On Yearning and Perfect Equations
My mother’s family is matriarchal and full of women. She came from a family of four sisters who had mostly girls themselves. During the summer holidays, we would visit my grandmother’s house in the rural town where my mother came from and all her sisters would bring their children and we would spend a few weeks all crammed together in that apartment. There were boys as well but they don’t play significant parts in this story (sorry). The husbands of my aunts and my father would stay behind in the capital and come by sometimes, maybe on the weekends, always around lunchtime. My grandfather always stayed and took care of the cacti he planted, one for each grandchild, and took care of us as well, just as tenderly. He was the one in-charge of late night stories in the balcony until dawn for the grandkids only, no adults allowed.
We loved to laugh. We would gather in the L-shaped balcony of the second-story apartment and all sit on old wooden chairs and eat seeds and laugh. I treasure those moments from our childhood because they haven’t existed in so long now. My mother’s sisters used to say, don’t laugh too much so you don't cry too much. There was a lot of suffering and injustice which happened to this family, like many others, involving physical abuse, sad divorces, early deaths, manipulative husbands, and who knows what else. Throughout my adult life, as a vivacious and easy to laugh person, I often hear their superstitions in my ears: don't laugh too much so you don't cry too much.
Was this some form of stoicism? A reminder to be balanced? Some type of mysterious Mediterranean don’t attract the evil eye thing? I never quite understood where it came from. I like to think that ironically, when we laugh a lot, our eyes tear up as a reminder that all highs are followed by lows, and maybe that’s what my aunts meant.
My mother left her hometown to study commerce and finance in the capital. Then she moved abroad to live with her aunt (and her daughters, another four ladies, matriarchal I tell you) and started a new life there. One of the things I remember so clearly about my mother was her love for mathematics. She was just so brainy, even after we later immigrated so far away, she was working while studying at the college. She would sit on the floor at the low coffee table in the living room with her books open and her pencil and eraser and notebook. And would ask us for help with the English, which we thought was so embarrassing (because we were snobby little shits), and just power through all her equations. I think my mother was far more academic and financially inclined than I ever noticed at the time or gave her credit for. This visual of my mother, who left this world 14 years ago now, is my favorites and I long for her more than I care to admit. Because how do we ever get over the loss of our first home, our first love, our first taste of care?
Once a month, she would call her parents and sisters. Long distance calls were a thing at the time, you had to buy a card and credit and time your calls. Once a year (or two years when we moved further), we would go visit my grandparents in the village. Yet, I don't remember her showing her yearning for being close to her family. Her ambitions for a ‘better’ life gave her itchy feet and I think I may have inherited my restlessness from her.
I absorbed my mother’s love of mathematics although I was never as good at it as she was. Equations are so beautiful. They neatly summarize so much chatter and narrative. I know it is the dream of some people out there to find an equation which neatly explains the most complex phenomena in the world, like how did we come into existence and why. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I’m also a bit more curious about whether we can solve for love, hack our way out of disconnection. Can we plug loneliness and yearning on one side, multiply by the number of long distance phone calls, video chats, and flights booked, and come out with love and reassurance on the other end? What is the right number of calls, how many people do we need to connect to on a daily basis, and how many text messages each? How often do we need a hug and how long should they be? Can we keep a dose of solitude in there for good measure?
One of the most basic equations we learn is that distance = speed x time. To figure out speed, divide distance by time. They say here, to go fast go alone, to go far go together. So if I go at a fast speed, consistently for a long time, then I should cover a big distance. But where am I going alone? If we tether to each other, we will have to slow down but perhaps we will get somewhere, not in time, but at least together.
I am often consumed with geographical loneliness. I’ve moved countries and cities ten times, most of them by choice as an adult. Learning from different cultures and philosophies drives me, so does my work. I care for my friends and family and lovers and partners. I schedule my calls and text them often and try to maintain a semblance of closeness and secure attachment. I really try to also maintain my love of solitude, exploration of self through challenging situations, learning through new and uncomfortable experiences. I want to laugh often and I don’t mind crying often as well. They said don’t laugh too much so you don't cry too much, but I'm ok with reversing this equation so that I laugh much and cry often. But where is my neat and tidy e=mc^2? Why is the energy I put in often surrounded by so many unknown variables?
During a playful conversation, a partner and I came up with futalgia. My nostalgic yearning for a future we don’t yet know. A future where I have also figured out a neat and tidy equation to solve for connection, love, and security. Maybe it will turn out to be a bit more like an ad-hoc recipe rather than an equation… a pinch of this, a splash of that. But then what would be the ingredients? And how would they differ for each person? I still cry on our video calls because of how much they dilute our connection, giving us a version of reality so different than the one touch can provide.
The problem with mathematics of course is that, like the theory of uncertainty in physics, in the attempt to explain and define the world, we continuously alter it. And just like math, we have created many systems which attempt to control the world in a neat and tidy box. University degree plus heterosexual marriage plus 2.5 kids plus white picket fence equals happy middle class existence. Which does not account for intergenerational poverty, racism, the patriarchy, couple privilege, family privilege, heteronormativity, ableism, neurodivergence, and a whole host of other systems of oppression and suppression.
Perhaps to solve for longing and yearning, we need radical connections, ones which are unique each time to the people involved. Rather than neat equations, what if we each figured out what our unknown variables were, our needs and desires, our available time, energy, and capacity, our joys and fears, to arrive at connection and community of love? A manual of sorts, which we could hand to new connections, plugging their manual on the other side and cross-multiplying to produce a new answer, a new type of connection. It is possible to break out of every box we have been conditioned to check, boxes of conformity, predicting to us the paths we should take, the equations we should follow, the paradigms we should accept. It is possible to co-create new equations in each community, in each relationship, new agreements and frameworks which we come together around, ones which take into consideration our desires and actual capacities for involvement, without assumptions or escalators. This would require a continuous commitment for self-knowledge and honesty, beyond that which we are encouraged to cultivate in today’s world. Are we ready to do this?
The other choices, namely conformity and/or isolation in so-called complete independence, are not so enticing to me. Let’s build unique connections, paying attention to each person’s formula of needs and desires, fears and loves. Let’s laugh a lot and cry a lot. And maybe then we will arrive at connection and community that is fulfilling and supports each of us in their growth and distance covered in life.
We laugh until we cry, and cry until we laugh, and love. ❤️