Recipe for Jealousy
Using organic emotion only
3 pt Fear
2 pt Anger
1 pt Sorrow
Why does one's past forever threaten another's future? How are two concepts which are both intangeable and arguably unreal altogther allowed to so frequently corrupt the most truthful aspect of our existence?
A deadly way to approach your present happiness with maximum collatoral damage
Isn't the present built upon and therefore absolutely dependant upon even the most infinatesimal detail of it's history? Would the same present exist at all with even the smallest modification to any event which lead up to it?
Is your lover not but what all his past lovers created and what you now decide to behold? Would he be the same lover gazing at you now if you removed but one piece of that history which conspired so sweetly to craft him? And you? Would you be able to recognize his beauty if he were to pluck those you loved before him from your experience and memories?
Would you respect him if he allowed you to erase even a single piece of him? Would you trust him if he chose to remove a piece of you? Would you feel as honored by his touch if he could only love a bit of you? Could you expect him to feel as warm in your embrace knowing that you would not wrap your arms around all of him to keep him from the cold? Could you expect him to stay if you warmed only those parts of him useful to you and left the rest of him to lie still and dark and out of view?
If he is a project with things still unacceptable to you, with things left to change then don't claim to love him now. Claim only that you could one day love him. Don't claim to love him wholly, but rather that you love only that thing your mind has created for you.
Now. Do you love him? Even all that which is beyond you? Doesn't it follow then that if you love this person now, then you must love all of those things which contributed to him? Which made him that perfect thing which you wouldn't change for the world? Aren't those things more responsible for his perfection than you are?
Didn't they break him in? Didn't they let him loose his awkward teenage lust upon them? Didn't they let him rant and rave and run and hide and return and apologize only to run and rant and rage again? Didn't they strengthen him rather than diminish him? Didn't they cry for him and teach him he mattered? Didn't they open their legs for him to teach him the tender trust of a woman? Didn't the let him batter his unbaptized and frenzied hips against thiers and whisper more love in his ear so he learned to trust? Didn't they want to die when he moved on to show him he mattered to someone?
He will not wound you quite as deeply because of them. He will trust you more willingly and more eagerly seek your trust. He will hold you more tightly because of them. He will caress you in the right places more quickly. He will read your soft breaths and notice the slightest change in your breath more readily because of them. He will know when to treat you gently and when to treat you savagely as a result of them.
He is perfect only because of them. You feel safer with him because of them. You feel loved and trusted and honored and special because of them. You are that much more correct in choosing him because of them.
And you love him now only because of them.
Because you love him you will be inclined to see the beauty he sees. To see your own beauty he reflects back upon you. To see others through his eyes. Perhaps he will show you beauty that you wouldn't otherwise have seen. And you might even love him more for this. For the way he speaks passionately about those things you didn't know you cared about until just then. Just then when he cared enough about you to share them with you.
And so he loved them once too. Can they be so ugly if he had loved them once? Can they be so vile if they too had recognized that deep and smokey quality of his soul that burns your nostrils when you wake against his flesh?
Do you fear that perhaps he once found them as beautiful as he now finds you?
Does the thought of him having shared his passions and visions with another somehow diminish the beauty of their ring in your ears? That he as seen beauty in others diminish that which he sees in you?
Does it diminish the beauty you see in yourself?
Does not your beauty sit aloft the multitude of others he has cherished? Aren't his tastes more refined, his eyes more keen and his heart less likely to engage in trifling matters now? Aren't you by definition the greater for all of his past? Aren't you by definition the most perfect person he has ever laid eyes upon?
He has built a bed and stacked mattress upon mattress for each and every one he cared for. You lay now with him at the very topmost of this edifice.
But you yourself have placed that pea beneath your back and blame him when it gauges at your flesh.
Perhaps knowing that you sit at the top upon all those past tears and sighs and quiet moments and breakthroughs and experiences indicates that you may not be the topmost rung for eternity. Maybe you dread a day when you might lie beneath another in his life's history. You will perhaps fade to him among his many and lose sight of that unique luster only he is able to remind you of.
That luster. That spark, that explosive genesis. That thing about him that makes your stomach hurt and heart pound and face flush at once. That thing that the other boys don't have which makes them toys. The only thing on earth which can truly remind you that you may not matter at all. If not to him, then to what? A toy?
That luster will surely die regardless of you or him.
They say that the luster will evolve between two people into something much more deep and meaningful. Perhaps. But that deep and meaningful thing will remain consistant and dependable. It will remain. The luster die and never return no matter how 'healthy' or long your relationship lasts with this man.
