Not another damn COVID column
France and marathons both have a way of encouraging you to savor the world. We all can use that, especially if we’re thinking of our own mortality
“It’s been a year now. Think I've figured out how — how to think about you without it rippin' my heart out.”
That’s from one of this weekend’s Grammy nominees, featuring two fictional ex-lovers who ask each other, “If the world was ending, you’d come over, right?” They broke up a year ago, and sometimes a year is the perfect amount of time to reflect on what your life is missing, who you should have loved more, how you can make things right.
Especially if something reminds you of your mortality.
Fans of “Rent” know exactly what our lovers have missed. “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes,” the ensemble sings. “How do you measure, measure a year?”
The musical premiered on Broadway 25 years ago, as AIDS reminded us of our mortality. I listened to the song this week, grabbed a calculator and figured out that I’ve lived nearly 34 million minutes.
Whew.
I’m hoping for another 15 million, but maybe fate will give me just 15, period. Life is fickle that way.
I was near my 15 million minute mark in 1984, when L.A. hosted the Summer Olympics, the first with a women’s marathon. Historians know that Joan Benoit got the gold, but the clear winner in the metaphor division was Gabriela Andersen-Schiess.
Because she missed the final water station in the 86-degree heat, Andersen-Schiess was a cramped up, staggering mess as she entered the Coliseum for the last lap.
Life is a marathon, but it takes us 10 or 15 million minutes to realize it. You’re so busy sprinting to a diploma, a degree, maybe another degree, a job, maybe a family, another job … then something goes wrong and you can barely keep your feet.
Right now you might be having a horrible 525,600 minutes. Or a million. Or two. But in our marathon, that’s a cramp — a severe one maybe, but just a cramp. You’ve got millions of minutes to make up for it.
Andersen-Schiess was 39 in 1984, virtually certain it would be her only Olympics. So she limped and staggered, fighting through the pain, rejecting medical attention, taking nearly 6 minutes for that last quarter of a mile. But she finished the damned race.
So take some deep breaths, massage your legs, drink some water and get back on your feet. As you get moving, appreciate the scenery — not just what nature gives you, but what humans do: a stranger offering water to someone who’s struggling, parents pushing twins in a stroller, old friends nudging each other to the finish line.
Your cramp might even get lost in the beauty.
I spent 200 of my loveliest minutes years ago at Le Jules Verne, a restaurant high enough in the Eiffel Tower that you could see forever. My wife, Cathy, and I were celebrating her birthday in late June, when the Parisian sun doesn’t set until 10, leaving hours and hours for talk, for love, for reveling in the view of a lifetime.
France and marathons both have a way of encouraging you to savor the world. Even many low-key restaurants follow a French tradition: When you reserve a table, it’s yours for the evening. Leave at your leisure.
If you’ve spent your life sprinting, “at your leisure” might be as hard to comprehend as a menu in French. So next time you grab a cup of coffee, put on your headphones, close your eyes and maybe listen to that song from “Rent,” the one with all those minutes in it. “Measure your life in love,” they sing.
As I wrote a column for the Chronicle a year ago, my brain got caught up in all the headlines, preoccupied with my own mortality, being way too dramatic for my own good. What if these were the last words I ever wrote? Would I be proud to take them to my grave?
Then I recalled a moment that I didn’t sprint past: a small happy hour we’d had the previous summer, when I could have looked around the table at several of my ridiculously young colleagues, said “I love you,” and meant it. They gave me extra energy when I needed it, and I was so grateful — not only for them, but for the laughter from decades past, and for the shadows of faces I’d yet to see.
It was only a minute, but it was worth millions.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: “Dear Evan Hansen” is one of the two best musicals of the last decade (and maybe the last century), and a movie version is due in September. It’s about the aftermath of a teen’s suicide, but manages to be entertaining, enlightening and even uplifting. Let’s hope the movie does it justice.
I was going to say, “See it with someone who’s having a tough time.” But these days, who isn’t?
Something new: The guy behind the decade's other top musical won the Inspire Award from the Hollywood Critics Association. In his acceptance speech, “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda recalled something that Tony-winning actress Priscilla Lopez told him when she appeared in his first big musical, “In the Heights.”
“ ‘You’ve thrown a rock in a pond. You have no idea the ripples that are going to come back to you,’ ” Miranda quoted her as saying, then spoke of his award. “That’s what tonight feels like — it feels like just the greatest ripples from every collaboration that I’ve ever worked on.”
Something borrowed: Listen to comedian John Oliver: If you’re going to marry into a dysfunctional family, think twice.
Something blue: Since we started with this weekend’s Grammys, let’s also appreciate one of the youngest-ever nominees. That would be Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of Beyoncé and Jay Z, who turned 9 in January. She, her mom and several others are nominated for best music video for “Brown Skin Girl.”