Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Life, not lived in, but visited

I showed him photos of my ex’s wife. He drew quick conclusions. “She is a very strong woman. She wears the pants around the house. He needs to grow a pair.”

He was clearly on my side, like a girlfriend who always wanted the best out of her friend, and tried to comfort her so that she would not feel too bad. Plus, he found my stories entertaining. My past, ancient past stories, my recent past life, they were good stories. This was before I had to hit the reset button, to re-begin, to be pure and conservative again, to not be a wanderer but be a reflective person who thought and cared deeply, and acted even more cautiously.

We saw each other semi regularly. I sometimes rested my head on the top of his tummy, or we’d lie next to each other, on his only couch, we’d read together. Sometimes we chatted about religion, science, pop culture, politics and travel. I liked the aspect of lying next to someone. To feel the body intertwined but in a sobering, platonic way, it felt unorthodox but liberating.

He liked to wear cashmere sweaters and baggy jeans, I did not like his choice of clothing but I was neither his girlfriend nor his mother. I just wrinkled my nose and gave him that look of disgust, but he took it in good spirit. He finally got rid of his unruly hair, his hair was shorter, and he appeared to be younger looking that evening. I did not like that either. I was always finding faults in him. He seemed to have lost more weight since I saw him last.

"This was not comfortable. I needed a new pillow." I was squirming.

He was all skinny and bones. I wanted some cushion to rest my head on. He tossed his fish pillow to me. He had lean hands and shapely arms. We used to go out and do things, now we just hung around his place, ate take out and watched TV programming.

He warmed up plates in the microwave. I brought his favorite Chinese take out. From Henry’s Hunan, the best Kung Pao Chicken in town. For kicks, I added Howard’s Kung Pao Pork. And of course steam rice for two. He liked the dishes. So did Don Johnson and Jimmy Carter. I double parked at the ally way of Natoma Street, ran in, with my hair still wet from the gym’s shower. I had not done Chinese take out for over fifteen years. It felt utterly strange. Like I was back in college.

On that particular evening, he told me what was going on at work. And what he was working on. He offered me pot. He showed me his new invention. Then he played this old 1980s documentary. It was our deal. I brought the take out and he supplied the video.

I had often wondered if we could form these bizarre friendship that lasted for decades, or if eventually these relationships would die like those romantic ones.

That evening I failed to mention to him that I had rekindled my romance with my ex. I did not want to tell him that because he would find it tedious and annoying. He wanted to think of me as someone who was evolved beyond the temptations and who could withstand the agony of sexless life. I did not want the change of perception to occur. I wanted, deep down, only a fantasy, an unrealized longing, an inspiration of a sort. Life, in the end, was best not lived in but visited.

As a visitor, you got to sample all that was good about a place, and you never was there long enough to see the everyday mundane; you took constant pictures; you memorized your best of the best encounters; and you let your imagination grow wild, and through the test of time, your impression of a place was solidified and molded into a plaque, sitting forever on the mantel, serving as a reminder that you had once visited this place and your world had gotten better because of it, it was an expanded view. You were enriched by this experience but not burdened by its true nature. You saw what you wanted to see and not one bit more.

I was always a visitor to this life I had led. I watched this woman falling all the time and she’d pick up her pieces and then pretended she had never experienced the pain, the neglect, or the dismissiveness. She was at once strong and ignorant.

I wanted her to live this life, but she would not hear. She had long given that up. It was always better to visit this life than to live in it. She never recovered from the last experiment.

I hugged him goodbye.

I would see him again, of course, but I did not know when.

We did not make plans. But I knew that I would be visiting him again. Like I visited this life.

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