Marshmallow of Destiny

Marshmallow of Destiny

by Elia Anie Kim

First published in The Tusculum Review, 2023

My first encounter with a marshmallow in the US takes place in my final year of grade school in Brooklyn. I'm ten years old. I have recently moved from Korea with my family. The teacher, a lanky woman with her long, straight hair tied in a ponytail and a penchant for denim pants and cigarettes, pulls out a small plastic bag during class and tears it open. She takes a strange white object from inside, impales it on a metal fork, and with her lighter, lights it on fire. There, in the classroom. In front of her students. The mystery matter blazes impressively in a small flame on her silvery utensil. She watches it turn dark nonchalantly as if she always sets such things on fire in rooms full of little children. Satisfied, she blows it out with a huff. She mutters something in English, then she gives the bag to a student sitting nearby, who takes one and begins passing it around. I don't know what it is.

Eventually, the bag makes its way around to me and I take one, pinching the white mass and turning it over with my fingers. It feels soft in my hand, and springy. I look around and see others eating it. I think about saving it to share with my sister when I get home, but I don't. I place it in my mouth and bite into it gently, noticing how it squishes between my teeth before yielding its inner flesh. It tastes chalky, then sweet. Sticky. Foamy. It is decidedly the most confounding confectionery I have come across in the new country.

When I go home and see my sister, one year older than me, I feel a little remorse for not having saved the marshmallow for us to experience together. I don't know that one could easily purchase the fluffy stuff at a supermarket.

Back then, I didn't know a lot of things.

Fast forward four decades. I'm listening to an audiobook on neuroscience, and the author tells me about the marshmallow test. The famous psychology experiment was carried out at Stanford by Walter Mischel and his team in the 60s, and involved mostly four-year-olds being left alone in a room with one marshmallow. Before the researcher left the room, the children were told that they could have the marshmallow, but if they waited fifteen minutes before eating it, they could score another one.

Two-thirds of the children didn't wait for the second marshmallow.

What's more interesting is what the kids did while they waited. On the internet, one can see all sorts of behaviors from the many tests that have been conducted since. Some shut their eyes or hid the marshmallow so they couldn't see it. Some played with it. Some pinched off tiny bits and nibbled on them. Some talked to themselves. Some didn't even wait for the tester to leave the room before grabbing the marshmallow and stuffing it into their little mouths. Those that devised ways to distract themselves fared better on the test.

After having the children wait for the yummy candy, the researchers waited, and waited some more. When the marshmallow munchers grew into teenagers, the researchers followed up with them, and found that the ones who were able to resist the temptations of the taunting treat were more attentive, better socially adjusted, flaunted higher SAT scores, and had lower BMI, according to their parents and teachers. And this held true even later in their lives. How you did in the marshmallow test can predict your success in the future, the researchers boldly claimed.

I've heard about this study several times now, and I'm always fascinated by it. Maybe because it's profound. Maybe because it involves cute little children and a photogenic candy. Maybe because marshmallow is a funny word. This time, I go further. How would I have performed on the test? Would I have taken the tasty snack before the fifteen minutes were up? I imagine my four-year-old self plopped down on an oversized chair with my stubby legs dangling off the floor, my head big and round with the unflattering bowl haircut, staring dopey at the marshmallow on a tall table in front of me. What would I have done?

In high school, I would have had an okay body fat, performed well academically, and had the ability to focus. How about self-control? I recall one Christmas how I couldn't wait to open a particular present. I gave it a jiggle and listened. I traced my fingers over the flimsy paper. Still clueless. Over the next several days, I kept pulling at the wrapping until I was able to steal a glimpse. A pair of satiny black shoes. The paper was a bit mangled as a result and I felt terrible. But I think overall, not bad for self-control.

