11:30 Oranges

My parents bought a new sofa — bronze frame with a leather cover. The kind you should never buy if you have a cat. They set it down in the empty corner of our balcony and told me to try it out. I hated it. Hated it because it was soft and comfortable, and it fit that corner so well. I hated it because it covered up the space where Sodapop once lived.

He was a Ragdoll with a lion’s mane and ocean-blue eyes. He knew what he wanted, and I knew him. He wouldn’t file loud complaints as long as I kept his litterbox clean. There were clear patterns to be found, in him, in academia, and in life. If I studied hard, I’d ace the test. Black and white, cause and effect. Patterns produced reliable results, with Sodapop curled at its core.

But that consistency didn’t last. Sodapop was hospitalized, having slipped from the balcony into the line between life and death. I wanted him home, but he was still fragile. When the vets offered to watch him a few more nights, I hesitated. The vet had saved him twice; surely, there was a pattern. So I left him in their care.

Two days later, back in the vet’s office, I watched the zigzag on the monitor flatten. It was heart failure. The room was wailing, forcing the announcement of his death into the silence that filled my chest. In his passing, I was left with the sore recognition that my approach to life had a tragic flaw: If cause and effect were certain, he should be home, sprawled out on the balcony, purring. But he wasn’t.

Breaking away from patterns is hard, so I started small. Instead of struggling to heat the sugar to the exact temperature as I always did for my Italian macarons, I replaced the recipe with a Swiss one. The new batch was easier to make and produced better results. I stopped fussing over the “right way” of modeling: no need to spend hours figuring out the optimal topology for a pillow; simulating an inflated cube was a perfectly feasible option. Twenty seconds and an extra step were all I needed. That feeling was new to me: No longer hard-wired to follow the singular correct option, but learning to test the rules. I tried to bend the criteria for what’s important in my life: yes, my goals and dreams, but also friends and trivial matters. I built an app that reminds us to appreciate the moment, like the cascade of colors from a dawning sun through curtains.

On the occasion that I got up too early, I’d sprawl out on the sofa, watching the sun rise through the large windows on the balcony. Once a cover for something I didn’t want covered, now a cozy corner where I let my mind roam. No tidy lesson came out of grief, and I don’t want one anyway. I still like order, following the steps in a recipe, planning out specific expressions and animations before modeling. Yet I’ve also learned when to let a method bend.

I can name when I first tried to break the patterns, but I can’t tell when it’ll end. A month ago, I duct-taped the projector lens to hide a header that refused to collapse even in full-screen mode. Last week, I decided against designing unique binders for each modeled book because they were entirely in the background. Today, I tried out a new recipe, and my batch of twelve fused into one gigantic cookie in the oven. Even when things go wrong, I know I’ll adjust, unwilling to break.