A lot of my life has been spent trying to escape it's resemblance to an Edward Hopper painting. This was true before I knew who Edward Hopper was; and from the moment I first discovered him, I have wanted deperately to reach in to his paintings and pull his subjects from the canvas and just hold them. I do not wish to elaborate on that here, because this is not an art history paper. But if you need further explanation, google Edward Hopper, and keyword painting titles such as "Automat," "Room in New York," or my personal favorite "High Noon." Well, after serious, obsessive, preferential study of his works during an art history course in college, I was left with one solid fact of - not art, but life: There is no escaping Edward Hopper. He captured all the moments that we don't really write about in our diaries. He captured the moments we spend thinking about what we should - or wish we could - write in our diaries. He captured our privacy, our solitude, our loneliness, our daydreaming, our disconnectedness, our reflectiveness, the moments that none of us can escape (and sometimes might not wish to)...without invading it or interfering with it.
Hopper's work slays me because I am somewhat introverted...and therefore require some degree of cavetime; but long stretches of isolation and solitude - particularly social solitude (Hopper's specialty) make me nervous.It creates an energy which feeds off itself, and can be damn hard to break free from. Add an overactive imagination and a perceived ignorance of appropriate social graces to the equation, and you start to get a sense of being trapped by your own mind. This was particularly true in my mid to late teens. Marijuana may or may not have helped this; but either way, I still had a tendency of feeling extremely uncomfortable - especially around new people.
I blame this on the move from Tennessee to New York at age 8 or 9...the children who called me "stupid," "hick," "retarded," from the moment they heard the accent...so my public speaking career was ended at an early age. One boy poured some sort of joke shop novelty itching powder down the inside of my coat. Another one wrote a story about a martian named Amy, made it clear he was referring to me, and read it aloud in class. In my previous elementary school, I loved all my classmates; and babbled incessantly with them as kids will do. But these little New York bastards were mean...and sarcastic; a concept I was entirely unfamiliar with and therefore loosely defined as psychological terrorism at the time. I have since embraced it...but it didn't come easy. So I stopped talking....except to my 2 friends: Julia - the tall, geeky girl with glasses who also got made fun of a lot...and a japanese girl whose name I don't remember except that I had a hard time pronouncing it...and she didn't speak much english and therefore spoke even less than I did. We quietly collected and traded "Hello Kitty" paraphenalia after school.
Anyway, I hadn't made as much progress in overcoming this as one would hope by my teens. I was still quiet around new people..."new people" having been identified as potential terrorists; and when I was in a position where I had to speak in order to answer a direct question...I would get so nervous that 9 times out of 10, I would stutter and stammer ...or get so self-conscious that I would give up on the sentence halfway through, then try to correct it with a quick ending, and make NO sense whatsoever in the process - and then cower or blush with embarrassment, just to give it that extra awesome super-cool kick. In short, I was a wreck at parties.
By the time I was 17-18, I had discovered that weed seemed to have a leveling effect for this dilemma; I was no more suave or smooth...but I also just didn't really care - and in fact - found my own social ineptness to be HILARIOUS...so much so that I could take some ribbing over it and enjoy the absurdity of it with self-deprecating humor for friends who seemed to love me anyway. However, if I had to meet a "new person" prior to smoking weed, the same awkward behavior invariably emerged.
One particularly painful night, I was out with a friend...maybe a couple of friends...I don't really remember; but I remember that the company I was with consisted of people I had known just long enough to be newly "okayed" as friends...so the sense of security was not absolute yet. They decided we were to go to the house of someone I didn't know... In fact, I think it was one of those "friend of a friend of this guy I know" things; and there we would hang out and get stoned. I was uncomfortable already, but they seemed to know what they were doing, so off we went.
We walked into someones living room - containing...oh...6 or 7 people; 2 or 3 of whom I recognized but did not know that well. The rest were people who had since graduated...which automatically made them royal and terrifying despite being friendly upon brief introduction. The first thing that struck me was that there was amazing music playing on the stereo...and this was not uncommon as a first impression; in those days I clung to soothing or stunning background music whenever fortune offered it in uneasy situations. I suppose I still do. It was unfamiliar and so I made a mental note to try to figure out how to casually sashay over to the turntable and figure out who it was before I left. But first, I had to sit still on a couch and try not to say anything stupid while a bowl was being passed around. That was my one job. Sit in my Edward Hopper painting.