What about my husband? Could his future ability as a mate and breadwinner of the household be told in the sugary thought experiment? I ask him and he tells me he doesn't know. I think about my sister. My mother had repeatedly told the family how, as a child, she would go out of her way to approach strangers, then stare intensely into their faces before bursting out in tears. Would she have been the girl that I saw in the video crying as she stuffed the puffy piece into her mouth?

But something bothers me. The ifs. What if I'm not familiar with the marshmallow because of my ethnic background? What if my attitude toward junk food has been shaped by my parents, who were strict with moderating our intake in Korea? What if I always had a jar of sweets on my kitchen counter? What if I believed that eating either one or two marshmallows was inconsequential, whereas saving for a car or a house was different?

As old thoughts fizzle out like the flame on the teacher's scorched candy, new questions light up in my noggin. Is the marshmallow test about willpower and self-control, as the author of my audiobook states, or is it about being ingenious and resourceful, and having the ability to see things from a different perspective? The author states that willpower is like a muscle which can be strengthened or worn out. If the kids were forced to stare at the tantalizing treat as in the film A Clockwork Orange, and couldn't trick their way out of it, then that would be more about willpower.

I think how the word "willpower" sounds very American, all muscle and brawn, while "self-control" hints at a subtler, more intellectual approach. I tell myself I like "self-control" better.

As I'm shoveling salad matter into my mouthparts, a piece of green falls off the fork and slips into my shirt pocket. I reach in with my fingers and pull out a bit of lettuce. I also draw out a piece of meat from yesterday. It is hard and desiccated. Eating has become slightly messier after I became disabled. I can't bend forward, at least without causing muscle spasms. I also can't look down on my plate without straining my neck muscles, so I usually eat what is on top of my plate, then remember the food on the bottom.

Moreover, all my shirts have pockets. Unless it is charging, my cellphone is snug inside reading me audiobooks when I'm away from the laptop, keeping me distracted from pain. It also makes me less anxious, like an electronic pacifier.

After lunch, my husband and I decide to polish off the remaining Choco Pie cakes. They are marshmallow pastries popular in Korea. Yes, Koreans are familiar with marshmallows, just not in their weird naked form like in the US. These two are the last of the twelve-pack. He came across it in the import section of the local supermarket and thought that it'd be a neat treat for me. I only found out after opening the box that it has palm oil.

I stick my nose into the open wrapper and take a sniff. An aroma of chemicals, like paint thinner, hits my nose and makes me wince inside, because it hurts to make a proper stink face. I gingerly pull out the round pastry, two thin layers of cake with marshmallow between, lightly covered in chocolate. I take a bite. The taste is no better. Not overly sweet like the Wagon Wheels in the US. I ask my husband to describe his experience, because I always think I'm smelling and tasting things differently as a result of my ailment. He tells me it smells and tastes more "mocha" than chemical. He hates mocha. I wonder if I grew out of my taste for the childhood snack. Maybe they changed the recipe. I look at the wrapper. Maybe it's the brand, not the Orion brand I remember from Korea.

I cringe internally with each bite while seeing an image of an endangered orangutan with a sad face standing pathetically and all the trees lopped off behind it, just stumpy things jutting out of the ground. The experience of the marshmallowy treat is unpleasant, but one thing I hate more than snacks with palm oil is wasting snacks with palm oil.

What is self-control in the age of the Anthropocene and climate change when rewards manifest years and decades later, often indirectly, and not even for our benefit but those that may or may not be related to us? What is delayed gratification when our planet is in peril and the ecosystem is floundering? Are all the grownups that succeeded in securing the second marshmallow living a less opulent lifestyle with reduced carbon footprint, or is our idea of success only a Western version drenched in obscene consumerism?

Over the years, I have been guilted into giving up ramen instant noodles and Cadbury Creme Eggs (palm oil), cephalopods (brainy octopus), and shrimp (for every pound of shrimp caught, as much as fifteen pounds of bycatch are discarded dead). Due to my new health issues and limitations, I began eating meat again, lamb three times a week for iron, and chicken for extra protein, limiting my animal products to more ethical farming when possible.

