MissMists

The Iliad and the Odyssey were meant to be listened to from the mouth of a bard, a lyre in his hand and a song on his tongue, as the smoke from the fires drowned out the rest of the world, the honey words transporting the audience into the story.

Shakespeare was meant to be watched. The actors bent over themselves, emotion pouring down their faces as the audience bumped shoulders with each other, breath held for the next act.

I love the written word, do not get that wrong. But we owe the written word to the oral tradition. To the bards and poets who passed down story after story, who kept them alive to the point where they could be written down and preserved. We owe it to performance. To the energy of the theater that found the plays that sparked electric in the peoples hearts, to the point of ensuring they would be around for generations to come.

"So...uh..."

David Hollander is so similar to Shane, Ilya wants to scream about it. His awkwardness, his inability to make small talk, the way his lips twitch and his nose wrinkles when he's not sure what to do with himself...the whole thing floods him with such unavoidable fondness that he can't even find words.

It sure makes the whole 'your father is boring' bit hit him in the gut a little.

They both sit at the table for a moment, struggling for what to say. Of course, they speak at once.

"Your home is...lovely."

"Do your parents know?"

It's even more awkward than before.

"I..." David clears his throat. "Thanks. I wish I could take credit, but Yuna does all the decorating and all that. I do the outside."

Ilya nods, because that makes sense based on what he knows of them. "The outside looks nice, too. Um. No. My parents...they do not know. They are..." There's no way to sugarcoat it, and really David seems like the type of guy to want information like this given to him straight. "They are both dead."

The older man's eyes widen. "Wow. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you." He's not sure what makes him say the next part–maybe the alcohol? "Is probably better. That my father is dead at least," he gives a little, humorless laugh. "He would not be so understanding like you and Mrs. Hollander. He would...if he had walked in like you did? It would be...what do you say? Different story." 

It's supposed to be a joke. Something lighthearted, to shift the mood and express his thanks that David and Yuna have been so incredibly accepting of them, of him.

But David's eyes immediately flash with an emotion Ilya can't place. "What?"

He smiles a rueful smile. "Is nothing. Just...he was...strict. Is all. Would definitely punish me for this. Call me a disappointment."

Then, Ilya figures it out. Protectiveness. That's what it is. David Hollander is clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, looking like one of Ilya's teammates, about to drop gloves. His face is full of indignation and rage, and his body is rigid. 

On Ilya's behalf.

Ilya suddenly wants to cry.

"Well," the older man says simply, sniffing a little. "If I may say, Ro--Ilya. You were pretty damn brave, walking in here with Shane just now. You don't seem like a disappointment to me."

And Ilya has to look down, blinking away tears, as David's fierce approval washes over him like a warm wave. "Thank you, Mr. Hollander," he murmurs.

"David."

“I GOT THE JOB!”

“I worked really hard!”

After that, this kid was cleaning out the fridge at least once a week, and I was like, “why are you always cleaning the fridge?” Like, I didn’t mind, but it seemed odd. And he said, “one time I cleaned the fridge and you said I did a good job. I wanted to make you proud of me again.”

Literally, I changed the entire way I interacted with teenagers after that. I actually got a package of glitter stars and I would stick them on their nametags when they did a good job, and they loved it.

My manager had commented on how hard these kids work and I said, “they’re starved for positive feedback. They go to school all day then come to work all evening and no one appreciates it because it’s expected of them, but they’re still kids. They need positive feedback from adults in their lives.”

Teens don’t talk to adults bc adults only ask „so, how‘s school“ to then interrupt them two sentences in. And because they can’t engage in a conversation about buying houses and working in a bank. I would’ve loved to talk about philosophy and politics and history with family the way I did with friends and in class but because I was young no one took what I had to say seriously.

And no, teens aren’t always on their phone. They’re on their phone when they’re bored. You think I‘m on social media when I‘m with my friends? When I‘m talking about something I‘m interested in?

