Evan Rosen ’28
The Art of the Essay: Blink Twice
Evan wrote this lyric essay in the elective The Art of the Essay; lyric essays move fluidly through time and offer brief, episodic and image-driven vignettes that cling together to find unity and cohesion.
An old man once told his grandkids, “Blink your eyes twice and you’ll be my age.” Now, he sits in his chair with his catheter draining his body of fluids, succumbed to a human condition that has failed his body. His once vibrant blue eyes, now clouded by cataracts, stare at me intensely as he tells a story going back many generations. My grandpa is a man from the silent generation, but occasionally he breaks his silence and speaks about his life as a kid—stories about waiting on the butcher-shop lines for the parts of the animal nobody wanted. He was an altar boy during a time when people in church prayed to the Lord for a better life—just around the corner and years later, a girl with feathered boas in her hair would write a song asking the Lord for a Mercedes Benz.
Over 80 years ago, across from what once stood the Port Chester Life Saver factory, my grandpa and his friend played kick the can after school. Once, a man dressed in a nice suit exited the factory and saw the two boys playing. He crossed the street and stepped aside, keeping his distance from the dust that stirred each time the boys kicked the can, ensuring his suit would stay clean. One of the boys kicked the can a bit too hard, sending it flying across the field until it came to a stop at the man’s feet. The man bent down, picked up the can, and extended his arm, beckoning my grandpa to accept the offer. My grandpa reached for the can, but the man refused to release it. He looked my grandpa in the eye and said sternly, “In the blink of an eye you’ll be my age, I’d give anything to be your age.”
My grandpa struggled to pry the can from the man’s grip. Only until my grandpa nodded his head in return did the man release the can. My grandpa and his friend continued playing together until sundown, when their mother’s called them across the open lots to come home for dinner. The elderly man saw their youthful faces, something he’d be unable to get back.
*
In the elderly business man’s younger days, he put on his suit to get ready for his morning commute from the suburbs into the city. His wife would help him with his tie. He would leave without a kiss goodbye because he needed to catch his train. After the man finished his long meetings at work and ate dinner with potential clients, he’d shake hands and gets back on the midnight train to go home. Every night, the man arrived home to a sleeping family. He quietly opened his bedroom door, and, without making a sound, would get into bed beside his wife. Some days, he didn’t even have the chance to see his family as he rushed to catch the train for his job in the morning.
By the time he approached the young boys, he hardly had any time for fun. He was on a constant grind and kept a pocket watch with him wherever he went. He never missed a deadline and was always on-time for work. While the watch was good at keeping time, it seemed to only keep track of the time for the life he lived in the city.
His daughter loved to dance, and her ballet recital was quickly approaching. As the velvet curtains opened, the little girl saw her mother and brother in the audience with an empty seat to their left. As the concerto reached its crescendo, the girl made her final leap and realized her father wasn’t there to see her finish the ballet. The music came to a standstill and she curtsied to the empty seat in the audience.
*
My grandma had a bad fall and would need to spend the next six months in a nursing home in Queens: My family and I visited her the weekend of the fall. As the elevator doors opened, revealing the floor where my grandmother would reside for the coming months, I glimpsed a hallway lined with elderly people. One couldn’t stop twitching, another yelled at a potential figment of their imagination. Despite the bright florescent light illuminating their faces, I couldn’t read their expressions. One of the women could have been a girl with a father that failed to show up to her recital. One of the men could be a World War II veteran. The people in here had stories to tell but, like a decaying reel of film, they were unable to project them.
*
The businessman was always in a hurry, moving from place to place. To get to his train on time he would run stoplights, fly past stop signs and swerve around pedestrians on the walkway so he could get to his job on time. On days he missed the train, he drove over the bridge to reach the island. From the man’s view from the behind the windshield, hundreds of other cars in uniform lines stretched miles beyond what one could see. The old man chose to conform to a line, participating in the endless daily commute of the rat race. It gave the man a sense of purpose, and he valued that more than anything. He did this every morning, six days a week and on day seven, he playsed golf with his friends.
*
As I stared out the window of my grandma’s room, it occurred to me that some of these patients’ last views would be of a concrete parking lot. Some of these elderly people would never feel the tide of the ocean wash over their feet or hear the birds chirping, signaling the rising sun, or have a nice meal with their families. Their last days would be spent lying in the bed of a nursing home.