But despite this, my ability to resist junk food has been a struggle for me. This improved greatly after I became disabled, as the snack bags in the small closet under the staircase are now out of reach.

Since my last trip to the ER related to a major sinus surgery, I keep a packing list handy in case I have to return to the hospital again for some reason. In spite of everything, I think I'm doing okay. Then my husband tells me he'll have to go to the city for a half-day, the first time after the pandemic shut things down, and I start to panic. I know I can handle a half-day without him as long as we prepare ahead of time, like making sure things I need are on the top shelf of the fridge, but it doesn't stop the rising anxiety.

I think maybe the marshmallow test is not about willpower, or self-control, or delayed gratification, but about coping.

I hold the broken pickup stick upside down and inspect the grabby ends. Instead of flapping with the squeeze of the trigger, they flop loosely. I had used it to raise myself up from the chair after retrieving a dropped smartphone and it apparently couldn't handle my weight. I examine the mechanism. The rubber claws have slipped off the plastic pegs that anchor them to the string. Nothing actually broken. I try to pull the limp pieces back into position but they will not cooperate. I take the pickup tool and place it in stick purgatory, where it will wait to be saved or trashed.

It's okay. I have another. I have many sticks, five all together—one cane, one selfie stick with a hook attached to the end, and three pickup tools. I started with one when I began having difficulty reaching down to pick up objects off the floor. Then when that stick fell over and I couldn't pick it up, I bought a second one. All was well until my husband came home one day and found both sticks on the floor by the door. So I added a third to the clutch.

Only one of the three grabby tools are able to pick up a dropped smartphone.

Since becoming disabled and being unable to reach as far or as low, I began to empathize greatly with T-Rex. I have come across various images of the stubby-armed dinosaur online looking flustered, like when it's unable to take off its birthday hat after the party comes to an end, or when it's unable to reach an emergency button as a meteor approaches. There's even one for my husband, an image of a grinning T-Rex holding two sticks on outstretched arms with a glove slipped over each end, and a caption that reads "I love you this much."

We talk about my rampaging outside like in a scene from Jurassic Park, but it is only talk. These several years, my jaunts consist of brief walks for medical appointments. I can lurch around stiffly inside the house mostly without a cane, but I can't sit or stand or walk for very long, so I have to keep switching between them, or my muscles seize up even more. I can't crouch on the floor, and have great difficulty climbing stairs.

To cope with pain, I listen to audiobooks to distract myself. And I write. I write about birds. I write about spiders. I write about my symptoms, and the physio exercises I do daily in a log. I try to eat healthy. I also limit snacks to once a day after lunch. I know a balanced diet and exercise are both important for my physical and mental health. I also know the benefits of relaxation, like soothing meditation shit, but it hurts. When I try to breathe through my lower abdomen, the muscles begin to spasm, which makes breathing even tighter, and causes other muscles to seize in turn. So I take shallow breaths.

As for social support, besides my husband, I have none.

Despite my personal conviction that I would have excelled on the first part of the marshmallow test, partly as a result of being Korean and having reverence—or fear—of adults, I don't know how I would have performed on the follow-up test when I was a teenager. It depended on who you asked. My parents, who didn't know and never asked how things were in school beyond the good grades? Or my teachers, who saw me as a stereotypical quiet and smart Asian student? Or the other teachers, who I cursed out defiantly?

Being terribly shy, I coped with immigration and racism differently than my sister, who was an extrovert. She felt it more viscerally, I think, whereas I detached myself from the encounter and internalized it. In fact, it was my sister who had first started showing antisocial behavior in high school and I'd been merely parroting her. I didn't know at the time that this was an early sign of her schizophrenia.

With parents being emotionally and physically distant, we were not given the attention of the two older sisters, or the fifth-born precious son, who lived with my uncle in the more affluent neighborhood and went to a better school early on. In the deeply impressionable years that was adolescence, we struggled.