Very frequently, when I first speak to a child while I’m at work, they’ll kind of withdraw and act uncomfortable and shy. Their parents will then rather frequently tell them to not be shy and try to coax them to talk to me – whenever that happens, I always, without fail, politely dissuade the parents from pressuring them.

“I’m a stranger,” I’ll tell the kid’s parents. “I don’t blame them for not talking to me – if they were anywhere else, they’d have the right idea, to not immediately trust me.”

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that same kid – simply after hearing their initial reaction being validated, instead of reproached – immediately open up to me after that. I also cannot tell you how many times that child and I would go on to start a friggin’ marathon conversation, and I got to hear all about how great their day was or what their favorite Disney movies were or what rides they liked and didn’t like or how much they like a certain Disney character or song…all from me validating that initial feeling and showing genuine interest in what they had to say.

This isn’t just young children, either. I will always remember being positioned outside the Animation Academy one day and starting up a conversation with a young lady, perhaps 12 or 13, who joined the line with her father a full 25 minutes before the class was supposed to start. Now keep in mind, we do a drawing class every 30 minutes: there was no one else in line at that point, and no one else joined the girl and her father in line for a full fifteen minutes. So I could tell pretty quickly that this girl was very emotionally invested in getting a good spot for the drawing class: a conclusion all the more bolstered by the fact that she had a notebook under her arm. I asked her if she was an artist – she said yes, but seemed uncomfortable at the question, so I skipped even asking her if I could see her work, instead admitting that I myself wasn’t very good at art, but that I’m trying to get better and that I love the history of Disney animation. On the screens around us was video footage of different Disney concept art and animation reels, so I pointed one of them out (for Snow White) and asked if she knew the story behind the making of the movie. Upon confirming that she didn’t, I proceeded to get down on the floor so I could sit next to her and her father and dramatically tell the whole story of how “Uncle Walt” created the first full-length animated motion picture, even though everyone and their mother thought he was an idiot for even trying, and how the film ended up becoming the first Hollywood blockbuster. After the story was over, the girl’s father said that his daughter really wanted to be an animator when she grew up, and she finally felt comfortable enough to open her notebook and show me some of her artwork. It was wonderful! Every sketch had such character and you could tell how much work she put into it! And I could tell how much telling her that – and sharing that moment with her, where we got to connect over something we both really enjoyed – had meant. And after the class was over, she sought me out to show me what she and her father had drawn – and sure enough, hers was great! (Her father’s was too, really. XD)

-~-

I feel like I am obliged to add one more thing: don’t ever think that the kids won’t feel your unspoken judgements cause they do!

I felt always like a ‘problem’ in my family, until I was about sixteen, I got this teacher who was litterally the first to tell I was worthy. He changed my life up till this day.

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

“Fuck,” Ilya muttered, eyes glued to Shane’s bare ass as he walked into the showers, greeted by the most magnificent sight on earth. “Fuck.”

Troy, who had unfortunately been close enough to hear, rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. “Jar, Rozanov.”

Grumbling, Ilya turned and stomped back to the locker room, fishing out a bill from his wallet and stuffing it into a jar labelled, ‘Stop traumatizing us, you sick fucks.’

Then he moped at his stall until Shane returned, freshly showered and looking extra scrumptious, before getting up to head to the now-safe showers.

-

“More, Hollander,” Ilya murmured in his husband’s ear, spotting him as he lifted weights in the Centaurs’ team gym. “For me.”

Shane, who was sweating and flushed pink, gritted his teeth and lifted the weight again.

“Jar!” Wyatt called cheerfully from the treadmill across the room, making both Shane and Ilya send him a glare.

-

“I think, maybe small change should be made,” Ilya suggested as he watched Shane pose for part of the Centaurs’ Christmas photo shoot, a silly Santa hat jammed on his head.

Harris, who was snapping the pictures, paused and looked to him. “Yeah? What?”

“Hollander should take his shirt off. Not just for me, of course. But for world. Everyone will like-”

“Oh my god, Ilya, jar,” Shane himself said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.

