Outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire, August 28th, 2001
This morning, I woke up and thought: Life is a bitch. The fundamentals of human existence haven't aspired to anything but the basics since time began, not really. Sometimes, beauty lies in a perfect standstill. And therein lies the frustration of humanity. Nothing ever changes, not really. Why expect more? I don't know. But I know what it is to want more.
It's too bad, I think, that this sentiment has spread itself transparently thin throughout humanity. Watch American Beauty, read any of the countless biographies of the true artiste; I believe you will understand what I mean. A viable feeling has been bled dry by every angst-ridden/tortured/creative soul, and the rest of us normal, nine to five, never-participated-in-a-circle-jerk-or-satanic-ritual people are left sucking on the marrow, wondering why we can't get more than a taste without it feeling eccentric or cliched.
The concept of one's day to day existence becoming overwhelmingly unbearable in its stagnancy, this is a feeling that most people have skimmed over, even bathed in. Look at Thoreau, you know? He went off into the woods for a year or so, until he finally realized that lurking by the clearest mountain stream or humming imperceptibly beneath the sweet silent sound of a forest slumbering, repetition and routine waited patiently to claim him once again. All he got was a respite, which is all anyone gets when they take a vacation. At least most people have the sense to call it that. The man died a virgin; small wonder.
What I am trying to say is this: today started like any other day in the history of my existence: with the sun rising. And for some vague nagging reason, today, that pissed me off.
I don't talk in the mornings. And this morning was no different. Except that it was the last one I would be privy to in my cousin�s house for some time; several leaves were opting to cloak themselves in various hues of yellow and orange on the oaks in her front yard, and the air cradled a crispness that rocked gently through the open windows. In other words, the summer had ended, and classes at Tulane started early next week. I made a few grunting noises, as I am want to do, to the various comments Gloria was making on the weather, Phil, and Art.
Phil is my cousin�s best friend, an Irish carpenter with a rakish charm and a sinewy body, constantly flecked with paint and wood shavings. He has seen Gloria through the loss of her mother, a marriage gone sour complete with a restraining order, and almost every other catastrophe the joie de vivre has tossed her way. He has a loyalty, and a surliness, unmatched by any man that has ever come striding into her life.
Phil and Art have been in her house for weeks now, furnishing the backyard with a back deck. Every day, I watch them from the sitting window in her kitchen. Sometimes sweating and heaving; occasionally just standing there with their heads up their asses as the laughter from some joke about the sensitivity of women wafts up towards the maroon window ledges.
Today being no exception, I went over, knelt on the navy corduroy cushion adjacent to the windowsill, and listened to Gloria rattle off the things the gentlemen had done to irritate her since they had ambled in the door.
The cadence of her voice rose and fell, and I began to tune her out as soon as I was sure she was going to repeat the same notions that had been rolling off of her tongue for the past three and a half months. Not that I didn�t agree with her, most times� or enjoy our little morning conversations, revolving mostly around the pros and cons of having so much testosterone lying about, seemingly paid to be at our disposal. But, like I was saying� it was the same as any other morning. Which I was really beginning to notice, and become irritated with.
I was watching Art lift several two by fours, taking them off to the side of the house to be sanded. Something about a man's forearms; I swear. He was damp from the heat, and I was getting there. But again, this isn't a notable deviance from my daily. It's just something I always find noteworthy.
It doesn�t matter how many times he feigns ignorance or aloofness, I will always come back for more. Art is a practice session for me. His mere existence presents me with an inescapable talent I can stash in my rather formidable arsenal: The Art of Lusting After the Nice Guy. This is a seen as a risky proposition by some women, but those unenlightened few are probably put off by the potential for unrequited love factor. Of course, that could be easily rectified with one personal heart to heart with Art. He isn�t prone to emotion. At all.
Some thoughs on love from my perspective, or at least the perspective I endorsed as of this morning: There�s a line out of a movie that I really like, especially when it is flowing out of the incredibly luscious lips of Angelina Jolie. �Talking about love is like dancing about architecture�. So true. Don�t talk it; no words will ever come close to encompassing it or justifying its existence. I have always contended that love is, truly, a state of mind. And when you are in it, it�s also a state of the body. Hence the preposition in. When someone falls in love� you might as well say they fell in water. You could also mention that they should have watched where they were going in the first place. But once they�ve fallen, there�s nothing you can do except hand them a towel. You certainly can�t act as if they never got wet.
And this was Gloria�s problem. For a few different men, and a few different falters, she hadn�t realized she had gone for a swim until it was too late. Phil had been one of those unfortunates. I say unfortunate because it is several years past their given expiration date. Love�s potential curdled. Yummy.