You will always remember it if you were lucky and aware enough. If you were present. It will eventually become your past even though he remains your present and possibly your future. Eventually though both your future will cease to exist and your present will only become someone elses past. You will exist only to some survivor of you both and only for a while.
Your past will whither and die intact and honor you if you are lucky. It will contort and pervert in the hands of those who choose to remember you in all likely hood. You will not own your past. You will exist only as that which is convenient to another. This is the bargain. You are remembered but only at the whim and to the advantage of those who choose too.
The future is an illusion and you do not own this either. It does not exist, cannot be proven beyond exaggeration of the past and will never actually be. When it arrives at your door and steps through your threshold it disappears into the present as surely as the sun is drown by the sea in that brilliant autumn fire as i gaze out of my window on this cool night.
The only thing that is real is that split second when he gazes only into your eyes. That seemingly infinate string of microseconds as you gaze back and recognize how in awe he is of your very existance. As thousands of muscles in his face shift together in the most subtle and uncontrollable way - a dance impossible to practice or perfect by design - a pure and honest orchestra of love reflecting back upon you. Love on motor reflex.
Be careful.
You might miss it.
A NOTE: I wrote this as a response to a close friend's blog who was enduring a brief exchange between two lovers regarding one's transgression via telephone with an x-girlfriend. A far less rambling or prosaic attempt at an explanation of my thoughts on the matter will either appear in a postscript edit to this blog entry or a future blog post.
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24.4.07
Portland Busses...
I misread my return home ticket...the 1 in 2:30 was obscured by the stamp. So I was two hours late. Next train doesn't leave until 6. At least I think that's what he said.
After playing mobile phone Yahtzee amidst cigarette pirates I decided to shuffle on up to find an internet caf or [preferably] bar. A cab driver pointed me up Broadway with the caveat that he didn't know anything about the internet.
The first two blocks had only a few people strewn about on various flat surfaces. Passing conversations about jailed husbands emanating from a gaggle of mid-40s who looked in their 60s I crossed onto 8th street.
A bus stop ahead with several shiny busses stopping to spill their contents out onto the brick and paved streets before quickly melting away again. One of these shiny, vintage looking busses didn't drive away at all though and it's spilled contents bobbed outside its windows. The bus driver, trapped in the cab was turned around, half hiding behind the wall at his seat. "I'm calling the police" he yelled and a young girl outside squeezed her boyfriends arm and relayed the message in 3rd Person. "He's calling the police." she said excitedly. "ya" he muttered back. Theyre eyes all watched something towards the middle of the bus, still inside, but I could not see what the driver had locked himself on the bus with.
As I approached the bus a shriek from its center drowned out the noise of the crowd outside. From behind the shady reflection of the street and crowd outside I could barely make out the image of a girl pacing back and forth in the aisle. In front of her, pressed up against the glass were two bodies grappling with each other violently. Hair was being pulled, wrists grasped and fists, when freed, hammering down or up in short spasms before being grasped again. No leverage for a lethal blow. More like the frustrated pounding of a fist on the hood of a car that will not start.
One figure rolled off the next and I could see the face of an older man, white hair and pink, sweaty cheeks pressed against the moist glass. His arms raised in defense, his eyes lacked the fury and fear which an actor might use if asked to reenact this scene. Instead they held instead the cool and alert calm necessary for survival. For him, at that moment, there were not spectators or shrieking girls. There were no bus drivers with cell phones or apathetic passers by. There was only a younger man trying to kill him.
This younger man would have been called a 'punk' several years ago, but I don't know what they are called now. The young, violent, white pseudo-intellectuals who ride that edge that exists between simple-style and 'fuck-you!, making them both attractive and dangerous simultaneously. They don't have jobs, or if they do they are outwardly bored and hostile to the bourgeois concept. The only thing that separates this 'punk' from the street trash are his youth and his ability to speak passionately about something. And that a young shrieking woman found him attractive.
At this particular moment the young black-haired man was yelling passionately at the cowering old man while his girlfriend shrieked on. I couldn't actually tell if she was goading her boyfriend on or trying to make him stop.
In the beginning there wasn't much difference between the punk and the old man I thought. They had most likely both contributed to the escalation and as the boiling point was reached, they were both locked together, oblivious to all but each other. Rage is like that. It's called a black-out rage not because it's alcohol-induced, but because your mind is so intensely focused on the task at hand that you can remember nothing, save some details about that which you are focused on. Sometimes you remember nothing.
