It will come as no surprise that I’m strangely attracted to the complicated. Complicated feelings, thoughts, lives, phrases. And maybe complicated isn’t quite the right word. Anything that seems to acknowledge the full range of emotions, things that can be funny and sad at the same time. I like Vonnegut because of his dark sense of humor. The line in my ex’s dating profile that had me hooked was about being happy (not a Pollyanna) despite life’s dumpster fires. I gravitate towards poems that express the beauty and pain in simple pleasures. If I follow any religion, it’s eastern thought that allows for good and evil and whole lot of in between (being present in it all). As I was reading the novel that I’m hoping to finish in the next day or so, I came across a line that cracked me up “he’d see the light and it’d still be in a tunnel.” The other passage that struck me was:
At Yale when he was young and headstrong, he’d been sure that one day he’d be the very axis of the world, that his life would be one of deep impact. But every young man thought that. A condition of youth, your own importance. The mark you’d make upon the world. But a man learns sooner or later. You take your little niche and you make it your own. Your ride out the time as best you can. You go home to your good wife and you calm her nerves. You sit down and compliment the cutlery. You thank your lucky stars for her inheritance. You smoke a fine cigar and you hope for an occasional roll in the silk sheets. You buy her a nice piece of jewelry at DeNatale’s and you kiss her in the elevator because she still looks beautiful, and well preserved, despite the years rolling by, she really does. You kiss her good-bye and you go downtown everyday and you soon figure out that your grief isn’t half the grief that everyone else has. You mourn your dead son and you wake up in the middle of the night with your wife weeping beside you and you go to the kitchen, where you make yourself a cheese sandwich and you think, Well at least it’s a cheese sandwich on Park Avenue, it could be worse, you could have ended up far worse: your reward, a sigh of relief.
Colum McCann – Let the Great World Spin
There’s certainly a defeatist sadness about that passage, but also an appreciation for some of the small things. It reminds me of “How to Like It” (the sandwich in the middle of the night, the longing, the simplicity).
While I think I’ve always been drawn to mixed sentimentality, I’m also trying to determine how much the events of the past year have shaped my outlook. I had the relationship that I sought, and it didn’t work out. I took a job that seemed like a perfect fit, and it didn’t work out. Twice in the past year things that had promise were abruptly taken away – though the job was less of a surprise. That one-two punch has been disorienting. Those types of reversals are enough to make one question a whole bunch of things, not least of which are the questions: what matters? What has value? Where do I want to direct my efforts and energies? my ex, B, would often say that what she really wanted was calm and easy. There wasn’t any definition around it, but I’m getting a sense of what that desire feels like. Just wanting some sense of stability. Ironically, I felt like that’s what we had and were working towards – and now I’m not sure either of us have it.
Only somewhat related, yesterday I cam across a article in The Guardian on how to improve your relationship. With so many people cooped up with their partners, there have been a lot of articles on maintaining domestic bliss. The suggestions seem obvious enough – show appreciation every day, avoid assumptions, communicate better, try to learn what makes them feel loved, and don’t try to change them. This still seems to be the area of life where I would like to direct my energy, yet it’s not something that can be planned or forced.
And maybe it’s just middle age that’s hitting me. A time in life when we start to look at and define aspiration, ambition, drive, and success differently. A man learns sooner or later.