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When the genie offers me three wishes, I’ll ask for gratitude. Let others squander my leftover wishes to fund their dreams or fix the world any way they like. As the one who cherishes whatever I may have, I’ll want for nothing and be immune to both the greed of others and their good intentions. This tepid bowl of chili won’t need sour cream, chopped red onion, fiery peppers, or shredded cheese once the genie has seasoned not it but me. And neither will I be deficient to myself. Already, darling, you and I own more than most humans have ever owned, and eat better, and savor it less. Even this mundane chili is richly exotic in most places on earth at any time other than ours. It’s we who fail the chili if it’s lacking. Taste it again more thoughtfully. Be the spice. You’re welcome. I may not be the ideal partner or even the ideal chef, but, for each other, if for no one else, we could both be. Of course, the genie will have the last laugh. Between the rubbings of the lamp, she has a thousand years to solve the riddle of every desire. However crafty my wish may seem—to live in pure appreciation—she’ll grant it only technically, as everyone knows, grant but not grant it. She could, for example, punish me for neglecting to protect what I already have. And I would surely suffer without your gratitude for my chili, if you catch my drift. It’s worth a second wish. Already I’m like an astronaut too long from home whose most exotic fantasy is lying beside you in our own bed whenever we’re not. If you felt that way about me, too, my first two wishes would do the work of three.
I have a list. I think it’s complete.
1. To love.
2. To be loved.
3. There is no 3.
To be honest, there is no 2: to be loved is inconsequential. Even 1 is secondary to staying alive, but when we can achieve it, 1 is the list. Picture this trivial scene: we have wasted hours in the rain standing beside cheese that isn’t selling, on a plaza, near a parking lot, in a suburb, at a mall. Speaking for you, we are diminished when we fail to unite cheese with cheese-eaters to benefit the cow, the grass, and the sun; rain, bacteria, and enzymes; the farmer, the monger, the merchant, the merchandiser, the purchaser, the consumer, several species, and the culture. Beyond being employed by a cheese maker, we love what cheese can mean: milk made safe, then made long-lived, then rendered exquisite through craft, which is cultural genius. But we’re selling nothing while segments of beautiful rounds imperceptibly rot, dry, weep, and mold. Our engagement ends, as it were, without a wedding, and so we pack the truck with jilted brides. But Mrs. Kim returns. “I sampled a cheese,” she says. “Which one was it? I want some.” We’re wet, forlorn, and in no way will benefit from Mrs. Kim, but you’re evolved. Your head turns toward her, but you see cars in the lot. Where else on billions of planets, you wonder, are cars? Nowhere. When other than now have creatures discerned the beauty of bent metal (or the flavors of milk made solid)? Never. We’re alone. You drag out the cooler, dig in the bin, lay out sample cheeses, offer the fragile wonder of life on earth to Mrs Kim, without ever consulting “The List” because if you live it, you don’t need it.
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