But the punk got the upper hand and that's when things changed. He was now in the position of giving mercy, justice or cruelty - he was in control. He had won. The crowd outside came back into focus, as did the shrieking girl and the bus driver's threats. They all returned from the dark periphery. He then got to weigh all the evidence and decide which was to administer.
As the figures in the window faded farther into the reflection of their spectators and the shrieks of the girl became just another distant city noise the young man still stood challenging and the old man still slouched, heat moistening the glass and arms reaching skyward.
I turned and continued my walk, leaving the image of the pristine, 50's era bus parked neatly near the garbage less white curb cooling in the shade of the prestigious maple trees flanking this lazy drive. From the country-style brick houses could have easily emerged a brightly colored family on their way for a sunny picnic.
The bus doors had been closed, which I thought was odd. Wouldn't the driver have opened all the doors and windows if possible to let them out as one does when a giant, angry wasp is locked inside? Allow the older one to escape and the younger one to follow him outside, the girl shrieking all the way. Shrieking off the bus instead of on. Shrieking outside at the brightly colored families beneath the cooling maple trees.
But the doors were closed and the windows up and the wild-passenger tamer cowering half behind his seat, but ready to open the door and spring out should the ruckus migrate forward. Was he trained to do this? Was he trained to protect the shady maple and sparkling stone pavement from the in-transit violence contained within it's doors? If the explosion had happened a few blocks back, where the bricks are made of cheap cement and the only shadows cast are those of decaying buildings and cars with no headlights; would he have opened the doors and helped them tumble out onto the sickly steet?
I turned and kept walking up the street. No biggie I told the other gawking spectators. I've seen much worse than this and shame on you for gawking so! Pedestrians!
I realized as I crossed the street that I already knew what happened. What caused the girl to scream and the young man to assail and elder. I thought I knew. Without conscious effort I knew that the old man had some how offended the girl and the young man was defending her honor. She shrieked at the old man who had abused her in some perceived manner. She shrieked for his blood.
It next occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea why they were fighting. It could have been a million things, mathematically speaking. It could have been an overt, socially definable (and punishable) infraction on any of the threes' part. It could have been an altercation stemming from a quirk or peeve of one individual. It could be that one or all of them were insane or were perhaps staging planned or impromptu performance art piece depicting the over-throw of the current American regime by the young, angry youth.
What do we expect when we cross so frequently and intimately with so many strangers? Such sophisticated and often broken personas overlapping and filling such a closed space such as a bus. If neighborhoods tend to define, attract and collect 'like-minded' individuals, then the busses ferrying these people from neighborhood to neighborhood are very unique places, and possibly one of the only places which mix these polarized citizens together. Like neutral platforms or mobile churches making their way from tribe to tribe.
The bus is it's own sovereign neutrality, existing not beside ours or anyone's nation as Belgium lies next to France, but is rather a great nation in and of itself stretched apart and pulled across a country like the taffy veins of a varicose and aging beast. The bus has it's own language and it's own economics and currency. It has it's own geography as well; it's own ghettos and it's own beach-front properties. It has it's privileged areas and it's own suburbs which devalue as they move closer to the poor areas. And everyone, upon entrance to the bus moves directly to the bus-neighborhood which most closely resembles their own.
The street people enter from the back of bus to populate the U shaped seats where you are forced face each other. Where everyone's back is against the wall and no one is behind you. The elderly and frail occupy the front of the bus, in the same fashion, but so they may freely converse with the driver, and be made to feel more safe and protected in open dialogue with their guide.
Within the hind-quarters of the mini-country exists its own tribes; probably the most distinct and polarized than the others. Here the impoverished persist all the rules familiar to them at home on their streets. The blacks seek spaces near other blacks. The latinos sink more comfortably into their seats when next to another spanish speaker smelling of cheap beer. The white passengers divide themselves between foul-mouth youths wearing backwards baseball caps and rap-t-shirts and professional bums sporting pony-tails and white beards.
When lack of seating in the other sections forces a member of another group to the back of the bus, the decisions of where they sit follow a different set of rules. A set of rules understood and practiced by all passengers in all sections of the bus. A safe hierarchy which all, regardless of sex, race or class distinction fall upon. They are, in order: Economics, Gender and Relative Sanity. An economically sound and sane younger woman is the highest class on the bus and by far the most coveted by all others. Conversely, a younger, dirty, crazed male is at the bottom of this intermittent social class and passengers seek to avoid his proximity at all costs. I am sometimes this male. And I avoid the former class as much as they avoid me.
There are both written laws of the Transit Nation, as well as a plethora of unwritten customs passed on from generation to generation by example. From those not aware enough to find these rules out by oneself, they are happy to tutor you with cold stairs, crossed arms and moved seats.
