🐚 Pardon me, the allewhat? (It’s kind of a moot point.)

🎧 Listen to me read it — just the way I meant it.

💬 Prefer to read? Here’s the original text.

View from KittyAnn’s Window

Mercedes and I are sitting outside on the balcony to her apartment. It’s late April and unseasonably warm, and it feels deliciously indulgent and redemptive to once again lounge about outdoors. We are contained in this tiny alcove, our two patio chairs facing, feet in one another’s laps and a blanket spread between us. We’re drinking a pair of Tom Collins Mercedes made, a bold step away from the Hot Toddies we’d been having of late and a preemptive welcome home to spring. The scene is illuminated by the golden glow of one long strand of those bare bulb string lights they used to have at Macaroni Grill. 

Mercedes says she had a plant out here once, but it died. 

I’m telling her the allegory of The Vinegar Tasters.

“Pardon me. The allewhat?” Mercedes scoffs.

“Allegory. An allegory is a piece of art, like a story or a painting, that has a hidden meaning. A deep meaning. Like The Tortoise and the Hare, or The Lorax. Actually, these are two impeccable examples, because allegories are usually related to political or moral issues.”

“Ah,” she says, nodding. “The more you know.”

I roll my eyes, just a bit. Her sarcasm is endearing. “The Vinegar Tasters is a famous Chinese painting that depicts three men tasting vinegar from a pot.”

“Three men drinking from a single pot?” Her tone is incredulous.

“The vinegar is in a vat, and they’ve each dipped in their finger and tasted it,” I say. Not frustrated. Yet.

“You’ve got an answer for everything,” she says. 

I slap her foot, playfully.

“I’m sorry,” she says. She squeezes my toes under the blanket. “I’ll be nice. Go on.”

“The three men are Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu, the founders of China’s three religions.”

“Confucianism, Buddhism…” Mercedes recites, holding up fingers one by one. Her voice trails off.

“Taoism,” I add. I’m surprised she didn’t get the third. “Each man wears a different expression on his face, and that expression represents how that religion perceives life. Confucius has a sour expression because he believes that life is sour and that strict and excessive rules are needed to correct it. Buddha wears a bitter expression because he believes Nirvana is achieved by rising above it all. But Lao Tzu is happy, because to him the vinegar tastes sweet. Taoists believe that things are perfect just being as they are.”

“And what does that have to do with it? Being perfect just as they are?”

“Lao Tsu hasn’t predetermined how he wants the vinegar to taste. He isn’t judging it. He’s simply ecstatic for the experience to taste it, and he accepts it, fully and enthusiastically, for…just, whatever it is.”

“Hmm,” Mercedes says. She’s thinking about what I said. I can tell because she’s staring off into the distance, eyes soft. One hand absently perched in her hair like a comb. Then she looks at me and says, “Is that what you believe?”

“It’s what I want to believe. Well, yes.” It’s more complicated than that, though. “It’s what I try to believe.”

“It’s a lovely thought,” she says. But it lacks conviction and lands like a complement on a dress she decided not to wear.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the river and the trickle of traffic down Front Street. Then Mercedes says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I say reflexively.

“How did you know you wanted to have children?”

I rub my brow. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I ever really thought about it,” I say. “I just had this…picture of my life. Ever since I was a kid. The way it would look when I was grown up. You know? And that picture had kids in it.” I pause, but this story isn’t finished, so I keep going. “I mean, Craig and I talked about it, we made a conscious and intentional decision about each one of them. But I’m not sure whether I, or we, had a genuine interest in becoming parents or just…creating this family we thought we were supposed to have.”

“Hmm,” she breathes quietly. She’s still far away. “That’s heavy.”

I take a deep breath, and it turns into a yawn. “Yeah,” I say. Take a beat, let the thoughts brew. Then, “I don’t regret having my children. I love them. But if I were making these choices now…I don’t know.” I shake my head. I don’t like where this is heading. “It’s a delicate path to trod, because I wouldn’t be the person I am now if I didn’t have them.”

We’re silent for a moment again. Mercedes seems sad. But maybe she’s just tired. It’s late.

