The Marvel of an Observed Life

In our family, we have had dire moments; our underwater moments, our party moments...in spite of the world crashing and burning, we are in a torrent of light.

We marry to live an observed life.

Yet sometimes, we just want to be left alone. I travel a fair bit for work. At least one hundred days a year, I don’t sleep in my own bed. But the solo days I really love are when my husband is away on business, and I am at our house by myself. Of course, I’m not truly alone. The dogs follow me everywhere.

Our last dog pack were runners. The leader, Luna, was a Rhodesian Ridgeback. Rhodesian Ridgebacks were bred to chase lions, and Luna must have known that up the street, mountain lions lived in the park. Luna waited by the door, and when it was barely open, before you could say, Luna, get your ass back here, she was a half mile up the street, the other two dogs streaking behind her. But my current dog pack, I like to say, watched The Little Mermaid: “I want to be where the people are” is their motto. If possible, they are touching me. When I Zoom, they are in the room. When I write, they are with me.

But without my husband, I swirl in my own dreams and habits. I don’t have to have dinner. I don’t ever cook meals. I eat a can of tuna standing up in the kitchen. I live untethered—writing late, getting up early, uncombed, deep in my thoughts.

The observed experience in a marriage is different for me. It is not different for my husband. When I am gone, he continues his orderly existence. He makes himself a plated dinner: carrots, asparagus, lentils. He bathes at the same time, goes to bed earlier. He does not descend into chaos.

My husband reads physics books all the time, and most of his own novels are based on entanglement and quantum physics. He is fond of explaining the double slit experiment to new Red Hen staff people. If you aren’t familiar, light changes when observed, almost as if it’s aware of being watched.

We change when we are observed. Our lives change. Some of us are more anxious, some less, some fatter, some thinner. If I were single, I would live on air. I would always have sake and champagne in my fridge for emergencies; other than that, I would live on fruit, tuna, and arugula. Like light particles, I change through observation. I’m more civilized, less savage.

When I grew up at the Farm, I spent much of my life with no people watching me. I was always told, God is watching you, so I talked to God. “God,” I said, “Are you watching me right now? I’m going to do something dangerous. Watch this.”

Yet we do get married to live an observed life. We have families to observe what we have done, who we have been, to be known and remembered. This weekend, we are hosting a family dinner, one of thousands we’ve had at my kitchen table.

We live, now, in a society where we are watched all the time. In Washington, D.C., there are 44 cameras per 1,000 people; in New York, 10; and in Los Angeles, 12. Atlanta has 124 per 1,000 residents, a product of Operation Shield, a massive police surveillance system known to unfairly target Atlanta’s Black residents.

In Beverly Hills, there are 62 cameras for every 1000 residents. It’s a small town with a population of only about 30,000 people, but with an average home price of five million, that small town is carefully watched. The park where I hike does not have CCTV, and I go there to get away from electronics and breathe.

But the observed life we live with our spouse and our family is not surveillance. It’s a story, a long narrative. Alone, we are looking to achieve great things, yet we are in the dance together. Sometimes it feels more like we are lurching around the dance floor, but in our best moments, we twirl.

I am living in the gift of an observed life with the people who truly see me. This includes the family I have chosen. Our adopted grandson, Otto, is visiting this summer, and we’re already planning for the adventures we will have with him. He will swim at my daughter’s house, go see the caves with my son, play Dungeons & Dragons with my husband. Even though he only eats three foods, I want to show him how to cook, try him on blueberry pancakes with maple syrup.

In our family, we have had dire moments; our underwater moments, our party moments. We have camped along the shore and seen the fireworks go off. We have buried friends, and mourned, and our circle remains. Our extended family includes friends and those friends who hold the circle. The kids eventually become adults; they ride horses and carry the story across the world. In spite of the world crashing and burning, we are in a torrent of light. We keep cheering for each other, helping each other along.

There is a collective narrative to the family’s observed life where we are all ready to carry each other when necessary, because we are paying attention, because we see each other. As a child, I saw the Milky Way spread out across the sky, Orion with the big stars: Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Saiph. I’m older, now, and I pay attention to the story of family, to our sky dance. Always, we are the stars in this story, crossing the sky, night after night.