After playing mobile phone Yahtzee amidst cigarette pirates I decided to shuffle on up to find an internet caf or [preferably] bar. A cab driver pointed me up Broadway with the caveat that he didn't know anything about the internet.
The first two blocks had only a few people strewn about on various flat surfaces. Passing conversations about jailed husbands emanating from a gaggle of mid-40s who looked in their 60s I crossed onto 8th street.
A bus stop ahead with several shiny busses stopping to spill their contents out onto the brick and paved streets before quickly melting away again. One of these shiny, vintage looking busses didn't drive away at all though and it's spilled contents bobbed outside its windows. The bus driver, trapped in the cab was turned around, half hiding behind the wall at his seat. "I'm calling the police" he yelled and a young girl outside squeezed her boyfriends arm and relayed the message in 3rd Person. "He's calling the police." she said excitedly. "ya" he muttered back. Theyre eyes all watched something towards the middle of the bus, still inside, but I could not see what the driver had locked himself on the bus with.
As I approached the bus a shriek from its center drowned out the noise of the crowd outside. From behind the shady reflection of the street and crowd outside I could barely make out the image of a girl pacing back and forth in the aisle. In front of her, pressed up against the glass were two bodies grappling with each other violently. Hair was being pulled, wrists grasped and fists, when freed, hammering down or up in short spasms before being grasped again. No leverage for a lethal blow. More like the frustrated pounding of a fist on the hood of a car that will not start.
One figure rolled off the next and I could see the face of an older man, white hair and pink, sweaty cheeks pressed against the moist glass. His arms raised in defense, his eyes lacked the fury and fear which an actor might use if asked to reenact this scene. Instead they held instead the cool and alert calm necessary for survival. For him, at that moment, there were not spectators or shrieking girls. There were no bus drivers with cell phones or apathetic passers by. There was only a younger man trying to kill him.
This younger man would have been called a 'punk' several years ago, but I don't know what they are called now. The young, violent, white pseudo-intellectuals who ride that edge that exists between simple-style and 'fuck-you!, making them both attractive and dangerous simultaneously. They don't have jobs, or if they do they are outwardly bored and hostile to the bourgeois concept. The only thing that separates this 'punk' from the street trash are his youth and his ability to speak passionately about something. And that a young shrieking woman found him attractive.
At this particular moment the young black-haired man was yelling passionately at the cowering old man while his girlfriend shrieked on. I couldn't actually tell if she was goading her boyfriend on or trying to make him stop.
In the beginning there wasn't much difference between the punk and the old man I thought. They had most likely both contributed to the escalation and as the boiling point was reached, they were both locked together, oblivious to all but each other. Rage is like that. It's called a black-out rage not because it's alcohol-induced, but because your mind is so intensely focused on the task at hand that you can remember nothing, save some details about that which you are focused on. Sometimes you remember nothing.
But the punk got the upper hand and that's when things changed. He was now in the position of giving mercy, justice or cruelty - he was in control. He had won. The crowd outside came back into focus, as did the shrieking girl and the bus driver's threats. They all returned from the dark periphery. He then got to weigh all the evidence and decide which was to administer.
As the figures in the window faded farther into the reflection of their spectators and the shrieks of the girl became just another distant city noise the young man still stood challenging and the old man still slouched, heat moistening the glass and arms reaching skyward.
I turned and continued my walk, leaving the image of the pristine, 50's era bus parked neatly near the garbage less white curb cooling in the shade of the prestigious maple trees flanking this lazy drive. From the country-style brick houses could have easily emerged a brightly colored family on their way for a sunny picnic.
The bus doors had been closed, which I thought was odd. Wouldn't the driver have opened all the doors and windows if possible to let them out as one does when a giant, angry wasp is locked inside? Allow the older one to escape and the younger one to follow him outside, the girl shrieking all the way. Shrieking off the bus instead of on. Shrieking outside at the brightly colored families beneath the cooling maple trees.
But the doors were closed and the windows up and the wild-passenger tamer cowering half behind his seat, but ready to open the door and spring out should the ruckus migrate forward. Was he trained to do this? Was he trained to protect the shady maple and sparkling stone pavement from the in-transit violence contained within it's doors? If the explosion had happened a few blocks back, where the bricks are made of cheap cement and the only shadows cast are those of decaying buildings and cars with no headlights; would he have opened the doors and helped them tumble out onto the sickly steet?
I turned and kept walking up the street. No biggie I told the other gawking spectators. I've seen much worse than this and shame on you for gawking so! Pedestrians!
