On a sun-drenched Saturday, I went to a bbq at a lovely home in Oakland Hills. The back deck had two levels. The bottom level was big enough for three or four dining tables of various sizes and was surrounded by tall redwoods. From the upper level, the view looked westward over parts of Oakland, and across the bay towards Brisbane, San Bruno, and the mountain ridges beyond. At sunset, the sky grew pink and two or three large freighters could be seen anchored in the Bay. The food was fantastic and not your typical bbq fare. They served grilled pork belly and octopus, homemade focaccia, paella with shrimp and sausage, and halibut. For desert, we had homemade fudge and lemon squares. The couple who hosted had top-of-the-line everything for their kitchen and patio: a Big Green Egg, a Traeger smoker, a large induction cooktop, and custom-built cabinetry.
On Sunday morning, as the morning light poured through my living room window, I drank coffee and read poetry. I read a poem about an abusive neighbor in Syracuse, a gun, and a trapped bird; one about a man wanting to share with his wife the details of his day; and another one about a woman doing chores with her significant other and how the two of them would take walks to the nearby creek. At one point, (maybe because I was texting with someone who is about to go on a trip), my mind flashed back to chilling on the front-porch on a weekend trip to Mississippi that I took with a girlfriend. In another moment, I was reminded of the last time I had been overseas (which was on a cruise with my ex-wife and her family). In thinking about domesticity, I remembered the fire pit I built in my back yard, the shared experience of cooking and dinner prep, the slow mornings with nothing planned for the day. I thought about how the day ahead of me will consist of little more than a run and some reading and a concert. In a different poem, the author wrote about a dream in which her mother was baking a blackberry pie – homey visions of a different kind of life – one that is the antitheses of our modern frenzy.
In the span of that lazy hour or two over my second cup of coffee, I had imagined multiple lives: some from my personal past, some from the poems I had read, some from my weekend experiences and the people I’ve met. Each of them had their charms: quiet and picturesque porches, cricket-chirp evenings, entertaining guests at a home in the hills with sweeping views, city life at sidewalk cafes, pies cooling on window sills, and the thrill/memory of travel. I wanted to write about it – a poem (or several). I wanted to write about stepping in and out of these other possible lives – floating between my past, present, and future lives. I’m pretty sure those poems have already been written by people with far more skill than I posses.
As I contemplated the different types of lives we might lead (and there are so many ways to live), I found myself feeling a little baffled by the minor attempts past partners and I had made at building a shared life with a shared vision for the future. It felt as though we fell into whatever life we led – unwittingly locked into a narrow adherence to the status quo. With so many possible lives, did we actively consider the options, did we point our canoe and row in a particular direction? Would we have known how to change course? Would we have wanted to? Now, the concept of building a shared life seems foreign. It’s as if it’s incompatible with freedom and options – fraught with the complications of compromise. It’s as if any chosen path is, by default, unable to match the bigness and fullness of the world’s potential. Perhaps that fullness can only be achieved through the imaginative work of poetry or fiction. Small windows with impenetrable glass.
The more I thought about these things and what the future might hold, the more I found myself taking a “moral high ground.” Feeling a sense of superiority as though I’m unshackled and everyone else has blinders on and lead weights around their ankles. In this way of thinking, I’m the blank slate, I’m the curious and flexible one open to a world of opportunities while the people I talk with (mostly on dating sites) are rooted in, and busy with, their current, solo lives – smugly content and closed off to other possibilities. It’s under these circumstances and constraints that connecting, much less getting to the point of a shared vision of what the future could hold, seems unimaginable.
Moral high grounds make me uncomfortable. They’re also bullshit. When I really think about it, my world of limitless possibilities isn’t so limitless. My freedom is both temporary and not so free. I’m smaller than I’d like to be – constrained by ego, fear, and habit. I’m probably not going to turn into (or even be willing to try being) an adrenaline junkie who surfs and snowboards and rock climbs. I’m probably not going to live a high-society lifestyle in which I don’t gag at the thought of a $5,000 bottle of wine. When confronted by my own limitations, it’s easier to point the finger at others and their fixed mindset on how to live a vibrant life as the reason why authentic connections are improbable.
I used to believe, quite strongly, that beginnings should be memorable, and connections should feel magical. They should be shot full with the bright light of possibility (within reason). But I’ve had to acknowledge that as we get older (as I get older), we become more set in our ways, more convinced that we have the answers and/or our fate is set. We become less willing to be open to wonder, astonishment, and chance. By a certain age, we’ve learned the hard realities of closed doors and missed opportunities. I was playing with this notion of possible lives because I think that’s what stood out (for me) in some of my better relationships: a sense of multiple futures, a willingness to see where this crazy world takes us. I was playing with this notion of possible lives because I think it’s what I’d like to remain open to or rediscover: to once again feel the wobble of being knocked out of my own orbit… but perhaps more importantly, to connect with someone equally willing to lose their balance so that we might seek equilibrium together – wherever it may reside in whatever shape it takes.
Of course, I don’t know how to do this and my past is a tattered book full of experiments and examples that didn’t quite pan out.
Based on my observations and experiences, I’ve fallen into a mindset that believes few people my age and in my present geography wish to co-create; a mindset that believes most people wish to add on or share, but not give up what they already have. They seem uncomfortable with the prospect of tearing down, laying bare, and rebuilding (or compromising). I can remember a conversation I had with a friend several years ago. This friend seemed to believe that people fresh out of relationships aren’t ready for new relationships because they don’t know who they are. She seemed to suggest that such people (people without a strong sense of self) will quickly adopt all of the passions and interests of their new partner and not develop their individual self. I had disagreed with her then and I mostly disagree with her now. As someone who has spent years developing the individual self, it is, at times, overrated. I think the critical flaw in her line of thinking is that it underestimates the dynamic value of relationships and growth. Chances are, the orbit-altering relationships, the ones that feel like nervous, unbelievable wow, will re-shape the individual self. I’m not sure it’s so bad for two people to lose themselves (briefly or long-term) in each other and eventually re-emerge with new definitions of who they are and what’s important to them. These probably won’t be radical shifts, but they will be a rearranging of sorts. A person who is truly open to the wonders of life may not have such a fixed mindset about the life they’re living and may be more willing to look for proximal lives with a reasonable set of seemingly limitless options.