After a few passes of the bowl, I had loosened up enough to feel that I could ask what music was playing without serious detriment; unfortunately, I was also in the habit of speaking quietly...as will happen when you are unsure of whether or not you should speak at all. So, I asked the room - still unsure of whose house we were in. A few people looked up and a few didn't. I'd like to think the ones who didn't simply did not hear me...but the ones who looked up didn't say anything either. So I panicked...until one of the strange boys walked over to the stereo, picked up an album cover, brought it over to me, handed it to me and warmly told me who they were. The artwork on the album cover was amazing...and I think, despite my better judgement, I exchanged a few sentences with this "new person" about it.
He must have drifted over to the couch which was adjacent to the one I was sitting on sometime while I was obsessively studying the album cover and listening to the music. After a while I looked up and scanned the room from left to right to see what everyone else was up to...until I landed on the boy who had handed me the album; and he looked at me - and he smiled. It was one of the best smiles I have ever seen in my life...so much so that I can clearly remember it 20 years later. It was not smug, or lecherous, or fake, or assuming...it was natural and just seemed to say, "Hello other person in the world." And in that moment, having just been handed a life preserver, I looked at him and thought, "You don't know this and I will never tell you but I would totally crowbar someone in the kneecap for you if you ever needed me to." I didn't usually look too hard at people's faces due to evidence that if you look at people directly, they may try to talk to you, or expect you to talk to them, thereby revealing your weakness in that area. It had been such a safe and comforting moment for me, I didn't want to ruin it. And it occured to me that he might just be proud to have introduced someone to a music that he liked. So I took a mental picture and looked back down at the album cover; knowing full well I would be buying a copy the next day.
We never became well-aquainted. The last time I saw him (maybe 10 yrs. ago), the smile was still there and still fantastic; and even though I had become better adjusted to myself and other people...his smile still reminded me of that terrified girl who was afraid to ask the name of a band. And I remember feeling regret, that I had never made an effort to try to become friends with him...knowing that it was because I didn't want to ruin whatever benign orientation he had to me that made it possible for him to offer that natural, friendly smile the few times I did see him. He seemed centered where I was off-balance, friendly where I was suspicious, open where I was reserved. What kind of friend could I be to someone like that?
A few years later, I would be standing in the Sheldon Art Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska...looking at an authentic Edward Hopper. "Room in New York." I stared at it for a very long time; and when I could no longer resist the impulse, I reached out and very lightly touched the canvas with my index finger. Almost immediately, a booming voice emerged from the P.A system speaker "PLEASE STEP BACK FROM THE PAINTING! DO NOT TOUCH THE PAINTINGS; IT IS BEST TO MAINTAIN A DISTANCE OF 3 FEET AT ALL TIMES.." I looked up at the speaker and yelled "I"M SORRY!" and quickly walked away before being thrown into museum jail. A museum guide caught up with me as I rounded the corner and...in a friendly manner - but firmly - explained that touching the paintings is prohibited because of destructive oils on the fingers that can ruin the integrity of the paint. I felt guilty because I already knew that; and while I hadn't intended to touch for long enough to do any damage...I also understood that there were probably a lot of other people with the same idea. I shouldn't have touched it. But I don't think I regret that I wasn't too reserved, nervous, or afraid to. In that moment, I think I wanted to imagine that touching a representation of these isolated figures would make them less so somehow.
And I wonder if that's why the strange boy smiled at me.
I have said or half-hinted at delving further into the marriage sitch at a more appropriate time; and by that, I think I really meant "after I've figured it out myself." It's been slowly flatlining in stagger steps for such a long time now...it's hard to trace it backwards to try and figure out what happened. But I did a lot of driving around today...just driving and listening to music...because it helps me think; and not just about how completely irresponsible it is to drive around aimlessly during an energy crisis with gas prices being what they are. It was relatively productive thinking, and therefore gas well spent. I'll plant a tree to make up for it once the weather warms up some more. I've got my eye on a japonica...
My official position: My husband is a good person. This is not only a mantra I have begun chanting to keep from snapping at him, it is also a nifty self-terrorism tool...under the circumstances. It comes down to that simple logic formula: a + b = c. Or in my case, if my husband is a good person and I can't stand being married to him then I must be a bad person. But I'm figuring out that it's not that black and white; that maybe I'm just willing to take the heat for things not working out in order to protect him. I also really need to see the best in him right now.