I realized as I crossed the street that I already knew what happened. What caused the girl to scream and the young man to assail and elder. I thought I knew. Without conscious effort I knew that the old man had some how offended the girl and the young man was defending her honor. She shrieked at the old man who had abused her in some perceived manner. She shrieked for his blood.
It next occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea why they were fighting. It could have been a million things, mathematically speaking. It could have been an overt, socially definable (and punishable) infraction on any of the threes' part. It could have been an altercation stemming from a quirk or peeve of one individual. It could be that one or all of them were insane or were perhaps staging planned or impromptu performance art piece depicting the over-throw of the current American regime by the young, angry youth.
What do we expect when we cross so frequently and intimately with so many strangers? Such sophisticated and often broken personas overlapping and filling such a closed space such as a bus. If neighborhoods tend to define, attract and collect 'like-minded' individuals, then the busses ferrying these people from neighborhood to neighborhood are very unique places, and possibly one of the only places which mix these polarized citizens together. Like neutral platforms or mobile churches making their way from tribe to tribe.
The bus is it's own sovereign neutrality, existing not beside ours or anyone's nation as Belgium lies next to France, but is rather a great nation in and of itself stretched apart and pulled across a country like the taffy veins of a varicose and aging beast. The bus has it's own language and it's own economics and currency. It has it's own geography as well; it's own ghettos and it's own beach-front properties. It has it's privileged areas and it's own suburbs which devalue as they move closer to the poor areas. And everyone, upon entrance to the bus moves directly to the bus-neighborhood which most closely resembles their own.
The street people enter from the back of bus to populate the U shaped seats where you are forced face each other. Where everyone's back is against the wall and no one is behind you. The elderly and frail occupy the front of the bus, in the same fashion, but so they may freely converse with the driver, and be made to feel more safe and protected in open dialogue with their guide.
Within the hind-quarters of the mini-country exists its own tribes; probably the most distinct and polarized than the others. Here the impoverished persist all the rules familiar to them at home on their streets. The blacks seek spaces near other blacks. The latinos sink more comfortably into their seats when next to another spanish speaker smelling of cheap beer. The white passengers divide themselves between foul-mouth youths wearing backwards baseball caps and rap-t-shirts and professional bums sporting pony-tails and white beards.
When lack of seating in the other sections forces a member of another group to the back of the bus, the decisions of where they sit follow a different set of rules. A set of rules understood and practiced by all passengers in all sections of the bus. A safe hierarchy which all, regardless of sex, race or class distinction fall upon. They are, in order: Economics, Gender and Relative Sanity. An economically sound and sane younger woman is the highest class on the bus and by far the most coveted by all others. Conversely, a younger, dirty, crazed male is at the bottom of this intermittent social class and passengers seek to avoid his proximity at all costs. I am sometimes this male. And I avoid the former class as much as they avoid me.
There are both written laws of the Transit Nation, as well as a plethora of unwritten customs passed on from generation to generation by example. From those not aware enough to find these rules out by oneself, they are happy to tutor you with cold stairs, crossed arms and moved seats.
10.5.05
The Day of my Divorce
we held hands until he told us to raise them.
Is this marriage irreconcilably broken?
...yes.
Tears were in my eyes and by the time I answered my last question my voice was cracking. In this silence between each question memories spun between us...interrupted by the rhythmic stamping of papers.
Have you both agreed up equal divisions of your assets?
...yes.
The judge never looked at us. Once. Not when we approached, nor when we answered, nor as we spun on our heals to depart. We were properly filled out signatures; a series of balances to quickly check, stamp and process.
Would you like copies of this divorce?
ummmm...yes?
Please have a seat outside and wait for the clerk to bring them to you.
I would never want a copy of this marriage, but I would love -- if necessary, to have a copy of this Divorce.
She picked me up outside my flat in her new sports car. She was typical Sarah. Large sunglasses framed by full, tinted hair crawling down the sides of her face, neck and shoulders like the hanging gardens. She had gained a little weight which at first soothed me. She was wearing clothes that were a bit too tight for her current stature...which at first made me feel superior, or that this was all somehow justified -- 'You are fatter than I, so you must be being punished'.
Those thoughts helped me get to the parking lot in front of the courthouse. We chatted, but it was all so much banter that escaped me as the only sense I employed was sight. As we stepped from the car and began walking to the court I got a better look at her. Yes she had gained weight, but I couldn't hide behind that anymore. She was still Sarah and I still love her -- and she is therefore immune to those petty little judgments I was trying to use to protect myself. I soon loved all of the changes in her as much as if she was not about to become un-Mrs. Alex Taylor -- it was more as if she had just gotten home from the beauty salon and I felt compelled to look her over and notice all the subtle changes.
