Without Letting Go of the Kettle

Three World Cups have gone by, and today it feels like a lifetime.

The rugby player, ready to take off running

I'm in the kitchen waiting for the water to heat for my mate, like every morning. I look at the usual shelf: the cactus, the concrete planter, the same little figurines. There's the rugby player I bought at a flea market in Brooklyn in 2014, back when I still collected figurines.

Bent over, helmet on, like he's about to take off running. Ever since he arrived he's always been in plain sight, on this shelf or the one before, always in the same position: facing the wall, pushing against something, like that's the only thing he knows how to do. For years I found it funny: such a tiny guy, pushing so hard, as if whatever he was pushing was something only he could see.

In 2014, when I bought him, I'd already been a few years into corporate life, not trying to stand out, carrying that invisible badge of "look where she works" that impresses people at a barbecue but says nothing about what actually happens on the inside. No incentives, no real growth, and the comfort of biking to an office in the trendiest part of town: I got along fine with people, got paid on time, and nothing told me it was a good idea to make myself uncomfortable enough to change the scene. Everything was set up so I wouldn't move. I went back to the same place every day, literally the same desk, pushing against something undetectable that was right in front of me the whole time. Full autopilot mode.

You can have a guaranteed paycheck every month, killer health insurance, a job title that sounds good at a party. None of that gives you back the hours you spent pushing in the wrong direction. Certainty doesn't come from thinking, it comes from walking, and it took me twelve years.

In between there were a few turns that felt like progress at the time and were nothing more than that: five degrees this way, a new job, the illusion that something was moving. It wasn't until this past January that I finally left corporate life behind.

And you know how it is: whether it's your own kitchen or the office break room, your head never stops turning, even when your body is standing still. There, waiting for the mate water, I see him clearly, like it's the first time: the rugby player, against the wall, pushing the same nothing as always. I turn him without thinking, almost sideways, without letting go of the kettle. And that's when I understood what he'd been showing me for years: the only way to make a real impact is all or nothing, a full hundred and eighty degrees.

Today the little guy is still on the same shelf, but he's not pushing anything anymore. He's running. The path is clear. No wall, no obstacle, no one holding him back, not even the force I put on him myself for years without realizing it, every time I set him down facing the wrong way. Sometimes all it takes is turning an object a hundred and eighty degrees to understand which way you were supposed to be looking all along.

J.