world. There\u2019s a display of kus\u00f4zu, watercolor depictions of nine stages of a decomposing corpse that Japanese Buddhist monks developed. Nine pictures of Future You. Becoming a different part of the environment. Chinese imagery and Italian Catholic imagery focus heavily on the eternal judgment as motivation to live a good life\u2014threat of consequence does the opposite of inspire me to live well, I\u2019ve found. Far more moving, to me anyway, is Mexican imagery: multitudes of skeletons, frequently smiling, often playing musical instruments. Death is front and center in a lot of the iconography, but it at least seems like a party. And it\u2019s the responsibility of the living to tell stories. <\/p>

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Since 2020, Isabel Hernandez has been turning the side yard of her Pilsen home into an ornate garden in the summer and an elaborate D\u00eda De Los Muertos display during October. An ofrenda for infants\/children\/young adults. An ofrenda for middle-aged people. An ofrenda for the elderly. A coffin, because we all end up there (her words). An ofrenda for pets. It\u2019s a gorgeous display. The butterfly theme, she says, is because \u201cIndigenous groups thought that the souls [of loved ones] returned as butterflies<\/a>.\u201d We drove down there, and Ms. Hernandez was incredibly generous with her time. All we wanted was to gawk from the sidewalk, she walked us through the whole yard without even asking. Ms. Hernandez could not stress enough how important it was for her to tell her community\u2019s stories. Especially<\/em> Mexican-Americans in Pilsen. Everyone, she said, no matter how heavy-scare-quotes \u201cimportant\u201d they are, should have their stories told. The Block Club<\/em> article says she suffers from chronic pain, and doing this makes her stronger. That is the kind of living this blog can get behind.<\/p>

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Something I\u2019ve learned about myself lately is I enjoy feeling cosmically insignificant. The idea first came to me writing this article<\/a>, or more broadly while writing the <\/a>Calvin & Hobbes<\/a><\/em> series<\/a>. I take life pretty seriously: be a good person, do good work, try to live in a way that\u2019s good to future generations. But I have no illusions about the Romantic poet notion of immortality in any form, especially writing. It\u2019d be rad if future generations read my work, but I can\u2019t imagine Dead Me will feel one way or another about it. Life is short and shouldn\u2019t be lived with an eye on legacy. But I do think life is consequential, and you should try live in such a way that some people might want to tell your stories when you\u2019re gone. Remember that you will die, be rad while you\u2019re alive. <\/p>

Sorry you got an email, <\/p>

Chris<\/p>

Links to enjoy in the face of the universe\u2019s indifference: <\/p>