Emotional U Assignment No. 1: Awe

This essay is part of a series & also your invitation to audit my self-imposed, self-taught class in which I aim to define & understand our human emotions through my memories & personal experiences.

Assignment No. 1
awe (as defined by the Oxford Dictionary)
/ô/
noun:
A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder: “they gazed in awe at the small mountain of diamonds”
verb:
Inspire with awe: ”they were both awed by the vastness of the forest”
______________

Upon reading the definition of the word, I immediately realize that expressing my relationship to “awe” is a tall order to fill. I’m somewhat daunted… but “daunted” isn’t the emotion I’ve been assigned here.

In an era where social media influencers regularly emphasize words and expressions as a way to assign meaning to the mundane, I find myself struggling to recall a time when I have been honestly and truly awestruck by anything. The experience of awe is an incredibly rare thing, I believe, and that is what makes it so special and impactful.

One of my favorite authors, David Sedaris, wrote about his utter disdain for the word “awesome” within his essay collection titled Calypso. In an interview with the USA Today, he stated: “It just got out of hand to me. Everything’s awesome all the time. I was in Boulder, Colorado and someone said, ‘I’ll have a double espresso, awesome,’ and the other person said, ’Awesome.’”

He continued this sentiment in a blog interview stating, “I went to the Great Wall of China once, and I have to say, that was awesome. But that’s the only thing I can think of. Not a latte.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Sedaris’ point of view on this topic. In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves over the last few years has been listening to the term “100%” not-so-casually morph into “One thousand percent!” as an echo of validation and solidarity around a shared opinion. This term has migrated through the world of podcasts, in particular, like a hungry fish, expanding as it consumes all the smaller fishies in its path. But bigger isn’t always better — when exaggeration becomes the norm, I believe it loses its potency.

So, from my humble position as a mere mortal being, I’ve asked myself to consider how and when I have experienced actual awe… not in the form of a beverage, but true amazement, astonishment, reverence even. What comes to mind is an experience I had during the earliest stages of the pandemic in 2020.

Along with the rest of the world, I was struggling to understand and contend with the newness of the Coronavirus. However, unlike the rest of the world, and along with my family, I struggled to come to terms with the very recent and violent death of my incredibly vibrant (yes, even at 91) father after he was struck by two vehicles and killed while crossing a street on February 7 of that year. For some reason, I feel it is worth mentioning, given the topic of wonderment, that we later learned upon a visit to collect his ashes at the Neptune Society, that he had planned for his own cremation exactly 30 years prior… on February 7 of 1990.

My dad's memorial, after weeks of emotional and logistical planning, was scheduled for March 14, but the first local death related to Coronavirus occurred on March 11, and things came to a near screeching halt. The memorial guest list had been growing, taking on a life of its own, as word spread throughout the media and our local Venice community, where he was beloved by so many. As rumors of an imminent lockdown began circulating in earnest, many expressed to us their hesitancy to attend what might later have been deemed a “super spreader” event. People were beginning to question the safety of even engaging with a trusted neighbor, much less a small arena full of strangers.

With extremely heavy hearts, we decided it was in the best interest of everyone to cancel the event and simply honor our sweet “Papa O” with a family-only gathering around his backyard tree. On March 15, our mayor announced the closure of all local public venues, and we all remember what came next.

We mourned as the heaviness of isolation and fear of the unknown dominated our days and nights, but I felt grateful to live in an area of Los Angeles where I have easy access to fresh air and nature, the beach in particular.

By April, my partner Steve and I had developed a routine of taking nightly walks around the Venice Canals, mutually masking up and stepping aside whenever we encountered the occasional neighbor. The canal water, we noticed, had turned a unique shade of brown at that time… like Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, but not quite as thirst-quenching. Since I was seeing the world through a fog of red and puffy eyes, I didn’t think much of it at first… everything looked and felt drab to me. I also rationalized that it was likely a maintenance issue due to the circumstances at hand.

But something interesting began to happen on these darker than usual spring nights. The fish seemed to be lighting up from beneath the water. It was almost like one would imagine an electric eel to appear, but thankfully we don’t have those shocking creatures in our salty waters.

Word began to spread, locally and through the news, explaining that the appearance of the reddish-brown waters was something called bioluminescence — a condition caused by exceedingly high densities of a certain type of reactive plankton known for its ability to emit a bright neon blue glow in the ocean. And, since our canal water is channeled directly from the ocean, via the marina, it, too, began to glow.

Steve and I stood on a bridge and dropped a small rock in the water, watching it explode from beneath us, almost like an upside-down firework. We then walked to the beach where, en masse, people had come from near and far to witness the light shows at the shore, many standing 6 feet away from others, but feeling the thread of connection nonetheless.

I was awestruck. I believe we all were.

Truly, I had never witnessed anything in nature quite like it, and I haven’t since. While I wouldn’t call myself a religious person, I do have a personal relationship with God, and this spectacle, to me, felt like it was God’s way of saying to us all, “It’s going to be OK. Eventually, it will all be OK. In the meantime, I’ve got you. Enjoy a little free entertainment on me.”