-

“Rozanov, what the fuck?” Shane yelled, shoving his husband into the wall as soon as the team made their way into the locker room after the end of the second period. 

Ilya, who was already bleeding from his mouth, hissed at the contact and swore under his breath. “What? You are really mad at me for fighting, Hollander?”

“Yes! Look at you, you’re hurt, you could have been suspended or fined-”

But Ilya didn’t look sorry at all. “They were targeting you, Shane,” he spat. “Saying things about you. I–”

“That’s my business. You’re supposed to play the game.”

“I’m going to defend my husband.”

They stared at each other furiously, anger and attraction crackling through the air between them, the tension high enough that the entire room could feel it. 

Then Ilya leaned forward, as if to kiss Shane.

“Yeah. Jar,” Bood called, smirking.

Ilya swore loudly, stomping his foot, walking towards his bag to grab his wallet.

-

Ilya was flying. Heart racing, cheeks hurting from how wide he’d been grinning, throat aching from how loud he’d been screaming.

The Centaurs had just won the motherfucking Cup. He and Shane, together had just won. And to top it all off? He’d gotten the gamewinning goal.

Beaming, he followed his team into the locker room, which already had music blaring and people yelling with joy.

But it was Shane that he was focused on. Shane, who he saw…grabbing his wallet and shoving the entire thing in the jar? 

Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard Boiled Egg

which all leads us to "grenade", which is also french for pomegranate (the french have a pomegranate syrup called grenadine)

Give me Shane "hates clubbing and bars" Hollander not minding Kingfisher in the afternoon but refusing to go at night. Give me Shane never understanding the slang (he's never online) and being overstimulated by drag brunch (it's so LOUD and nothing fits his diet even once he loosens it a little and brunch as a concept throws off his entire routine) and utterly bored by any TV show that isn't the latest game replay (is this reality TV? Is it a drama? He can't remember and he can't tell the difference but honestly he'd rather be watching hockey) and unable to remember the difference between Lady Gaga and Cher (he never listens to music anyway) and completely disinterested in changing his wardrobe (for fancy events he wears whatever his stylist tells him to but not anything adventurous, because he just wants to look acceptable not make a statement).

Give me Shane feeling alienated from gay culture the way he sometimes feels alienated from Japanese culture and being so frustrated that being himself, exactly as he is, still isn't good enough for anyone.

Give me a Shane Hollander who doesn't want to be "the gay hockey player" the same way he doesn't want to be "the Asian hockey player" but he'll suck it up because he's such an inspiration, don't you know how many kids look up to you? Don't you know how much it matters to them to see you out there loud and proud?

Give me Shane finally snapping at Ilya that clearly he's not "super gay" if he's so bad at it, because he's sick and tired of everyone being disappointed that he's not up on whatever the latest queer culture trend is and he does not want to be a "gay icon," he just wants to play hockey and love his husband, and he's not magically a different person now that everyone knows he's gay.

Give me Ilya reckoning with how coming out has only put more expectations on Shane's shoulders and noticing the roles Shane is always forced into - the Asian player, the gay player - and understanding a bit more why privacy seemed like a better guarantee of freedom to Shane than openness.

The minimum amount of contact with family that is expected of people in the groupchat-facetime-instagram era is so much higher than at any previous point in history. The ceiling is about the same, since then and now multiple generations often live under the same roof, but the floor is higher by orders of magnitude.

Cities often used to have multiple Mail deliveries per day, in many places. You could conceivably send a letter every day to the people you were away from, and that was generally a romanticized idea even up to like the 1960s ("and then while I'm away/I'll write home every day" from the Beatles song "all my loving"). People liked the thought of receiving a letter every day from someone who was absent, and there are probably a not insignificant number who would've expected it 

So while it was generally more difficult for your parents to do anything about low contact if you moved away, that doesn't mean they would necessarily be content with only hearing from you once a month or even once a year. Some would, but many would definitely have an expectation that you would write more often than that