If we weren't in this marriage right now, I could easily sing his praises. Neither one of us is "good" or "bad" across the board. This marriage has been in an obvious downward spiral for almost 2 years now. He never mentions it. I have asked him dozens of times if he even sees it or agrees that things aren't working...or if he really is perfectly happy with the way things are going. When I bring it up, when I ask the questions, he says he is as miserable with the way things have gone as I am. But he doesn't mention it, he doesn't bring it up, he doesn't ask. He waits. He makes friendly chit-chat...like you would with an aquaintance. And while he talks about the weather... in my head: the screaming of the lambs...the invinsible elephants pulverizing the room. When I ask him what he thinks we should do, he gets frustrated and says "I don't know what to do," or turns it to me with "What do you want to do?" This is an evolution from "It will work out." And I think he really believed it magically would at one point.
I do not have the time or will to list every step, every suggestion, every measure I have taken to try to get us communicating, to try to solve the problems; but it is a sizeable amount, has not worked, and has quite frankly worn me out. I cannot fix the marriage...and have lost the will to try to do so. And even if he wakes up tommorrow with a plan and initiates it and declares his love...I think it's too late. The seperation is the last step...the last hope...that maybe some distance would provide some individual perspective on the matter that we could bring back to each other; maybe we could see it better without the weight of it on top of us day in and day out. And maybe we just need time and space to ourselves to work out our own individual shit so we could come back to the marriage on more solid footing. I'm not optimistic about this.
This was established on the first part of the drive; the next leg of the drive is where it got interesting.
I do not want to cry anymore, or be angry anymore.. that's useless and as it so happens, I'm not even really angry at him; I'm angry at and hurt by the failure. I've done all my desperate pleas and passionate rages over it...they don't work or change anything and I'm out of steam; it's been continuously heartbreaking. And one of the biggest problems - for me anyway - is that I don't like myself like this. I don't like myself angry. I don't like the way I feel about this marriage, about him, about myself in it's wake. It turns out, we don't really have that much in common with each other...except for the fact that we met, found each other attractive and wanted to get to know each other better. We parlayed that into a relationship and - in retrospect - eloped too quickly. And I can't speak for him, but I kept trying to get to know him...and after 4 years and a herculean effort - it seems an impossible task; it's as though we hit a plateau and there's no further examination or work that is going to change the fact that we don't really "get" each other. I think we make natural friends...but evidence shows that we don't function as a married couple. Getting married has turned me into the Mrs....and I hate being her; she's angry and frustrated and depressed and...she just sucks. Turns out, I miss being the Ms. I was prior to this; she wasn't sick and tired ALL the time. None of this is his fault...it just happened somehow; a bad combination where we just don't bring out the best in each other. It's baffling, but it's just information...and probably best to look at it without judgement.
And that might be the best way to wrap this up: sometimes two relatively good people can't make a marriage work with each other. Sometimes, they discover incompatibilities that make it impossible to live together in a marriage. Love should be enough...but how do you define love? If you recognize it differently, maybe you make each other miserable wishing the other would just love you...and maybe they do...but not in a way you can translate into the language your own heart speaks. Unless you are capable and/or willing to learn a new language...and even then...for fuck sake...chinese swahili? Do you learn a language in order to move to a culture you are uncomfortable in? No.
So, I'm looking for a job...and thinking about where to live...what to do with my life...and other practical things I might actually have some control over. Everything else, including the marital dilemma has to go onto the back burner until I find a job; the marriage has been prioritized and worked on with great difficulty for too long to no avail. AND - whether in spite of or as a result of - I'm in a phase of thinking, remembering, examining...so staying with that thread - here's my memory of the day:
A smile.
(More on that later.)
I woke up at precisely 6:44am from this dream:
I am working at a new job - which just happens to be in a creepy abandoned house. The cliche psycho-killer is picking off all of my coworkers one by one. We have a board meeting to discuss what to do about it; and it is decided that we should fight back. Since he is a psycho killer (with a mask and everything) he will not die; and we learn this after several co-workers try to kill him with knives, guns, chainsaws...the proverbial kitchen sink of implements of destruction...to no avail.
Then he comes after me. Luckily, there is an axe nearby...because dreams are fortuitous and dripping with opportunity in this manner. I chop off his head. Then I chop off each arm. Then I chop off each leg. Then I chop his torso in half. Then I remember that movie "The Hand" with Michael Caine running from his own appendage the whole friggin' movie...so I go the extra mile and chop off each finger and toe. And just for good measure, I chop all the rest of him into tiny chunks. Then I set the pile of meat on fire and I DO NOT walk away until I see it burn down into a pile of ash.
I brush off my hands and walk away saying "THERE, assholes; NOW he's dead."
I'm thinking of putting it on my resume.
