Hey, listen: go fuck your banana bread.
Alright – wait. Please don’t go.
I’m sorry for telling you to go fuck your banana bread. Ah, shit, there I’ve said it again. I don’t know what’s going on. Why do I keep telling you to go fuck your banana bread? This is so unlike me.
The irony is that your banana bread looks delicious, actually. Really well baked. Thick crust. I like how you’ve positioned that slice, at an angle, on your impossibly clean plate. That wisp of steam rising up from its presumably moist filling? That sort of food photography can’t be taught. You’ve got a real gift.
Listen, I do apologize for coming across this way. Trust me, I’m also confused about why your innocent social media posts about recent baking successes fill me with such unbridled disgust.
I first discovered how I was feeling a few days ago, when I came across an article cheerfully titled “Five Ways to Turn Self-Isolation Into Self-Improvement.”
“Fuck that,” I said to myself, out loud. It was at that moment that I realized I had no patience for anyone attempting to find a banana-bread shaped silver-lining to this hellscape. Quarantines are for feeling anxious and on-edge, I told myself. How dare you use this time to develop as an individual?
I’ll be the first to admit this is an absurdly petty sentiment. More than petty, it’s unhealthy. It’s pretty indefensibly irrational. But I can’t help feeling how I feel.
There’s a scene in the British sitcom Peep Show where one of the main characters, Michael, is lambasting his friend Jeremy for being too nonchalant in the face of a crisis.
“We have an obligation to be anxious,” Michael yells. “It’s a mark of respect for the gravity of the situation!”
That scene has been making the rounds on Instagram and Twitter, I’ve noticed. “Be a Jeremy, not a Michael” is the overarching sentiment of people sharing it. Chill out, man. Make some sourdough bread. Touch up on your Spanish. Start doing home workouts. Get a hilarious Zoom background. Use this quarantine to “just… like…. really realize stuff,” in the immortal words of Kylie Jenner.
I’m sorry, but I’m simply not programmed that way. If I were to describe my inner voice when I get out of bed in the morning, it’d sound something like this:
“Listen here bud. This is a nightmare. Every cell in your body hates this. Don’t stop and smell any flowers. Stay anxious, stay on your toes. The banana bread can wait until after the pandemic. Get into a fetal position, hold tight, and let’s wait this fucker out.”
Perhaps I associate baking banana bread with acceptance. In my mind, someone baking banana bread is tentatively saying, “Well, I guess this is where I am at the moment. This is where I’ve settled for now. I’d best get comfortable with it.”
To me, that thought simply won’t do. I refuse to accept that this is my life. I can’t stand the thought of normalizing – even for a second – that this is what has happened to us.
I want to reject every waking second of my reality. I do not want to learn a language. I do not want to do a home workout. I do not want to read the books I’ve been meaning to read, not under these circumstances. In fact, I actively refuse to come out of this quarantine a “better person” than when I entered it. I will not accept the association of quarantine with self-improvement, personal progress, or anything remotely positive.
And finally, when I reveal to someone how anxious I am, I don’t want to be reminded of all the things I could be doing with my time. I don’t want to feel like my anxiety is unfounded, or inappropriate. Stop gas-lighting me with your banana bread – we’re living through a nightmare, and I don’t want to feel alone in my anxiety.
Once this pandemic is over though, do send me your recipe. It looks delicious. I love a good banana bread.