So this is my wife. This is my wife not trying to please me anymore. I wanted to know more about her. And as I looked more closely, I realized that she looked like her mother. She was wearing clothes that I didn't understand, but she still had that bounce in her step that made me want to chase after her.
We had agreed to meet early as husband and wife for the last time. To try to get to know each other in that last hour before we would never see each other again. We went for coffee near the courthouse and talked about nothing...careful to avoid anything and everything. We talked about family and friends and not Joe. We talked about work and not people I had dated. We talked about Isabella and not our plans for the future. We talked about our cooking and not who we fed it too. We didn't talk about what happened. We talked about what time it was now.
As the time of the hearing drew closer she began asking me more personal question...things that I could not possible ask in kind. I guardedly answered...not wanting to add more awkwardness to the conversation by saying 'I'm not comfortable with that', or 'why could you possibly want to know that' or 'do you still love me?'. I knew the answers to all of those. She was trying and so was I, and that is more than we had done in a year.
Eventually I grew more silent. I was running out of things that I wanted to know...and to fill the void she asked things that she did want to know. She asked me more about the girls that I have known since her. I knew that this was safe. She is comfortable with the man she is with, at least comfortable in it with everything except for me. She was trying to be comfortable with him, in me. By knowing about my relationships, she would feel more relaxed -- that she wasn't the only one who had found someone. I wouldn't...or couldn't give that to her. She is the only one of the two of us who has found that...and perhaps the only one who really wanted that.
Things grew more silent and we headed to the courthouse. Metal Detectors and Elevators...bathrooms and benches...half hour, hour...and the hallway gradually filled until the locked doors finally opened. The clerks were surprised that we were both there, and in fact, out of the divorcees, we were the only 'couple' that showed. All the others had gotten signatures in absentia and were there with mothers, fathers, brothers and new boyfriends.
We got in line and I got one last hug...and the first of many tears from her today.
Would this day, though changing nothing practical in either of our lives, be as symbolic as when we were married -- having lived together already? Would some perceived feeling of Freedom, or Hope rise in me? There isn't even a ring involved in this. Not even taking off the ring you had put on one another. We both have long-since taken our rings off, though my thumb still ventures to find it absently from time to time.
I was more concerned with making it memorable...or mean something. The stale thump thump thump of the stamps...the rustling of paper...the monotone orders given by the judge...the endless last names called. My last name...Our last name called...for the last time. I wanted that last time to mean something. I wanted to make up for so many months of our last name having absolutely no meaning -- or at least extract what meaning it did have -- that we had ignored since she left me. I wanted to at least find out if it still meant something to the both of us, not let the moment pass without noticing it -- or brushing it away. Once brushed away, you can only look back and wonder if it did mean anything in those last moments.
Taylor!
We got up and I grabbed her hand. Her purse was in it and so it was an awkward grasp. I think it surprised her. She lifted a finger to allow an embrace of sorts, but let go as if it was but a transitory kiss of greeting. I kept hold, but as soon as we approached the bench the Judge told us to raise our hands. I did.
Is this the same god that married us I am swearing too now? I wanted to unbind our hands...unbind them from the vows that bound them one and a half years ago. We got ourselves into this together and I wanted as much love and understanding getting ourselves out of it. No. I wanted MORE understanding. That is something that was lacking. That was something that contributed to this bureaucratic unbinding. Understanding.
But this was an undoing factory. Geared only to undo with as little understanding as possible. This was pure, cold math for purely cold people. Tears and ceremony are appropriate for a promise, but in that promise's breaking one can find no honor; just process it as quickly as possible. Mistakes are like that.
I think that a divorce ceremony should equal the marriage ceremony. To get divorce you have to hire a divorce planner, invite all the people who came to your wedding, rent the same hall, get the same officient, give back all the gifts perfectly wrapped, spend as much time on reneging the vows as you did creating them, get drunk, pelt the bride with her bouquet, have a last dance and speed away in different cars. People would either stop getting divorced so quickly or they would start having much less extravagant weddings. But at least the finish would be as meaningful as the start.
And where better to fully express all the meaning? When you are getting married you don't know what the hell you are in for. But you think you have all the time in the world to find out. When you get divorced you have many things you would like to understand and only a small amount of time together to try to understand.
