I did it!

I solved a Rubik’s cube last night. I started learning on the flight from Boston to Seattle as we were moving back to Juneau after three years. I like how planes limit my options and force me to slow down and focus. Without the Alaska Airlines crossword or meals (covid danger), we were even bored-er than usual, so I finally assented to Alder’s offer to teach me to cube.  

I remember when the Rubik’s cube was all the rage in middle school. I made a few half-hearted attempts and never solved a single face. The Rubik’s cube always carried with it a vague whiff of failure. Then in December, for his Project-Based Learning class Alder was to choose something he didn’t know how to do and learn it. 

 

“I think I want to learn to do a backflip,” he said. 

 

My mind leapt to C-4 spinal cord injury, paralysis, and wheelchairs. “Mmmm,” I said, feigning neutrality. 

 

“Or how to solve a Rubik’s cube.”

 

I shrugged. “Maybe that would be a little more practical.” 

 

I got him a set of Speed Cubes for Chanukah, and within weeks he could solve the cube in under a minute. I marveled at the alacrity with which that kid laid down synapses, the seeming ease of his hands manipulating the cube, a flurry of chaos suddenly yielding the clean lines of a fully solved cube. 

 

“I could never do that,” I thought. 

 

It took 11 days for Alder to teach me, pressing me to learn and practice, occasionally becoming frustrated at my clumsy hands and obdurate memory – and last night I solved it. 

 

The method Alder taught me, which he learned from a YouTube video, solves the bottom layer, then the middle layer, then the top layer. If you have a flaw in the base, you can’t go on. Several times, I solved the first two layers, then my brain sputtered and suddenly the bottom had a cube out of place. I had to start over. A lesson in patience, no doubt, and care. My earlier scattershot efforts focused on stickers, not blocks. I was taking a surface approach, attempting to solve one sideat a time. It doesn’t work that way. Each block has one, two, or three faces, and each face has to be oriented correctly. You have to look beyond the surface and see it fully.

 

The method for solving each layer is a little different. For the bottom layer, you make a daisy, then a white cross, then put the white corners in place. The middle layer is tedious and arrhythmic as you put the edge pieces in place. The top layer requires a series of four algorithms. An algorithm can be defined as a set of guidelines that describe how to perform a task. Alder loves the algorithms, and he loves the word. When Alder was learning in December, Rosie and I laughed as he’d mutter incomprehensibly: R, U, R prime, U prime, R, U2, R. Now it’s my turn to mutter as I struggle with the final algorithm: F2, U, R prime, L, F2, L prime, R, U, F2. 

 

I learned in plodding steps, needing to master each before moving on. It was a triumph to solve through to the finish, and I immediately wanted more, pestering Alder to time me as I brought my times down toward two minutes. “Again,” I said. “Watch me.”

 

Alder asked as we said goodnight what it means to me to solve the cube. 

 

It’s a confidence boost, I said. I can learn new things.  And it’s satisfying. 

 

It’s weird, he said, how people work so hard at something totally pointless. He was thinking of the strange universe of competitive speed cubing, where cubeis a verb and solveis a noun. The record for a 3x3 Rubik’s cube is 3.47 seconds, held by Yusheng Du. Alder and I watched the video of his record-breaking solve multiple times. Every time, it boggles my mind. 

 

I don’t know, I said, what’s the point of anything we do? There’s value in just working at a thing. 

 

Twelve days ago, we crossed the North American continent, masked and on guard, returning to an empty shell of a house and the task of turning it back into a home. We repatriated mattresses and spatulas and broke down boxes and restocked empty kitchen cabinets and searched for the vacuum cleaner and moved couches. When it became overwhelming, I’d pick up the Rubik’s cube. The focus required to stay on track and remember each sequence forced me to close myself to distractions. Maybe the Rubik’s cube is a form of meditation, like walking a labyrinth or saying the rosary, liberating in its stricture. 

 

I was talking to a friend tonight about the paradox of choice. The more choices we have, the less happy we often are, awash in the anxiety of making a wrong choice, paralyzed by the fear of taking the wrong path, weighted by regret, of having no one to blame but ourselves. John used to joke that I was vegetarian(ish) so I’d have only one or two options in restaurants. 

 

Because every choice implies loss. The flipside of every yes is a no. For much of this spring and summer we suffocated under a sense of impending loss. If we moved back to Juneau, we would grieve the life and friendships and hard-earned sense of place we’d created in Arlington. If we stayed in Arlington, we would mourn our history and identity in Alaska, lose the people and place and mountains we considered home. Loss lurked around every corner. 

 

And yet, when we finally overlooked the dysmal monotony of the ten-day forecast and flew back to Juneau, there was relief in having made a decision. We were following a path, a pattern, the algorithm of our lives [Juneau, Arlington three years, Juneau], and in that algorithm we are finding focus and discipline. Unpack boxes. Retrace favorite trails. Say hello to friends and neighbors. 

 

I thought about Alder’s question again. What does the Rubik’s cube mean to me? It embodies the power of new learning and the comfort and simplicity of constraint. It’s a fitting metaphor as we sit at the cusp of a new chapter in our old home, placing each block in an act of ongoing creation and faith.   

The sun came out and Mt. Roberts beckoned. That's my beautiful not-daughter Tal.

We have the glacier to ourselves this summer. Alder is in orange on a bike. Glacier is slumped in the background. 

Boy Scout Beach in the wind 

June 6, 2020: Rosie graduated high school. I surprised her with a quilt so she can keep her daddy close.