*
One of my grandpa’s favorite treats was the prunella cake his mother would make him every birthday. It was the perfect cake to make during the Depression, when ingredient options were limited; the cake relies mostly on household staples. His mother would boil down the prunes until their wrinkles sagged even more, and then squeeze out the juice into a bowl of buttermilk and eggs. She mixed the flour, sugar, baking powder, and, when there were spices on hand, added some cinnamon and nutmeg for extra flavor during special occasions. His mother never wasted; when she creamed together the butter and sugar to create the frosting, she would always add some of the juice drained from the prunes to give the vanilla frosting a fruity flavor. Once the cake was in the oven and the aroma of baked fruit filled the air, the boy knew it was his time to help clean up. My grandpa’s favorite thing to do was to lick the batter from the bowl. He made sure not a bit, cleaning every inch of the bowl with his finger.
*
It’s my grandfather’s 92nd birthday, and I ask what kind of a cake he wants. He is craving the prunella cake his mom used to make him for his birthday. A prunella cake isn’t a delicacy one can find at any bakery, and, since I love baking anyway, I set out to find a recipe online to make it myself. After endless scrolling, I finally found a recipe that looked like it would create something edible to a non-prune lover. The recipe included a paragraph explaining the cake’s significance. During the Great Depression, when ingredients were scarce and many people struggled financially, the prune cake was a go-to, especially because of its unique sweet and fruity flavor that paired with the spices. It seemed what kept this tradition alive were the grandmas and elderly generations that had passed this recipe down to their grandkids. Most of the ingredients were pantry staples, so I began making the cake almost immediately.
As I combined and stirred the ingredients together, I wondered why this was my first time hearing about my grandpa’s favorite cake? After all, I had been alive for 18 years, and given my love for baking, you’d think a family member, or even my grandpa himself, would have told me about his favorite cake and the rich history behind it. But he never did; he kept his traditions to himself, just as he kept the rest of his life locked in silence, life slipping by, unheard and unspoken.
*
Ever since the businessman was a child, he had the dream of becoming a baker. He loved to bake desserts for his family. Chocolate and carrot cakes, lemon blueberry bundt cakes, cream cheese pumpkin muffins and soufflé pancakes. He was a master at what he was able to create. When it came time to choose his college, he wanted to go to a culinary school, but his mother and father shut that dream down immediately. They would scream at him, “You can’t make a living off of baking like peasant!” The boy insisted this is what he wanted to do but was met with the same disdain from his parents. Eventually he stopped begging, lost hope, and gave up on his dream. Instead, he graduated with a Master of Business. He worked his way up and eventually became the Chief Operating Officer of a bank. This man was considered very successful to outsiders, but inside, was unhappy. To this man, it was worth staying up late into the night, being absent for dinner and missing out on his children’s school events.
As an early teen, my grandpa got a job at a country club as a golf caddie. He tells a story of caddying for a man who grew up in Port Chester who had been a caddie himself before the Depression. This is the same man who introduced America to the Beatles and Elvis to the world. Each day, he heaved the bag of golf clubs over his shoulder and with each step he took it weighed him down. He walked miles with it as the burlap rubbed against his back. When he got home to shower off a hard day of work, he would find rashes in different places each time. The boy took pride in his job. The golfers knew they could depend on him to get the bags across the fairway and over the grassy hills. At the end of each shift, he put out his hand for a tip. Most days he would get a quarter and occasionally two if he got lucky. Despite how strenuous the job was he took pride in it. He was grateful and considered himself lucky to earn a few coins during the years following the Depression.
*
My grandpa was a man who missed the important moments in life—moments that he will be unable to get back. To this day, he sits in his chair watching the world through a television screen. With each visit he tells my sister and I his opinions about the world and what is “best” for America. The truth, though, is his thoughts no longer bare any weight on the world. At most, all he is contributing to society is a vote.
My grandpa chose to not live in the moment, which is why I wholeheartedly plan to experience everything I can in life. I will travel to Italy and cook pizza, see the Japanese Tea Gardens, embrace every relationship that I currently have and the new ones I will create in the future. I plan to pursue my love for diverse foods, trying new restaurants and listening to my sister strum her guitar. We all choose what to do with our time during “the blink.” He still looks at me in the eyes, and with intensity says: “Blink your eyes twice and you’ll be my age.”