After moving to Australia ten years ago, I estranged myself from my family, from my painful past, from mom's zealous Christianity, from my sister. And while I was slowly losing mobility and gaining pain four years ago, her schizophrenia resurfaced and, overcome with depression, she died.

I never told her about my marshmallow encounter in grade school, how I thought of her and wanted to save it for us to share, but didn't. Had I exerted more self-control then and not eaten the marshmallow, would she still be alive now?

In 2019, I travel to Sydney with my husband for an MRI scan. I have recently seen a neurologist for my mysterious condition, specifically weakness on the left side of my body. This is my first time. I'm a bit nervous, but also excited because I rarely leave my house. In order to prepare for the visit, I watched videos online to become more familiar with the procedure, as the images of the hulking machine slowly swallowing horizontal patients make me a tad uneasy.

When I arrive at the hospital, the technician tells me that the brain and cervical spine would have to be scanned separately. This means that I have to return again for the second one, which means more pain and a three-day recovery for strained muscles. It is not what I want to hear. I get the impression that she took one look at me and decided that I may have trouble lying through back-to-back sessions. Disappointed, I change into a gown and take my position on the table. She shows me the device I'm to use if I want to communicate with her during the procedure. She places large headphones over my ears for noise, and I lie completely still as instructed.

As the table starts to slide toward the claustrophobic chamber, head first, my body begins to tighten and my mind gets excited. I try to relax the body methodically, and begin thinking up soothing images for the mind. Soon, chaotic noises start—knocking, clicking, and banging—as the magnetic resonating machine does its thing. To reconcile this disorder, I think of the sounds as an experimental piece of music, maybe a soundtrack for an interpretive dance. I allow myself to relax into the chaos like a soft bed—and fall asleep.

When I start to wake, the procedure is wrapping up. To my surprise, the technician tells me that, because of my composure, she went ahead and scanned both the brain and cervical spine. The session took forty-five minutes. As she hands me the CD-ROM with the images, I think about sharing with her the tricks I used to stay calm during the ordeal. Maybe it would be a funny story for her to share with coworkers, or something that she can use for other patients. But I don't.

My neurologist finds nothing unusual in the scans.

Despite my successful attempts at devising brilliant distractions on some occasions, I struggle with others, like noisy neighbors in my apartment building who slam their door, a newbie keyboard player striking out a stilted chorus from "Jingle Bells" every night, and loud music with thumping bass from outside. When I find myself spewing hateful maledictions upon humankind from stress and disrupted sleep, I try to recognize it and come back to center. To reset.

Sometimes I try to reframe the situation as a willpower-training session, that if I can find a way to not let it bother me, I will ace it in the future when it truly matters. Sometimes I tell myself that these are only insufferable because I'm sick and in pain. Other times, I reason through them, as they're mostly not malicious acts. To be fair, I have also engaged in thoughtless behaviors in the past, and probably will continue to without being aware of it.

I recall many years ago when I was sitting on a plane waiting for takeoff, and suddenly dreading that I'd be stuck on the flight with a crying baby. Sure enough, just before the gates closed, a woman boarded the plane with her wailing infant. At that moment, I remember feeling immense stress and loathing. But strangely, I was also aware of the horribly repressive tightness not only in my body but in mind. I physically and mentally relaxed the muscles and opened myself up to a sunnier demeanor, almost inviting it in. I noticed the perception of reality change profoundly, and no longer felt stressed, even when the hatchling continued to howl several seats behind me.

My interactions with my species have been fraught with unpleasantness. In addition to racism and bullying from family and strangers, my social clumsiness hasn't helped matters. Over the years, to minimize these negative emotions, I began to reduce my dealings with people and withdraw from the world. I stayed inside more, and spent time working on my creative works to the point that it consumed me in an unhealthy way.

