Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Chapter One: Starting at 'The End.' (In part, 2)

(Cont.)


-Eventually, I couldn’t take the disappointment any longer. Perhaps disappointment is too large a word? I am wary of using words that that are too large for there utility, Jack Lewis taught me that. If I were to insert a better word, or a better string of words, it would look more like this, “The car usually worked, it usually ended up getting me to the destination, eventually, but there was a certitude in my mind that a better, more fluid solution existed, I had but to seek it, diligently.” I ceased to see the value in the lessons of, “Oh, so that is how a fuel pump works!” or “I bet this brown wire is supposed to be connected to that little bracket thing right there…” and desired a car that I could get in, turn the key, and drive to Hanny’s diner, day or night, no questions asked.
-Cars can be sold; wives cannot, at least not within my belief system. I selfishly, perhaps, wanted a car that loved me as much as I loved it; I think I felt same way about what I wanted in a wife.
-Yet, a valid counter argument could be made regarding this sentiment. After all, as aforesuggested I do subscribe to the ‘the two shall become one flesh’ school of thought. With that being said, I would love me, therefore I would love her, therefore she would love me. Maybe it is not such a selfish desire after all? It is not that I have said I wanted a car that loved me regardless of mistreatment; I said I wanted a car that would love me back. My shoulder just brushed against the thorny hedge of the ‘does unconditional love exist?’ question, I shall pass on the hedge cutting, after all I am wearing short sleeves. Maybe it is innate in the make-up of the human nature to seek this Eros, and all that it touches, be reciprocated? Maybe it is part of the natural law, perhaps?
-My “library” was actually the second bedroom of a two-bedroom condo that I bought for me and my former fiancé, Marie. I use the term ‘bought’ loosely as I would be paying for it for the next thirty years; it is strange how often one refers to a residence as “his house,” when in reality the bank owns it, and the bank is owned by the government and the government is owned by a group of Asian business men in Hong Kong.
-I entertained so few visitors in those days and procured so many books that a library seemed a better use for the space; a place of respite away from my normal world, the kitchen and living room, who were already deafeningly silent. The life of a celibate is one of ‘domestic silence.’ There is no sound of one puttering around in the adjacent room, no tapping of a foot on the floor, or laugh resulting from a Jane Austin quip. There were sounds mind you, but they an amalgam of sirens leaking through the vinyl double-hungs, drunk bar-goers struggling home still finishing their last call beverage, and the creaks of the old, abraded floor. But those sounds were not mine, Neil Diamond would agree with me, that song belonged to everyone. My song was now silent, it was sort of my own little version of Spinal Taps’, “It goes to eleven!” but conversely mine went to eleven; quiet.
-We had spent months planning an October wedding, and unplanned the same wedding a week before the nuptials during a less than delightful ‘conversation’ on a more than delightful Saturday. There was no single straw what broke the camel’s back, straw is manageable. Yet, there was a time when one plus a million equaled too much and better senses prevail. “Better senses” is again a poor choice of words; it is far too small and requires expounding, which is my intention.
-“It is better this way,” how many times had I heard that ‘encouragement?’ Too many to count; oddly enough I believed it, not out of bitterness mind you, from day one. Day one being the ‘unplanning’ Saturday or sometime slightly before that warm, otherwise sublime, afternoon. The idea of, “This {marriage to be} is a messed-up state of affairs which will only get worse, and walking down this path really should not be continued,” was not revolutionary to me, yet by the same token, it was an immensely difficult Truth to come to terms with.

3 comments:

a said...

'Are you surethat you do not suffer needlessly?' he said. 'I wish to help you. You need counsel in your hard choice. Will you not take mine?'

'I think I know already what counsel you would give, Boromir,' said Frodo. 'And it would seem like wisdom but for the warning of my heart.... Against delay. Against the way that seems easier. against refusal of the burden that is laid on me. Against- well, it must be said, against trust in the strength and truth of Men.'~JRR Tolkein

There is always that warning. How often do we wish we had heeded it? Too often.

mommers said...

Agreed...truth is narrow. Yet, paradoxically, it is the TRUTH that sets us free...(which is not very narrow).

djmase said...

A, man...that guy was so good with his words and his thoughts that were in one school directly related to the plot and in another school directly related to his metaphor...sigh... Simply amazing. And yes, we all have too many, far too many.
Rev. 1:3.