We got our copies at $8.00 each. I didn't know why I needed mine, but I had said 'yes', as I had to everything else. We got to the lobby and I wanted her to take our picture in front of the court's clock. She laughed and said she had never heard anything like that and that I was weird. "Well you should know that...you divorced me didn't you?", I responded.
We looked around and found somebody not in a big rush to go get a divorce and asked him.
"We just got divorce and would like our picture taken in front of the clock".
"Good Idea".
She laughed and handed him the camera.
foto missing
We made our way out of the metal detectors, onto the street and back to the car, now each officially with different lives and names.
"Would you like to have lunch? I'm starving." she asked me.
"I could use a Bloody Mary...we could go to Maximillians...Axel says he refuses to serve you and Joe" I laughed.
"Yeah right...he's a restauranteur...our money is as green as yours. There are lots of restaurants in the area that are ours though...where else?"
"Mercs' closed".
"Ha...!"
"It doesn't matter. You know despite what happened, the horrible things we did to each other...the horrible breakup...I love you and I am honored that I got to be your husband, even for such a brief time. I'm so, so sorry for the things I did to hurt you."
"I will always love you Alex. You will always be so special to me. I always wanted to wake up in another country with you...speaking another language...yelling at our kids in Italian...but in the end...when I had to choose between my family and a life with you -- and some people say I am horrible for my decision...I feel sometimes I am horrible for my decision -- I had to choose what I know."
"I know sweetie. I always knew that I think. I told Sanjay when you and I first met, that we would learn from each other for a time and then you would leave me. I never really could see us together forever. But when forever came I couldn't picture forever without you. But I guess it doesn't have to be completely without you."
"I love you Sarah and I always will."
Is this marriage irreconcilably broken?
...yes.
Tears were in my eyes and by the time I answered my last question my voice was cracking. In this silence between each question memories spun between us...interrupted by the rhythmic stamping of papers.
Have you both agreed up equal divisions of your assets?
...yes.
The judge never looked at us. Once. Not when we approached, nor when we answered, nor as we spun on our heals to depart. We were properly filled out signatures; a series of balances to quickly check, stamp and process.
Would you like copies of this divorce?
ummmm...yes?
Please have a seat outside and wait for the clerk to bring them to you.
I would never want a copy of this marriage, but I would love -- if necessary, to have a copy of this Divorce.
She picked me up outside my flat in her new sports car. She was typical Sarah. Large sunglasses framed by full, tinted hair crawling down the sides of her face, neck and shoulders like the hanging gardens. She had gained a little weight which at first soothed me. She was wearing clothes that were a bit too tight for her current stature...which at first made me feel superior, or that this was all somehow justified -- 'You are fatter than I, so you must be being punished'.
Those thoughts helped me get to the parking lot in front of the courthouse. We chatted, but it was all so much banter that escaped me as the only sense I employed was sight. As we stepped from the car and began walking to the court I got a better look at her. Yes she had gained weight, but I couldn't hide behind that anymore. She was still Sarah and I still love her -- and she is therefore immune to those petty little judgments I was trying to use to protect myself. I soon loved all of the changes in her as much as if she was not about to become un-Mrs. Alex Taylor -- it was more as if she had just gotten home from the beauty salon and I felt compelled to look her over and notice all the subtle changes.
So this is my wife. This is my wife not trying to please me anymore. I wanted to know more about her. And as I looked more closely, I realized that she looked like her mother. She was wearing clothes that I didn't understand, but she still had that bounce in her step that made me want to chase after her.
We had agreed to meet early as husband and wife for the last time. To try to get to know each other in that last hour before we would never see each other again. We went for coffee near the courthouse and talked about nothing...careful to avoid anything and everything. We talked about family and friends and not Joe. We talked about work and not people I had dated. We talked about Isabella and not our plans for the future. We talked about our cooking and not who we fed it too. We didn't talk about what happened. We talked about what time it was now.
As the time of the hearing drew closer she began asking me more personal question...things that I could not possible ask in kind. I guardedly answered...not wanting to add more awkwardness to the conversation by saying 'I'm not comfortable with that', or 'why could you possibly want to know that' or 'do you still love me?'. I knew the answers to all of those. She was trying and so was I, and that is more than we had done in a year.
Eventually I grew more silent. I was running out of things that I wanted to know...and to fill the void she asked things that she did want to know. She asked me more about the girls that I have known since her. I knew that this was safe. She is comfortable with the man she is with, at least comfortable in it with everything except for me. She was trying to be comfortable with him, in me. By knowing about my relationships, she would feel more relaxed -- that she wasn't the only one who had found someone. I wouldn't...or couldn't give that to her. She is the only one of the two of us who has found that...and perhaps the only one who really wanted that.
