Secrets for FUN

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Amanda Witherell • Bar Harbor, Maine

Graduate from college one beautiful June day with a degree that qualifies you for a career in nothing. Once again, realize you’ll have to work hard to get anywhere in this world. Wonder if there’s anywhere you really want to go.

Work hard all summer for a trip that doesn’t pan out in September. Get laid off your job in November. Wonder what it would be like to do nothing. To live for the sake of living. To stare each long day in the face and just get from moment to moment to moment.

Set aside enough money to pay the bills. Live off 50 dollars a week. Twenty dollars a week. Ten dollars a week. Pennies take on a whole new meaning.

Get scared because everyone you know has a career or a drinking problem. Or both. Quit booze, butts, and one-night stands. Take up knitting, cooking, and staring out your window at the pigeons that live in the eaves. Scan the classifieds every week, but not too hard. You’re enjoying this.

Hope that your new hobbies have a purpose, a point. Hope they aren’t just fruitless attempts at filling the void. Give away everything you knit. Double your bread pudding recipe and give half to your neighbors downstairs. Feel good about this.

Try to love winter, but sometimes feel like the two of you are in a ring: He’s the veteran prizefighter, but they say you’re a rookie with promise. Hope they’re right.

Wonder if this is like hibernating. . . except you’re not sleeping very well. Wonder if one day you’ll wake up with a new idea in your head and not the same tired movie reel of thought you’ve been re-running since December. Get dressed every morning. It’s something to do.

See an eagle one day from your window. Go out onto the veranda for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve been outside all day. It’s warm. Take off your sweater. The sun hits your bare shoulders. It feels like something. It feels good. Get on your bike and pedal to the beach. You want to walk barefoot in the sand, even if it makes your toes cold. It’s okay—they’ll get warm again. On the way, pass a house you’ve passed a thousand times before. Enough snow has melted and you can read the graffiti printed on the foundation: LIFE IS FUN.

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