Over the summer, I read Tess Gunty’s novel The Rabbit Hutch, which was a wonderfully weird and captivating book that left me heartbroken at the abuse of a teenage girl at one moment and giggling at the concept of a man drenching his entire body in glow-stick juice the next. Like I said: captivating and weird — like all the best books ultimately are.
Since arriving back at Hopkins for my junior year, I have not been able to stop thinking about this read, and about one line in particular: “[...] human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing.” Lately, I have not been able to stop this phrase from echoing around in my mind: Human tenderness is the last real thing.
I want to share the entire excerpt because I think it is brilliant, and because I think reading it is momentarily life-changing. You you don’t need to know anything about The Rabbit Hutch in order to make meaning from it:
“A bad summer storm. Green sky, tornado warning, violent winds. Joan was downtown, leaving work early, briskly walking toward the parking garage where her station wagon waited. On the opposite end of the sidewalk, a large woman in her sixties collapsed. Immediately, two people rushed to the woman’s side, gingerly tending to her, touching her shoulders and face and speaking to her as though she were their mother – a cherished one – and Joan understood that human tenderness was not to be mocked. It was the last real thing.
Dining alone on a blustery Easter night at the only Chinese restaurant in town. When she asked for the check, the waiter said, ‘It just started to rain. You’re welcome to stay a little longer, if you want.’ Miraculous. Joan recalls the existence of dogs, craft stores, painkillers, the public library. Cream ribboning through coffee. The scent of lilacs near her childhood home. Brown sugar on a summer strawberry. Her father’s recovery from the tyranny of multigenerational alcoholism. The imperfect but true repossession of his life. The euphoria of the first warmth after winter, the first easy breath after a cold, the return of one’s appetite after an anxiety attack. Joan has much to be happy about. She thinks: I am happy, you are happy, we are happy. These thoughts – how she can force herself to have them. Miraculous.” — The Rabbit Hutch, pp. 291–292
Yesterday, my dad sent two texts to our family group chat. “Clara just made from scratch homemade garlic parmesan gnocchi with caramelized onions, crispy pancetta, and a white wine cream sauce. And I just learned how to play the bass to Happy Jack by The Who.”
After a moment of intense jealousy, as I can no longer enjoy my little sister’s culinary talents — the message made me tear up. I thought of my dad coming home from a twelve hour shift in a New York City pediatric emergency room. I thought of my little sister covered in flour in her embroidered apron presenting my parents with little golden pockets of dough. I thought of my dad sitting down in his leather armchair with his burnt orange bass guitar and learning a new song that was worth texting about.
I think this is miraculous. I think that human tenderness is the last real thing.
Joan and her hopeful monologue have been visiting me often. The start of a new academic year always brings a spike in my anxiety, and I often try, as she does, to list things I am grateful for — things that feel like inexplicable blessings — as a way to tether me to Earth.
I am sick, and one of my friends sends me money to get a “post-illness recovery treat.” Miraculous. At Good Neighbor in Hampden, I watch a stranger comforting a crying toddler while her parents order coffee. Miraculous. Someone I do not know introduces themselves to me in a class where I am sitting alone. My roommate lies in my bed for a chat that makes it easier to fold my laundry. My boyfriend makes me a quesadilla because he thinks I might be hungry. My mom sends me a link to an article she thinks I might like.
Miraculous.
Miraculous.
Miraculous.
In moments like these, I think that community might be all that there is to being alive. That human tenderness is maybe not the last real thing, but has always been the only real thing.
I go to school and I take tests I forget to study for. I catch mysterious illnesses and get buried in important emails and don’t know anybody in my lecture hall. But it’s alright, because there are kind strangers and silent company and “I thought of you” and homemade gnocchi and a song to learn on the bass.
I think college is one of those several unique stretches of life where it is absolutely necessary to sit down and count small moments of gratitude out loud — to proclaim them all as small miracles. As the semester progresses, I will treasure all the human tenderness I find in the corners of Baltimore coffeeshops and Homewood classrooms and Guilford bedrooms. It is the last real thing.
Hailey Finkelstein is a junior from Ardsley, N.Y. majoring in Medicine, Science and the Humanities. Her column shares miscellaneous prose on current issues, the collective Hopkins experience and growing up with a pen in hand.