Things grew more silent and we headed to the courthouse. Metal Detectors and Elevators...bathrooms and benches...half hour, hour...and the hallway gradually filled until the locked doors finally opened. The clerks were surprised that we were both there, and in fact, out of the divorcees, we were the only 'couple' that showed. All the others had gotten signatures in absentia and were there with mothers, fathers, brothers and new boyfriends.
We got in line and I got one last hug...and the first of many tears from her today.
Would this day, though changing nothing practical in either of our lives, be as symbolic as when we were married -- having lived together already? Would some perceived feeling of Freedom, or Hope rise in me? There isn't even a ring involved in this. Not even taking off the ring you had put on one another. We both have long-since taken our rings off, though my thumb still ventures to find it absently from time to time.
I was more concerned with making it memorable...or mean something. The stale thump thump thump of the stamps...the rustling of paper...the monotone orders given by the judge...the endless last names called. My last name...Our last name called...for the last time. I wanted that last time to mean something. I wanted to make up for so many months of our last name having absolutely no meaning -- or at least extract what meaning it did have -- that we had ignored since she left me. I wanted to at least find out if it still meant something to the both of us, not let the moment pass without noticing it -- or brushing it away. Once brushed away, you can only look back and wonder if it did mean anything in those last moments.
Taylor!
We got up and I grabbed her hand. Her purse was in it and so it was an awkward grasp. I think it surprised her. She lifted a finger to allow an embrace of sorts, but let go as if it was but a transitory kiss of greeting. I kept hold, but as soon as we approached the bench the Judge told us to raise our hands. I did.
Is this the same god that married us I am swearing too now? I wanted to unbind our hands...unbind them from the vows that bound them one and a half years ago. We got ourselves into this together and I wanted as much love and understanding getting ourselves out of it. No. I wanted MORE understanding. That is something that was lacking. That was something that contributed to this bureaucratic unbinding. Understanding.
But this was an undoing factory. Geared only to undo with as little understanding as possible. This was pure, cold math for purely cold people. Tears and ceremony are appropriate for a promise, but in that promise's breaking one can find no honor; just process it as quickly as possible. Mistakes are like that.
I think that a divorce ceremony should equal the marriage ceremony. To get divorce you have to hire a divorce planner, invite all the people who came to your wedding, rent the same hall, get the same officient, give back all the gifts perfectly wrapped, spend as much time on reneging the vows as you did creating them, get drunk, pelt the bride with her bouquet, have a last dance and speed away in different cars. People would either stop getting divorced so quickly or they would start having much less extravagant weddings. But at least the finish would be as meaningful as the start.
And where better to fully express all the meaning? When you are getting married you don't know what the hell you are in for. But you think you have all the time in the world to find out. When you get divorced you have many things you would like to understand and only a small amount of time together to try to understand.
We got our copies at $8.00 each. I didn't know why I needed mine, but I had said 'yes', as I had to everything else. We got to the lobby and I wanted her to take our picture in front of the court's clock. She laughed and said she had never heard anything like that and that I was weird. "Well you should know that...you divorced me didn't you?", I responded.
We looked around and found somebody not in a big rush to go get a divorce and asked him.
"We just got divorce and would like our picture taken in front of the clock".
"Good Idea".
She laughed and handed him the camera.
foto missing
We made our way out of the metal detectors, onto the street and back to the car, now each officially with different lives and names.
"Would you like to have lunch? I'm starving." she asked me.
"I could use a Bloody Mary...we could go to Maximillians...Axel says he refuses to serve you and Joe" I laughed.
"Yeah right...he's a restauranteur...our money is as green as yours. There are lots of restaurants in the area that are ours though...where else?"
"Mercs' closed".
"Ha...!"
"It doesn't matter. You know despite what happened, the horrible things we did to each other...the horrible breakup...I love you and I am honored that I got to be your husband, even for such a brief time. I'm so, so sorry for the things I did to hurt you."
"I will always love you Alex. You will always be so special to me. I always wanted to wake up in another country with you...speaking another language...yelling at our kids in Italian...but in the end...when I had to choose between my family and a life with you -- and some people say I am horrible for my decision...I feel sometimes I am horrible for my decision -- I had to choose what I know."
"I know sweetie. I always knew that I think. I told Sanjay when you and I first met, that we would learn from each other for a time and then you would leave me. I never really could see us together forever. But when forever came I couldn't picture forever without you. But I guess it doesn't have to be completely without you."
"I love you Sarah and I always will."
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