A Letter To Jenna About Her Impossible Husband
There’s this crazy nowhere between being alone and together where I can’t concentrate or make any sense of people. It reminds me of that place on the beach where the waves lap the sand. Not necessarily ocean. Not necessarily beach. That vague place between. Like orgasms. The difference between you and being gone. Oblivious. How to explain this? Should I just shut up and wash the dishes?
I’m trying to write in the office, alone. But the family is home and they disturb me. This is not to say that they’re loud or causing commotion. It’s not that at all. But their mere presence, their being there – it creates a different me than the one who writes in solitude. When they’re home, there’s no me apart from the man that they constitute. The husband. The dad. Created by relations.
So I give up. Today, there will be no writing and that’s okay. I’m better at this than I used to be. I used to wonder if I would ever make it work, if I could possibly endure the contradiction between my love for these people and my need for solitude. But today it’s okay. Let’s get something to eat. Let’s go to the park.
But at the park there’s a woman chasing her child and laughing. She is about to lose her hat. She claps her hand to her head, so close, but misses. Her hat is gone and as it falls it occurs to me that I don’t know anything. I am at the park with my family and I have no idea about anything. This is not being filled with awe and wonder at the inexplicable miracle of being. It’s not anything. The fact of faces startle me. I have no faith in park benches. A paper boat drifts merrily down the stream.
A very fat boy complains to his mother and, for no reason in particular, I hate him. The benefit of this feeling is that it calls me back to the world of things that make sense. I can once again form sentences. But I don’t speak. Together, with my family, I daydream about being alone in my office, wondering how I might begin to talk about this crazy nowhere between being alone and together.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Reader Comments (21)
You are so strange and probably the best writer I've ever come across on the internet. Just captivating and odd.
I read this with my heart in my throat. I know what you're talking about - that moment - or at least my version of what you're talking about. I could never, ever put it into words as beautifully as you do, though. I remember having thoughts like this as a kid and asking grown-ups if they understood. They didn't. I wish I could have asked you.
-Ellie
Feel ya. You use much better words than me all in a row though. and...what Amanda said.
This is my favourite-ever post of yours. Because it's how things are for me, too. And I'm really self-involved that way.
Look.
I have love-Love-LOVED several things you have written. I'm pretty sure you know that. I tell you, however, to underscore the importance of my saying the following:
The fact of faces startle me. is my very favorite string of words you've ever seated alongside one another. Good God.
This is exactly how I feel today.
Your vague place in between reminds me of this place in my mind that feels like cotton candy. A thousand mile stare gets me there.
Grateful for having read you at this moment.
Sometimes it's difficult to break outside of the role of the narrator and just be a player.
thank you for this truth.
This sounds like it came from the weird and wise child that was me, many, many years ago. I vaguely remember having thoughts like these that have since been squashed or diluted or lost since....well, now. Thank you.
This is the eternal question for parents. And people, I suppose. We're social, not solitary. But it's hard.
I want to hear more about orgasms.
somebody labeled this procrastination......at least it's why I never get anything accomplished.
I thought I was the only one.
Or, maybe I just don't have the balls to state it so baldly, the apparent hate for random people. For random reasons.
I have moments of "come here and let me beat the shit out of you, asshat", but tend to tuck them inside because I'd rather my kids not call people asshats. At least until they're old enough to use the term properly.
Hmmmmm. I almost get what you're saying. I see-saw feverishly between wanting to be around people and wanting to be left alone. "The fact of faces startles me" sigh.
Wonderful post... Very informational and educational as usual!
Acai Optimum
TOTALLY get the alone vs. people around thing...I am somehow different even when I am locked in a room far away from the others in my house. Glad it's not just me.
Rock On Mr. Jesus!
There was a kid like your fat boy at the jump-jumps this weekend and I immediately despised him. But then he asked me if a sign on one of the machines was telling him he couldn't go on if he was wearing dirty socks, and I realized he was WAY too old to not be able to read the sign himself, and then I loved him. Weird how things like that can change in an instant.
Didn't Danny write about fat boys who complain to moms? Boys who grow up to become mailmen? Men who deliver mail to Jenna about BHJ? Thought so.
You are like that girl - Siobhan Magnus from American Idol - so talented, so weird... and I just can't stop reading.
The fact that I've found you agian makes me happy! Your writing is amazing!! So f'n amazing!
i truly love the way you write
To be a part of and the wanting of something else and the hating of the inane but the fullness of it all being sorta swoonworthy? At the same time it is annoying? I agree.