Death Café

confronting the fear of growing up ☼ public gatherings for contemplating mortality ☼ a book, restaurant, theater, and app rec

I am afraid to grow up. I am homesick for younger years, which is a bit ridiculous to say, considering I am still “young” (the older I get, though, the more relative that adjective seems). I realized this when I was sitting with my partner on the floor and attaching words to a weight in my gut. I have been thinking a lot about death, about people growing older. About how time sinks into the earth and cannot be resurfaced. Sometimes, late at night, I will think about my parents and plot a move to be closer to them. What follows is a haphazard equation that involves the time I hope to continue spending in Mexico, the urge to return to New York (which is no closer to my family than Mexico City is), an image of myself and my partner in a new place, lease start dates and end dates, the shared costs of living in a place like San Francisco or Sacramento and the impossible pros and cons of this over that, that over this. In the early minutes of a sleep yet to slumber, the thought that circles me most is that I do not want to wait until I have to: I want to be able to drive to visit my parents on a day’s notice for dinner or a movie, not a hospital visit.

Like most deranged people artists, I am dramatizing reality, diving into anxieties and fears that are reactive to the figurative, as opposed to the real. My parents are healthy. My partner reminded me of this as we sat on the floor, yet, the thought did not cast away the fear. I choked up into balls of tears and told him: I do not think I’ll ever be ready. It is not that I am worried about my parents leaving me right now, but that I never want it to happen. I do not want anyone to die. It seemed like something a child might say, learning, for the first time, that our presence on this planet is limited.

When I was a child and my grandfather passed away, I did not say anything. I only remember my father telling us on the white couch I expected him to sit on at Christmas. I folded into tears, understanding just enough. The next day I went to school and sat with the rest of the kids, compressed in a haze, confused as to why everything looked the same, wondering what it meant that I felt something the others did not. My mother baked us cookies and took us to the store to buy Pokémon cards. I did not understand why those things that I loved did not feel the same as they usually did. It was the first time I broached the understanding that people leave us, not in a traveling way but one that alters our reality, transforming the expectation that we will see, hear, or feel them again into a false hope, a sign of psychosis, as opposed to one of our life’s foundations.

Twenty four years later, I am still processing that understanding: that people leave. That we leave, too. My partner reminded me that my grandmother passed away in January, and that much of my thinking about death, this headspace, is likely a part of that grief. Grief, of course, is an ongoing process, one that I do not believe has an “end.” I do not see that as a sad thing, though. We learn from it: how to live stronger, how to love harder.

The headspace I am in does not feel like something that will pass the same way a rain skips through the sky. Rather, it feels like a part of my life I have stepped into, a new awareness gained that I cannot—neither wish to—shake off: we live, we die. At the gym today, I listened to a podcast about Spanish writers, an attempt to immerse myself in the language, until I realized that I had no idea who was interviewing who, rather, all I was hearing was white noise in the form of two women speaking too fast. I switched to my favorite program, The Happiness Lab, and listened to one of the most recent episodes, which, like a sign from someone, turned out to be about death.

The episode interviewed several people who attended a “death café,” a series of gatherings where strangers meet to contemplate their mortality: how they want to spend their last minutes on earth, where they want to be, who they want to be with. The research says that the more we confront our own death, the happier we might become, encouraged to choose to live the limited time we have without regrets or worries. The more I think about this, the less afraid I am: to grow up, to watch my parents grow older, to take on the responsibilities of an adult. Purpose forms shapes in my head that clear the haze and sum to a vision: as long as I am here, I want to be here the best that I can.

Photos that make me happy. :)

When I think about death, I do not see regret. I feel lucky to have been able to make decisions that are honest to myself and the person I want to be, and I feel that I am continuing to make those decisions. What I see, instead, is a chapter of life I simply never expected to walk into. 

The thing is, no one really talks about growing up. That one day you will be too aware of how fast everything goes by, that one day you will become a caretaker (or one day you will think about becoming a caretaker and wonder if you are ready for it). No one tells you that when you turn a certain age, you will feel precisely as much of a kid as you always have, but with life knocking on the door, delivering hardships and hard truths that demand a strength and knowledge you never had to access before.

My life is so easy right now: the people I love are healthy, I live with the best man I know and I am safe, fed and fulfilled with hopes and dreams that excite me. It is odd to think that life can be hard. That life will be hard. That there is no optimizing our days in such a way where we might avoid the ugly or the painful. Sometimes it will feel light and warm, like feathers of dandelions drifting in the sun. Sometimes it will feel heavy and dull, like smoke from a forest fire that refuses to lift. Maybe this is all a naive realization, but I am a person who trends towards naivety and holds onto optimism, no matter the circumstances that weaken my grip: some days we will feel like we can’t keep going, other days we will wonder how we ever took this for granted; this is life. The thought is uncomfortable and freeing.

When I think about living in the future with more faces, places and memories to miss, even amidst new ones to appreciate, I know it will all have felt more difficult than I have the capacity to understand right now. And I know that all of it, the joy and pain and knowledge, will have added explanation as to how full life feels to begin with.

The funniest part about this headspace is the mental check that accompanies it, as if my brain is a computer that downloaded new software. Sometimes I will find myself inconvenienced by all of the little things that inconvenience us: an app that won’t work, a tone of voice from a stranger, an unhelpful thought…And then the software kicks in. It’s like: Oh my god, am I actually upset that my Uber ride is five minutes late? Do I really regret eating so much cake? Am I going to let a thought dictate my mood? Who cares?

All we have are these beautiful, boring, brilliant years to live inside and dream around. Today, when I thought about death, I sat down to write, filled with excitement for the process. I felt sure of myself, as opposed to muddled with doubt. I decided that I will live the life of my dreams, every day and every year, and understood that doing so can sometimes look as simple as texting your friends to meet for dinner or throwing together the ingredients for a strawberry crumble. I decided that I will prioritize helping my parents achieve their own dreams, too, whether it be traveling somewhere new or clearing out the house, and that every moment I spend with them, with myself, and with this world will be in honor of the knowledge that none of us are here forever, that there are billions of people we will never meet, and that because of this, because of us, we are always living inside of something like a miracle.

my favorite things (as of recent!)

• A book about grief and the awkward, brilliant human experience (from the enchanted language of a Japanese writer) ~ Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

• A taco experience—delicious, affordable and elevated (but not snobby)—in Mexico City ~ Porcino

• The best Korean fried chicken in CDMX ~ k monster chicken

• A brilliant musical (in Spanish) that I understood 25% of but loved with all of my heart ~ Mentidrags

• An app that identifies the health safety ratings for food, skincare, and household products — Yuka ☷

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With love,

Your favorite capybara ~ AKA Travis Zane

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