Escape Room: Mindgame Edition

Sitting at my kitchen island on a Monday morning, perched on a bar stool that has a back support. I am habitually inclined to not lean on it. My body is also cold, not showered since the night before, and my body and heart are chilled. In contrast, it is as if I was in the midst of a rapid-fire round, such that one word is at the forefront of my mind and on the tip of my tongue nestled away in my always tightly closed mouth: shackled.

Do you know that phenomenon of having a word repeated so much that it loses all meaning? Well, I think that the lost in translation mouth-feel is less so a result of frequency and more so the product of continuity – repeatedly saying the word in a steady rhythmic chant. I, however, paused over the word, shackled. It echoed and reverberated in my mind, so that I only had to say it once or twice at most. Part of it reminded me of an old rival schoolmate’s surname- Shukla- with origins traced to the Indian state of Gujarat. Another word that it reminded me of was chuckle, so far-flung a verb that I could not imagine my face contorting in a way that could enable me to produce an audible chuckle. A deep-pitted sadness formed when I briefly checked the exploratory arena of recommended Instagram posts and came across Charmed actress, Shannon Doherty, who came out of the woodwork in a new debuting October edition of Elle Magazine, speaking of her breast cancer experience during the month dedicated to the illness’s impact. The nostalgia of the early 2000s sitcom, the rawness of a debilitating illness, and a blurred and under-saturated photo of her immediate family in a June Father’s Day tribute to her late dad, exacerbated my feeling of being frozen in my Long Island kitchen on a chilly October morning soon to be defied by warm temperatures for the rest of the week. And yet the overwhelming sentiment is that a world without October is one that is morose. I felt the opposite, but I also knew better than to ask the hypothetical existentialist question, why me? October is a month punctuated by grisly imagery, like starved skeletal paraphernalia and haunting apparitions that serve to emphasize death. My less than amiable feeling toward October is not out of the realm of understanding.

A couple of months away from a new year, October always personified the starting point of the holidays: A celebratory marathon– honey and apples to usher in the Jewish new year dovetails off of seasonality. A single-file march of cars siphon off farmland in eastern Long Island, its passengers on their way to pick apples in the orchards that smell of warm cider. Honey in milk is the old wives’ remedy for illness onset by cooler temperatures. November, is a harvest month, tepid before winter’s onslaught of icy sterility – a white blanket of snow and overcast skies. The political landscape adds a flurry of feelings with Election Day, followed by a patriotic coming together on Veterans’ Day, and then a demonstration of national friendship and fragility on Thanksgiving Day. This marathon of events is reflected in the annual New York City Marathon held in November. All the boroughs thruways’ and main arteries are shut down. Mustard oil fills earthen clay lamps for Diwali, and candelabras begin to appear in windows where December’s advent before Christmas is the last month of an environmentally friendly calendar.

Though this block of time is suggestive of burnout, my flame is ignited and I actively seek escapism. I ushered in the autumnal equinox with a trip to Vermont, arguably the most beautiful during the fall because of its foliage. Unbeknownst me, I chose the final weekend before the alternatively colored leaves crisped up into a finely scorched top crust of crème brûlée that would shatter with a slight breeze, exacerbated by revelers’ vehicles accelerating through Smuggler’s Notch, one of the most scenic routes best admired whilst sitting in an automobile that begins in Stowe along Route 108, north toward Jeffersonville. The journey is a steep climb and steeper descent with two-way roads deceivingly permitting only a single-file stream of cars lest one projectile over obtuse natural rock formations and into the buoyant swirl of higher altitude air, reminiscent of a hurricane’s eye. That I could lend to you a true experience of the winding road through increasing elevation, being side swept by an active waterfall, scarred by limbs and boughs, and then bandaged by leaves of all colors, would be equivalent to wishing for a man-made capacity to smell through a screen – a pixelated slow motion breaking in half of a thick Levain cookie.

I never tried a Levain cookie, though I was born and raised in New York. And perhaps that explains the lack of experience: I cannot be bothered to wait in line, my time too important as I race-walk to pick up my mobile ordered coffee via an application that I reluctantly downloaded in a last-ditch effort to avoid AOL Dialup-level loading times.

My go-to bakery is one that isn’t trending on social media and is instead the East Village haunt that has remained a brick-and-mortar for over a century, with backlit stained glass running along the edges where the ceiling meets the walls with built-in shelves that are lined with dried amaretto and pignoli nut cookies, biscotti, and sfoigatelle. An outing to Veniero’s Bakery, where the air is an ambrosial amalgamation of almond paste and rum-soaked pâte à choux, is an escape. Here, I imagined myself, not in Italy, but instead in my childhood home backyard, the venue for my blowout birthday barbecues and the quintessential Veniero’s tiramisu cake. Coffee beans dotted the piped edges. I had called dibs over them before even tasting my first cup of coffee at eleven years old. The strength of the coffee was curbed by milk: a foamless latte in a teacup with a slender handle and delicate floral motif in the center.

Day in and day out, my mornings at home or monotonous, following sleepless nights. I am riddled with anxiety about my exercise – forcing myself through high intensity intervals. I tremble and tears streak my face that is sallow, sunken, and sad. That’s what I see staring back at me as I roll up my hair into a tightly wound bun that threatens to unfurl; this is something I wish would manifest into my entire biology. I wish I were not so tightly wound. I wish I could unfurl, and relinquish the grip.

I did what I do: Something that I do not want to do and that is contrary – something that irks me and is a pet peeve. I never completed this essay, retaining the grip. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were high-stress. I felt spoken down to, judged, and I too became defensive, combative, and reactive. My colon was constricted, my body numbed, my mind softened, and my limbs limber. I felt agile and in fight. I felt high, flying high, and running on cortisol and adrenaline. I was the tin man, the scarecrow, and if only I had a heart for myself.

It’s Monday. I am sitting at the kitchen island. I felt free, unshackled by the weekend that invoked hell. But an hour in, I felt that same sentiment – frozen, entrenched, locked into my mind and out of my heart. I suppose I do have a heart, then. Perhaps I should not rely on a mind so altered by academia and anorexia.