Skipping ahead

I'm beginning this on the red line, on the way home after a too-long day. I spent the time on the orange line trying not to listen to the conversation of the people behind me which was about their Harry Potter 7 experiences and how they felt about the various revelations now that they were both finished. I am far from finished, am trying to stay as far away from HP7 as possible because otherwise I will read it rather than sleep, and that would be a bad bad thing.

But while they talked, I realized something I hadn’t thought about before. In the entire time I have been reading Harry Potter books, I did not know whether he would live or die at the end of the series. I did not know whether Rowling would let evil triumph over good as some kind of warning to us about the state of the world. And here, nearly a week after the book has come out, I still don’t fully know the answers to these questions. I know the vague outlines of what happens in that book, though, because now it’s in the water (and, ok, because I peeked just a little at the end!).

These last many years I have felt jealous of those future HP readers who can just pick up one book after another without the long wait between them for the author to, well, author them. I’ve thought about how lovely that would be, how superior to my experience of reading one then waiting, reading another then waiting, always wondering what is coming next, wondering whether the books will peter out or stay good. Starting last Saturday, everyone who picks up the first book can read all the way through the series whenever they want. They’ll know whether people say the series gets better over time or worse; they’ll know about any surprises so big that you can’t keep them under wraps.

I am, as it turns out, someone who likes to know how things are going to turn out.

But today, hearing the two people behind me talking, I had a rush of sadness for the lost anticipation of it all. Never again will there be a time when no one knows what’s going to happen. Never again will readers be able to plead or write or dream or wish in any way to influence the outcome. It’s done, over, all in the past. Somehow this hits me hard today, and it gives me a new perspective on my constant search for what comes next and my desire to read the epilogue of my life. I know that if I had the power, I would skip ahead and figure out some core questions: how long do I stay in New Zealand? Are the decisions I’m making right now about the direction of my life helpful decisions or not? Do Naomi and Aidan have happy lives? I would flip to the final chapter, skim gently, and then head back into my life and live it out—I know I would. And today I’m thinking maybe I would lose quite a lot by doing that.

Since I’ve begun this essay, I’ve had my last full day in the US. I’m back on the Metro, on the way home from the astonishing and unexpected experience of being in a small seminar about US/NZ education, and then having dinner with 19 other people at the NZ ambassador’s residence. I have seen people I’d only seen before in New Zealand, met people who are extraordinarily interesting, found intersections with Americans that both feel too late (we taught in the same building these last five years?!) and also just right. This is a last chapter to this trip that I’d never have guessed, and would never have guessed about the graciousness or the laughter, or the fundamentally difficult decision of what to do when you, as a vegetarian, are presented lamb as the only meal at the NZ ambassador’s residence. I am home to pack up my bags and head to my last day of teaching these students I love with these colleagues I love, and then I’ll get on a plane and return to a country I love and the people I love there and the work I’m discovering there. Maybe it’s the three different varieties of New Zealand wine in my belly (or maybe I’m drunk on the lamb!), but tonight not knowing the end of my story feels mysterious and lovely. Who knows what will happen tomorrow…