An Elaborate Hoax

One of my favorite little art pieces of late from Shelly Cade.

Roger Ebert’s final words before he died were simple and surprising.

“This is all an elaborate hoax.”

There’s a song by Clem Snide that tells the story of Roger Ebert’s final words. If you have a moment, look it up and give it a listen as you read this.

Last night, after a cobweb-clearing motorcycle ride with Jack, we heard that song over a quiet dinner at a restaurant down the street.

This morning I woke up with those lyrics sitting in my restless heart, and instead of confusion, I felt clarity — a quiet joy.

Maybe the hoax is all the things we think matter so terribly much.

The striving.
The proving.
The dramas we construct — often entirely inside our own heads.

Who said what?
Who texted back?
What will happen next?
Is everyone I love safe?
Will I stay healthy?
Does my life matter?
Am I using my time wisely?
Is this where I’m supposed to be?

Our minds can build entire worlds out of the tiniest details.

Lately I’ve been wondering what would happen if I actually believed Ebert.

What if so much of what I worry about simply… isn’t that important?

What if the hoax is the pressure?

What if real life is the quiet one already happening around me?

Yesterday I bought topsoil for my raised beds.
Manure actually. Messy, smelly soil nuturing manure.

And I said out loud, with complete sincerity,

“I can’t wait to spread that manure tomorrow.”

The man I adore looked at me with a questioning eye as if to say, “Said no one ever.”

It was such a small, funny moment.

But what if even that is enough?

Stay with me here.

In the later years of his life, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy came to a similar realization. After writing sweeping novels like War and Peace (which I worry I will never get around to reading) and Anna Karenina, he began asking what truly matters in a human life.

His answer surprised even him.

Real life, he wrote, isn’t found in grand achievements or the dramas of history.

It lives in the ordinary moments.

Eating bread with people you love.
Walking outside.
Working with your hands.
Showing kindness to another human being.

Maybe the invitation that matters most in life is not to solve everything.

Maybe the invitation is simply to notice.

To notice the messy, ordinary moments and realize that most of the things we torment ourselves about are just… part of the hoax.

Thanks, Roger.

That was a brilliant review of this movie called life, and the reminder of it last night felt like a small kind of magic — an elixir for my soul.

I’m sitting here now waiting for the sun to come up, the way it always does.

Without great effort.
With beauty and ease — and a quiet grace we can always depend on.

And suddenly that sun’s reason for being makes the world feel a little lighter.

I love you, world.

I have a little crush on you.

OX, Robbin