What if I try to approach this with a similar thought process I've used in other situations? Try seeing it from a different angle instead of being distracted by the one marshmallow in front of me? My problem is that I should be focusing on the positives, as well as putting things into perspective, instead of obsessing over the negative aspects. When I think about it, I've had many wonderful experiences in my life as a result of people, some who had gone out of their way with kindness. I've certainly had my share of bad days and have misspoken and misbehaved as a result of being awkward.

Needless to say, my social network is in dire need of an expansion, especially in case something happens to my husband. I know that having many balanced anchors to rely on means greater resiliency in tough times as more than one can give way, like during the pandemic lockdowns.

For the palliative effects of nature, while I do not partake in gardening of any sort, I have a nice view of trees over the bird bath. And the birds, they come in a variety of colors and temperament here. My husband and I often gossip about the feathered neighbors.

Other important things for coping are enrichments and hobbies that provide varied stimuli. Scientists found that lab rats living in an enriched environment were better at learning to drive rodent cars than their barren-caged brethren, but that both groups were less stressed out after learning the difficult task. For me, it's listening to books and writing.

Another thing I rely on to manage my grueling ordeal—humor.

As for grieving, when I was no longer able to work on my animation film about albatrosses, I started writing a book about the birds that visit my bird bath. But after my sister died, I found my personal stories drifting into my writing. It was extremely painful to revisit our past, but giving her life form, and her death context, has enabled me to reconcile it better. Since completing the book, I try to avoid images which are likely to trigger intense emotions, as these lead to increased physiological symptoms in my mangled body. Oddly, I find that most music produces this response whether or not they bear direct association with her, so I rarely play music except the same classical album while I'm getting ready for bed. I know that this improper emotional healing will leave an ugly scar.

At times when my heart aches, I try to think of love instead of loss, and sometimes, it helps.

In 2018, the famous marshmallow test was repeated by researchers with a much larger sample size. When they controlled for various social and economic factors, like household income, mother's education, and home environment, they found that there was no significant correlation between the four-year-olds' ability to delay gratification and their outcomes later in life.

It turns out that success was more about being raised in a nurturing home environment than waiting for the second marshmallow.

At three o'clock, I start my physiotherapy exercise on the floor. My husband assists me with the stretches at the beginning. There is a noticeable increase in some of the muscles, but my left side does not fit in properly, causing strain from my feet to my head—sinus, eyes, face, and all. When I begin to despair from lack of progress and numerous setbacks, I try to focus on the smaller tasks ahead of me, and it becomes more manageable. I found this approach helps. Having a goal, a purpose. Research conducted on elderly people in nursing homes has found that even the humble responsibilities of choosing meals and social activities, as well as watering a plant in the room, instead of having these tasks done by the staff, produced noticeable health benefits in the residents.

Now and then, the severity and novelty of pain causes me to panic, requiring an act of reconciliation each time. Sometimes being at peace and acceptance is not a zen state of being, but a series of small fires to huff out. But as the brain slowly rewires itself, I find that it gets a little easier.

At times when I catch myself floundering and the anxiety swells inside me, I remind myself of the stories of people I've read and those unwritten, with cancer, Parkinson's, MS, that I'm not alone in my experience. It is a shared story, and this thought brings me comfort. I feel anchored to the web of humanity instead of carried away in a torrent of emotions.

A week ago, I found a young orb-weaving spider clinging to a clothesline after a long week of rain. I relocated it to a metal bracket below the AC where the previous orb weaver had lived for several months, and it has stayed there since, stitching its exquisite web each night. I was very fond of the former arachnid resident whose exploits I was able to witness until her passing seven months ago. Later in her life, perhaps to cope with the wretchedly barren terrace, she started building slanted orb webs in the cramped space underneath the AC, which increased the size of her silken web.

A sense of wonder sustains me through the darkest days. For me, it is ultimately this kinship with the natural world which provides the most solace, and makes me feel less estranged from the universe.

There is so much beauty in life, no matter how brief. In the end, everyone dies. Some die with rage. Some go slouching into that good night. When my time comes, my wish is that I go with grace.