I sat across a table last night with a cup of yerba mate tea and a growling stomach because it's more datelike when someone else pays and I'm not one to take advantage of gender dynamics like that, and it's a coffeeshop so I don't want want bakery when mine is better or an overpriced salad and as we talk I'm noticing a tendency to zone out into smile/nods, because we've covered all this ground before and I want to talk about something else, but I'm not sure what or if I'm just being moody and unreasonable or if I'm just spoiled by my morning coffee and snark partners in peonage and have become too accustomed to a certain level of most-encompassing discourse. And I'm not sure where he's at either, because we're not kids anymore, and usually the lines are laid out more firmly: platonic or not so much.
I drive home, coming up the stairs I realize I'm so glad to be alone now, wondering how this happened as I scoop some leftovers out of the fridge to nuke in the microwave and make myself some tea and wait for the neighbors to stop by with house keys and cat-watching details. There are other things I'm thinking about, spinstery things like my garden plot and the cats that will be taking up residence this weekend and what I want to make next on the pottery wheel and how I need to start taking these little scattered bits and get my guitar out and see if I can write something I'd want to listen to. It might be that this is easier and safer.
It's not that I'm antisocial at all, I hosted dinner on Monday night and when the Queen of the Bondo and her husband came over, we hung out for a bit in the living room talking about books and cities and such, but then I cherish this space of solitude that's my own domain and wonder if that makes me selfish or self-preserving or a little bit of both.
my wife is a nicer person than i am and not at all from the alt-fringes so there isn't the kind of ease between us that i might have even with some whippersnapperblogger but there is a kind of ease there that can't be faked/forged and without which making a life together would be a misery so tend to your gardens
ReplyDeleteI think the ease is harder to quantify, too. There's people I have everything in common with on paper and nothing to say to and no spark of camaraderie, and others who are completely different than yours truly with whom I have a connection that goes deeper than seemingly insurmountable externals like cultural difference and divergent taste. I guess it's some eternal riddle of humanity that will take a lifetime to tease out.
ReplyDeleteyep, someone wiser than i once noted that there are problems to be solved and mysteries to be lived thru and knowing the difference between the two makes all the difference in the world
ReplyDeleteYou better write some tuneage, dammit. I'm dying to flick my Bic that I don't have yet.
ReplyDeleteTrying to understand the connection dynamic will drive you more batty than contemplating the size of the universe. I gave up years ago, but that's why there are riffs.