I looked at my closest cousin, not in age or countenance, but certainly in demeanor; a beautiful woman with delicate, high cheekbones, and hugely expressive eyes. At the moment, they were widened considerably, an outward tell of her feelings towards the particular news she was relaying: Phil had, apparently, decided to get married.
Remember what I was saying about life being a bitch? About how nothing ever changes? Both of these sentiments are true. What can change, however, is the routine itself. More commonly, most people take the easy way out. They rearrange their feelings about the particular system they find themselves entrenched in. It�s called settling. When you decide to stick with what you have rather than take what you can get; usually, you are gonna take someone down with you.
Like now. Phil, whether he was aware of it or not, was most certainly pulling the proverbial rug out from under my dear cousin�s feet. I was a bit shocked. But that was paling in comparison to the puddle of emotions she was rolling through. Muddy waters, and Gloria was splashing them on anyone near enough to bear witness.
Now, this is not to say that Phil wasn�t in love with his new fianc�e. But somehow, knowing Phil, I doubted it. This seemed to be an affair of convenience, not one of the heart. Most likely, when Phil was breaking the concept of marriage down in his extremely pragmatic head, it had all come down to one basic question: Why not? And this was something Gloria knew, as well.
When they were younger, she and Phil had a timing issue: it was never right. I am sure there was some time stretched thin for a while there, during which one of the two of them (or both) harbored romantic interests. But there were marriages, and deaths; the loss of innocence, and the birth of children to contend with. Romance is usually the first thing to take a backseat when you try to get life�s natural by-products of chaos and distraction under control. Phil had stuck with the plan. So had my cousin, though I could tell she regretted it. And now Phil seemed to be deviating as well, though in a way none of us had expected.
Once, a sociology teacher I had in my undergrad years mentioned a fact I have retained to this day: The average lifespan for a marriage during the Colonial era was seven to ten years. Roughly the same as the present day. The reason then? Death. The reason now? Divorce. However, she (and I) wasn�t so concerned about the impetus behind it. It is more interesting to contemplate this: What if marriages were only supposed to last ten years? I mean, is the human race really equipped for such stagnancy until death (do they part) now that the life expectancy has climbed higher then ever contemplated in George Washington�s heyday?
I think about these kinds of things. But my cousin, she feels them. And Phil, he just wants to.
Art, far from being just another hourly workhorse, also tends to wax a bit philosophical on the topic of love now and then. His views, however, are jaded with youthful disdain and a bit of cynicism. He has said two things, though, that I won�t forget anytime soon. He told me that you must really know a person before you can be truly in love. And that is a process requiring years of circumstance and effort on the part of both parties. He also contended that I had never been in love, simply because I didn�t know either of my ex�s well enough. Until today, I thought he was, to put it blatantly, full of shit. And arrogantly so, to boot. But today� today has changed my mind. Today showed me that it�s possible you can never know someone as well as you think you do. And falling in love, that is truly is the state of one person�s mind. No matter how hard one tries to cultivate fertile soil for it to take root, it is an ongoing progress of removing rocks. Love itself can be a state of permanence. But being in it is seemingly precarious, at best.
So, Phil is marrying Rita, and there isn�t a goddamn thing my cousin can do about it. Gloria is inconsolable; disappointed and angry� with herself. She thought she knew him. She thought he would never do anything like this. But really, what she thought isn�t anything she is expressing to me; not verbally, anyhow. Still, I know. She thought that it would be the two of them, when it was all said and done. I believe that she actually thought Phil would come to his senses. Or hoped he would. The problem is, she had spent so much time hoping that it somehow morphed itself into expecting. And that is, in my personal experience, never a good sign.
She wanted more. And when I looked at Art, so did I. Like I said earlier, I know all about wanting more. But unlike my cousin, I have learned to be wary of expecting it.
Nothing in my life changed today. It was the same mundane existence peppered with interesting insights, the same flirtations lacking fruition, the same sun setting as I vent my thoughts onto this laptop, buoyed by thirty five thousand feet of forced altitude. But my thoughts on my particular circumstances are beginning to falter in their assurance. I understand Phil�s mentality, and it fills me with a numbing mixture of disgust and relief.
Maybe now is the time to settle. But I am still intent on railing against it, when the plane lands, and I walk out into the thick smell of jasmine lacing the night air in Louisiana. When it comes to relationships, or the lack thereof, it seems to be a lose/lose proposition. Why bother placing the bet?
I�ll tell you why. Because there�s always the off-chance. And I love the long shots.
11:56 p.m. - 2001-08-28
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