The far shore of a too-wide river

An experiment in habits

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

~James Baldwin

A story of a story for starters. It’s sometimes called the Pot Roast Principle. Perhaps you’re familiar.

Depending on who’s doing the telling, you are introduced to a daughter, or a mother, or a new Jewish bride. One of these people is preparing to cook a hunk of meat, variously a pot roast, or a brisket, or a ham. The cook lops off each end of the roast before putting it in the pan. A curious onlooker—friend, daughter, husband—questions this odd technique. “Why,” they ask, “do you lop off the ends before you put the meat in the pan?” The daughter/mother/bride replies that they learned from a relative. “That’s how my mother did it,” they say, and her mother before that, and so on. If the teller is very good at stories, you might find yourself listening until the original inquirer ends up chatting with great grandma, who lives in a retirement home but has no trouble recalling why she lopped off the ends of the roast. “It was,” says the elder, “the only way I could fit it in the pan.”

Photo by Izzy Park on Unsplash

Sometimes we do well-meaning things for ridiculous reasons.

Researchers suggest that more than 40% of our daily behaviors are driven by habits, learning mechanisms that are fueled by our reward centers. But the nature of the reward isn’t always what you might expect.

Maybe you gargle after you brush your teeth not because it flushes out the toothpaste but because your father did the same thing, and you wanted, ever so much, to be like him. Maybe you save the wishbone from every chicken you cook, because you remember splitting them apart with your baby sister, even though your sister has been gone for years. Maybe you load the dishwasher just so, or craft your coffee just so, or swill your wine just so.

Maybe, like my friend Ramona at

Writer Everlasting

you watch the Oscars faithfully for 70 consecutive years until one day you realize you don’t have to do that anymore.

Once, just over a year ago, I glanced at my phone, noticing that the time was 11:11. Make a wish! I mused, to myself, unwittingly invoking a collection of new age numerologists and, heaven help me, Paris Hilton. On a whim, I pressed the necessary buttons to take a screenshot. It seemed a harmless thing to do.

Fourteen days later, at 2:22, I took another picture. It was March 23, my middle sibling’s birthday. We’d been on the phone together not an hour earlier. I thought of him again and sent out a happy blessing on his behalf. I snapped an image on April 3, at 4:44, and one on April 6 at 2:22.

And then, lacking any real intention, this fledging thing took off. What I mean is, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I never set a goal or mapped out a long term plan to tap into unexplored astrological mysteries. I never even noticed it flapping its wings. But 28 days after that first photo, my quirky, new impulse had turned into a habit. Addiction, even.

One Tuesday, one Wednesday, two Thursday, two Friday, one Saturday, two Sunday. There were days I missed completely. (Maybe I wasn’t a total loon?) There were days it felt as though I couldn’t avoid them. Angel numbers, they’re called, but I didn’t know that then.

Each occurrence brought someone special to mind, mostly those I can’t see in person anymore. I took to calling it Ancestor Time and relished the tiny rush of enthusiasm at chancing upon the very moment the numbers appeared. It felt as though my departed kin were waving at me from the far shore of a too-wide river.

There were colorful images during the day, dark ones at night. There were times when I was losing sleep to finish a writing project. Times I hadn’t slept at all, in a desperate attempt to comfort a cat whose long life was near an end. At times, I texted the pictures to others. “Make a wish!” I’d write.

A friend taught me how to customize my home screen, and the pictures suddenly took on a fresh look, one reflecting the seasons.

Click! The practice persisted and flourished. Click! Four on July 26. Click! Five on November 16. Click! Six on February 1. Click, click, click! At some point I noticed it didn’t exactly feel magical anymore. The reason for it had been displaced by the routine, and it seemed plausible that my whimsical, wonderful, experiment was tending toward pathological.

So, I shut it all down. Just like that. Four days ago, a full 365 from when it all began, I snapped the last two screenshots: 11:11 and 1:11, on March 9.

Total number of photos for the year? Close to 500.

Goodness. Busy ancestors.

Aside from solidifying that I am not of sound mind, the experience has offered a few benefits. I am conscious of how the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or frequency bias, can distort reality. At the same time, not being one to turn my back on the mystical, I’m more aware than ever of all the good folks on the other side of that river whose lives influenced mine, and how fortunate I am to imagine them all looking in my direction.

Most importantly, I’m considering my habits and reviewing my beliefs—the words I choose, the opinions I hold, the news I read, the assumptions I make. Do I know why they’re part of my life? Do they serve the purpose they once served? Are they helpful? Could they be harmful? Are they standing in the way of something else I should be learning?

I need to be sure I’m not lopping off the ends of my pot roast for no reason at all.

~Elizabeth

p.s. Just one more. I promise.

I know, I know. But how could I not?