Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Ruminations and a story
I stepped out into a night filled with moisture—the trees dripping leftover rain drops and the cement still sucking up the last shallow pools from the deluge that had hit Brooklyn only hours before. There was a sparkling kitchen left behind me, the result of the silent work that I and a friend completed after dessert for … let’s say a lot ... of children and adults. He’d been generous enough to help me clean up my mistake, a shattered champagne flute leftover from dinner. We crawled on our knees with wet paper towels, trying to catch every glistening minuscule shard. After we finish, and I wash the last of the dishes, I ask him if there’s anything else to do, and he says, no, this is it. Thanks. And I grab the 9 by 13 pan that held the recipe that didn’t cook right and I head out into the night—the ghost of a night, with dampness clinging to every surface and shadows that I discover are actually people hovering on stoops, enjoying the warmth. I swing the pan, thinking:
I like to try to think I’m perfect. That I never mess up, and that my whole life is striving to do and say the best thing possible in any given situation. That’s why I fail so utterly. I continually backtrack on things I’ve said, because on second thought, it sounds as though I’ve just insulted you and your mother, and all I really wanted to do was say that I utterly adore you. I also agonize over every single decision, trying to make sure if this or that one is the right one, while all that happens is me making a last-minute decision as I stand there full of angst, only to regret it three days later. Must I go through every single day developing stomach ulcers?
Then I drop the pan, and it clangs onto the sidewalk, shattering my reverie. It has effectively humbled me, a sharp reminder of how small I am, and to accent the point, someone guffaws. I swoop down and pick it up, paying more attention to it, even though I still dangle it from only two fingers. When I get home, I place it in the sink, although I've already scrubbed it clean only moments before.
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She met Gabriel yesterday, and she’s already sure that they’re going to get married. One day he’ll notice her, and then on a beautiful spring day three months later, they’re be wed in a canoe on the lake that his parents own. They’ll have exotic drinks and exotic animals, like peacocks, at the reception, and they’ll dance to “At Last” by Etta James and her mother will cry while her father gets drunk, and there will be a happily ever after.
She’s known Robert for about a year now, and while he never drops a hint that he might even be remotely interested, she can’t help but stare into his blue eyes while he talks to her, imagining that if she could, she’d swim in his irises forever. She’s tried all sorts of things to get his attention, including batting her eyelids at him, sighing dramatically when he says hi, and agreeing with everything he says, but he still doesn’t seem to notice. She has try harder now to get him in a conversation, and when she finally does, she finds it harder to get lost in his eyes, because he never looks at her anymore. But she’s sure that he’s just going through a phase. After all, he’s only just out of college, and he needs time to grow up.
When she joined the Volunteer Group at school, she never expected the student leader, Matthew, to be so adorable. He had the easy confidence of a surfer, the wit of a politician, and the conviction of a missionary, not to mention the good looks and body of a model. She’s always there, at every meeting and special event, but he is so focused on the job at hand that he never gives her more than a quick smile, but she finds that smile so promising, she’s sure they will be married in three years. Of course, they’ll elope, because neither of them have much money, and they might have to live in a cockroach-infested apartment for the first two years, but their love will carry them through and eventually life will get better.
Benjamin works as a waiter at a cute little restaurant she discovered one day with her friends. She flirted and he flirted back, at by the end of the meal, she (and all her friends) was sure that he thought she was the one. She’d decided on the colors (deep green), flowers (ivy and roses), and location (a resort in New England in December) when she was leaving a tip, and although she waited outside for an hour for him to come running out, declaring his love for her, he never showed. She realized that the restaurant had gotten busy after they left, so she was sure that he was thinking of her, even though he didn’t have the time to show her. She thinks she’ll give him a chance every week. Eventually, he’ll find the time, declare his love for her, and together they’ll open a little café in the middle of town.
Bruce is her supervisor at work, and she finds him positively dreamy. He wears collared striped shirts with ironed slacks, and his hair is always arranged just so. Everyone says he’s gay, but she thinks they’re just jealous of how gorgeous he is. She thinks of every possible question to ask him, and he’s always accommodating and smiling. Granted, he’s a little bit older, but she finds mature men alluring. They’ll be married on a yacht on the Hudson, and then board a plane to Paris, where they’ll eat croissants and kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Her friends tell her that the reason she’s still alone is that she hasn’t met the right guy yet, and when she does, she’ll know. She eagerly agrees and keeps an eye out for him, but the problem is that she believes they’re all the right guy, they just don’t know it yet. As she emotionally invests herself in each of them, she eagerly gives chunks of her heart away--pieces she'll never get back.