“Can I ask you a question?” I venture.

She makes a gesture that isn’t quite a shrug or a nod, but I take it as a yes. 

“How did you know you didn’t want children?”

“I never really decided I didn’t. It just didn’t happen for me,” she says, matter-of-factly. Hazy, but not resigned. “I never met someone I wanted to move in with. For a while I thought I was being too picky. But eventually I realized – nothing was wrong with me. I just prefer to live alone. I like myself pretty damn well, and I don’t need that level of enmeshment with someone else, please and thank you.” 

She takes the one last swig of her drink and sets the glass on the concrete floor. The sound cracks, and the space feels like turbulence stilted.

“And anyway, this kind of life,” she says, gesturing around her, “doesn’t naturally invite children into it. So it’s kind of a moot point.”

For a moment I am her, alone and free on this sixth-story balcony, looking out at the river. But it doesn’t feel all polished and sophisticated like I want it to be. It feels like a single strand of bare bulbs, a dead tomato plant, and finally getting to use two glasses.

“Yeah,” I say. Something’s catching in my chest. “That’s heavy, too.”

She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “It is.”

***

My kids went back to school last Thursday, and I’ve been in some kind of post-apocalyptic-level energy depletion mode ever since. Kind of like nervous system freeze, but more irreverent – not “I can’t,” more like, “I don’t want to. And you can’t make me.”

By Sunday I was moody. My insides felt like what happened when the telephone poll in my driveway fell on the shed where Alex parks his car and sparked out for hours until the fire department came to save me. And I was so over it. I’d finally staggered across the finish line of the parenting-while-working all summer (also starring: the dishwasher twice a day and a dining room table slowly being swallowed by craft supplies) and I JUST WANTED ONE HOT SECOND TO DO SOMETHING MODERATELY FUN. Not spend whole days recovering from…nervous system fallout. 

Hmm.

Once I recognized that my nervous system was just doing a normal thing, I stopped beating myself up about it. So I took a bath. With epsom salts, because that makes it fancy. Kind of indulgent. And mineral-y in ways my body seems to appreciate, even if I can’t explain why.

And that bath opened space – for a permission slip. So I hiked. Rock-scrambled to the bottom of the waterfall. Took off my boots. Socks too. Feet in, water biting. Cold. And fresh. 

Nothing like fried foods or fried nerves or society, cell towers, or social media.

That helped, in different ways that I couldn’t explain. I just thought about how it’s funny that water can both relax and revive. Maybe it’s because it knows how to move.

At the top of the ridge I walked to an outcropping, shaded by hanging branches, the river below. The horizon really stretches up there – you can see for miles, straight across the Susquehanna into Lancaster County.

And somewhere upriver, KittyAnn and Mercedes are looking east across the same water.

It was quiet up there, except for the conversation I was having with myself – about touchy-as-hell subjects like hard relationships and religion and what it means to believe in someone even if you don’t believe them.

The dissenting voice was Mercedes. She’s been getting louder lately, sharp and insistent – but she doesn’t play nice. She calls you out. She argues. She’s full of pent-up rage and is honing her blade so sharp you don’t know you’re bleeding until you look down.

I think she’s related to my inner teenager. But I’d never tell her that. (I’m too afraid.) 

It’s funny, though, how perspective shifts. The river looks different from Holtwood than it does from Harrisburg. Space feels different when it’s scarce than when it’s standard. Life looks different when you’re KittyAnn than when you’re Mercedes.

But life isn’t about being comfortable. It’s about feeling. Whether the water is hot or cold, the vinegar is sour or sweet – it doesn’t matter. Inconsequential, really. Because what matters is that you’re tasting life at all. Because that’s how you know you’re alive.

This week I learned we don’t come back to life by holding still or chasing comfort. We come back by touching what’s real and letting it move us. And I think that’s the whole point – of healing, of connection, of life: not to feel good. Just to feel, and to be moved by your ability to do so.

With all my wild heart,

Sadie xo

P.S. If something I said resonated — and you’re craving a space to unpack your own story — get in touch with me. I’d be honored to hold that space for you.