These Days, in Clichés
When shit hits the fan, and I have no words, there’s something I can always count on.
My days at home feel like a loop. Bed, kitchen, balcony, bath, vodka soda, bed. It’s hard to stay busy, stay interested, stay positive. It’s hard to explain how you feel, or argue that your misery is different than someone else’s.
As tends to happen in times of crisis, I’m finding comfort in the things that I’m familiar with and know to be true: If you fry garlic in oil, the house will smell good. If you tune your guitar, it’ll sound better. If you use clichés, people will get you.
A great equalizer, clichés are widely looked down upon as cheesy, weak, and boring. But in a time when everything else is so uncertain, I’ve caught myself using, and finding more meaning in the bullshit phrases that we say on a daily basis. Something we’re all familiar with that can sum up all the things we can’t find our own words for.
I’ve picked six, and the headlining spot goes to my personal favorite of the week.
One day at a time
Because when someone asks you “hows it going?” these days, it’s not really right to say “good”, and you sound like a brat with just “I’m shit, Dave”. We’re not ok, and that’s hard to say. So how do you articulate that in a text back to your dad’s boss who challenges you on Words with Friends? Luckily, in times of darkness, we can lean on the tried and true strings of English words that can pull all that weight for you.
“One day at a time”, is my go-to response these days. We can all relate. We’re all sitting at home having good days, bad days, terrible days you can’t begin to describe. And we’re all in a situation that’s out of our control, with a limited amount of things we can actually do. So, we take it one day at a time — and that’s ok.
It’s a small world
Normally reserved for running into your fifth grade math teacher in an out of state Costco, this world famous cliche is finding new meaning in a time when we can’t leave our house. In the past few weeks I’ve spent more hours on the phone with more people than I have in this past year. Not an exaggeration — I looked at my call history. Suddenly, with nothing but time on our hands, it seems silly not to call that friend from camp or DM with that one girl from high school who became Instafamous. “Still allergic to bees?” and “what kind of porn are you doing nowadays” are both valid questions when the world feels like it’s ending. Time zones matter less when a call at 2am or 3pm feels just about the same for both sides.
With all this time, and the plethora of digital tools we can use to stay connected, the world feels smaller than ever.
The calm before the storm
There’s a billboard on 101 right next to the airport that says “uneventful days are beautiful days”. They’re trying to sell me PagerDuty, which I don’t care about, but the message stuck with me. Since we’ve begun shifting to this new normal, and since things really kicked into high gear, it seems like there’s always something bad coming. Maybe you’re like me and wake up every morning with an overwhelming sense of dread, refreshing the news app to get new headlines while the kettle boils. I anticipate terrible news, and only feel like my day can actually start after something Earth shattering is announced. Uneventful days feel like a build up to something terrible ahead. A good day feels indulgent and dangerous, like talking a walk without an umbrella before it starts pouring. How long before storm passes?
Don’t cry over spilled (oat) milk
Notice the slight modification of my ultimate favorite cliche — because I, am a coastal elite. As someone who normally maintains a stock of milks from the teats of nuts and grains alike, I’ve always poked fun at my privilege to be picky about food. I recognize that paying $5 for nut juice is absurd, and I’m a repeat offender of forgetting about it until the carton becomes bloated and the milk curdled. But our new normal has me rethinking my entire relationship with food. Suddenly, not everything is available. Not everything is worth it. Purchases need to be planned and intentional. I’m going back to need over want. So when I spilled my cereal bowl, it wasn’t just inconvenient. It was a meal lost, 2 paper towels in the trash, and a wasted bowl of goods I have to think twice before buying again. I’m curious to see how all our relationships with food change during and after this. And the question on everyone’s mind — is oat milk really essential?
Laughter is the best medicine
I don’t have much to say much for this one, and I’m sure that in this case medicine is the best medicine, but wouldn’t it be sick if the government paid for our HBO?
All’s well that ends well
It’s hard to make sense of most of what’s happening. But what I love about writing is when you’re at a loss for your own words, you can always count on someone else’s. Available to us are the overused, greatly diluted and seemingly meaningless clauses written by champions of our language before us. An easy way to say how we feel. That’s all we can do I guess. That, and take it one day at a time.
