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By Root 851 0

in a state of perpetual denial, as we did in Kiribati, had a way of heightening one’s appreciation of the small things, like chocolate. But strangely, I didn’t appreciate chocolate anymore. Indeed, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even had chocolate, and for some reason, this had begun to bother me, for what is life, a good life, but the accumulation of small pleasures? In Washington, we lived in a place where everything was available, for a price, and yet I couldn’t recall the last time I had really savored something—a book, a sunset, a fine meal. It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated. I’d find myself inside a Whole Foods, and remember that not long ago I would have engaged in all sorts of criminality for a chance to skip down these heaving aisles, yet now I found myself feeling a mite peeved that the cheese selection wasn’t quite as expansive as I would have wished. In Kiribati I yearned for all that we had in Washington—high-end grocery stores, reliable electricity, endless consumer choice—and now that I was in the midst of all this bounty, I pined for what we had in Kiribati, the intangibles at least, for there are no tangibles to be found on a remote atoll.

Mostly, however, and this was what I kept tripping over as I put on my tie each morning, I recalled that life in Kiribati had been ceaselessly interesting. True, not always in a good way. Indeed, now that Sylvia had stirred my memories, I remembered that life in the South Pacific could be grim, often horrifying, and frequently revolting. One morning, I recalled, I had awoken to find a dead pig in our backyard. This was no small problem on the equator. There is nothing like the odor of dead swine decomposing under the tropical sun to help one decide what the day’s priorities are going to be. It took the better part of the morning to dispose of the bloated beast. I found a large stick and I pushed and prodded the pig toward the incoming tide. Please, ocean, I said, just take the pig. But it wouldn’t. The pig floated, and each time I pushed it out into the water the ocean pushed it right back at me, depositing the carcass with a grotesque thud at my feet. This greatly amused the I-Kiribati onlookers, until finally one man took pity. We each took a hoof in hand and pulled the rotting pig about three hundred yards through the surf toward reef’s edge, where with a mighty heave we tossed it into the white water. “A present for the sharks,” my companion had said. That’s when I noticed that my hands, my arms, and much of my torso were stained with dead-pig slime. I don’t think I have ever swum faster.

Now why, one may reasonably ask, would anyone want to go back to such a world? This is an excellent question. Boredom, a ferocious, unyielding boredom certainly played a part. That morning in Kiribati, I had managed, in a few short hours, to do something productive. I had disposed of a problem. I had swum in the Pacific Ocean. I had sensed danger. I had made a friend. I had a new story to tell. Certainly, I would not want to relive that particular day, but at least something had happened. Something interesting. While it may be true that finding a decomposing pig in your yard is not an ideal way to begin one’s day, I found that beginning each new day in Washington, as I did, with the shocking blast of an alarm clock buzzer, shortly to be followed by a frantic race to the office, where I would be greeted by a computer with the news that I had ninety-two new messages, of which thirty-seven were alleged to be urgent, and then to spend the remainder of the day stressing mightily about agendas and bullet points, memos and PowerPoint presentations, conferences and conference calls, only to call it quits long after sunset with the queasy realization that after all that time, all that energy, all that fussing, I really had nothing to show for my day, nothing real and tangible and good—well, I found that such a day stinks too.

In Washington, we were