The low point starts the day I am to fly home. It's a feeling that I usually
describe in fiction, but I suppose, like most works of fiction, the truth is
grounded in reality. The ache is mostly in my stomach, though its actual
placement I suppose is either in the mind or approaching soul level, depending
on your belief system. It's the feeling of having lost something that you can't
retrieve, like waking up from a dream of childhood in old age. It's happened
before a few times in my life, a sort of awareness as something is happening
that reminds you that it is good to be alive and in the company of such damn
good people with the simultaneous awareness that this too shall pass. And
at times, I confess, even as the event is happening, I’ve already begun to
regret its passing, though I still manage to be a lot of fun at a party.
The feeling gets worse at the airport, which should be no surprise. Airports are no place, reminders of our anonymity. How is it possible that so many people could be gathered together in one place and yet not know one another? It's strange to be headed back to DC, a city I've lived in for years, in the company of so many strangers. Traveling home is like this, having left behind the expectations of the trip to come, and not yet in the company of those you love, it's wandering the skies like Odysseus on the seas.
I've read enough studies to know that what I should be feeling as I leave the weekend behind is gratitude. It's mentally healthy and a reasonable response to having spent the weekend having a great time, and I'm not sure why exactly I'm incapable of feeling that way, though I'm willing to speculate. There is a fleeting nature to these moments in time, an awareness that lies just beneath the moment that it will not last, cannot be recovered. Lord knows there are plenty of moments in life that we'd be just as happy to not recover. For instance, I have no desire to go back in time to get my finger dislocated again, or to wake up at six am after a night of throwing up to head in to work at JC Penny's. Those I could do without.
On some kind of larger scale perhaps what we’re talking about is a fear of death, though I have a tendency to take things to too large a scale, and perhaps what I was feeling was just a normal sort of letdown, or, to use a fancy word, sad. It was Wittgenstein who said, "I do not know why we are here, but I don't think it was too enjoy ourselves." I suspect now that Wittgenstein was probably wrong and definitely German. I suspect that one of the reasons we are alive is to enjoy being alive. I suspect that it’s not only good for our mental health to assume so, but probably at least one of the myriad of reasons to soldier on. I’m using solider on loosely here as I’m a middle class westerner living in Washington, DC, not exactly subsistence farming in Africa. Thank god for existential dread, otherwise, I’d have nothing complain about.
This is all at odds with the weekend that I just had, and if you'd seen me shimmying across the floor at 8 PM on Friday night to "I'm sexy and I know it" or serenading the newly married couple in a circle of friends with arms all tossed around each other in a dive bar singing "Wagon Wheel" you'd probably be a bit confused. Or maybe you wouldn't be. Maybe life is just strange and personality and circumstances contingent things. There's much more of a focus in Eastern religions on the dying of the old man that happens each evening, or each moment, in which a new person is born. The wedding was at a beautiful Japanese garden, so you'll forgive me, a westerner, for briefly considering the idea and its merits.
The feeling gets worse at the airport, which should be no surprise. Airports are no place, reminders of our anonymity. How is it possible that so many people could be gathered together in one place and yet not know one another? It's strange to be headed back to DC, a city I've lived in for years, in the company of so many strangers. Traveling home is like this, having left behind the expectations of the trip to come, and not yet in the company of those you love, it's wandering the skies like Odysseus on the seas.
I've read enough studies to know that what I should be feeling as I leave the weekend behind is gratitude. It's mentally healthy and a reasonable response to having spent the weekend having a great time, and I'm not sure why exactly I'm incapable of feeling that way, though I'm willing to speculate. There is a fleeting nature to these moments in time, an awareness that lies just beneath the moment that it will not last, cannot be recovered. Lord knows there are plenty of moments in life that we'd be just as happy to not recover. For instance, I have no desire to go back in time to get my finger dislocated again, or to wake up at six am after a night of throwing up to head in to work at JC Penny's. Those I could do without.
On some kind of larger scale perhaps what we’re talking about is a fear of death, though I have a tendency to take things to too large a scale, and perhaps what I was feeling was just a normal sort of letdown, or, to use a fancy word, sad. It was Wittgenstein who said, "I do not know why we are here, but I don't think it was too enjoy ourselves." I suspect now that Wittgenstein was probably wrong and definitely German. I suspect that one of the reasons we are alive is to enjoy being alive. I suspect that it’s not only good for our mental health to assume so, but probably at least one of the myriad of reasons to soldier on. I’m using solider on loosely here as I’m a middle class westerner living in Washington, DC, not exactly subsistence farming in Africa. Thank god for existential dread, otherwise, I’d have nothing complain about.
This is all at odds with the weekend that I just had, and if you'd seen me shimmying across the floor at 8 PM on Friday night to "I'm sexy and I know it" or serenading the newly married couple in a circle of friends with arms all tossed around each other in a dive bar singing "Wagon Wheel" you'd probably be a bit confused. Or maybe you wouldn't be. Maybe life is just strange and personality and circumstances contingent things. There's much more of a focus in Eastern religions on the dying of the old man that happens each evening, or each moment, in which a new person is born. The wedding was at a beautiful Japanese garden, so you'll forgive me, a westerner, for briefly considering the idea and its merits.
I’ve waxed on long enough about what it felt like to leave.
If I learned anything from reading two stories from Chaucer’s “Canterbury
Tales,” it’s that the interesting part is what happens on the journey. Arriving
home is nearly always a given. It’s what you experienced along the way that’s
worth reporting.
To leave, I wake up at five and have a leisurely breakfast.
The best part about waking up at five AM is that it is not 4:30 AM. Beyond
that, I find nothing redeeming about it. By 5:30, I’m totally packed and ready
to get on a plane to CA. When the cabby calls and I walk downstairs, we do that
awkward thing where I start to put my suitcase in the back and then he takes it
from me like we are on our honeymoon. Figuring that everything might as well
join in the fun I slide my backpack into the trunk, and he looks at me like I’m
either an idiot for putting it in there, or an idiot for not letting him do it.
I don’t know what to do with any type of service culture that doesn’t involve
me shelling out five to seven dollars and then receiving a bag filled with
burgers and French fries in return. I start sweating sometimes when the check
arrives, trying to figure out how exactly to have the final tally end up at a
round number, as if my credit card is incapable of making change, I’m sorry I
only spend in increments of twenty, and trying to keep it close to 20 percent.
He asks me how I get to the airport, and I tell him North
Capitol. He asks if I’d be okay to take the parkway instead, which roughly
translates to a request to rip me off, but I say yes, because I’m paying him
for a service. In the morning, the feathered moonlight on Rock Creek makes it
look like cut glass. In the car, on the board where my fare is displaying a
series of images is running of people being shot in movies, often violently. It
is just image after image of bodies being riddled with bullets, heads blown
apart and spurting blood. I watch for a minute or so, transfixed and horrified.
Eventually, I look away, and back out into the night. I do not know what was
being advertised, but I know I didn’t care.
The driver and I exchange witticisms along the way, such as,
“which airline?” followed by, “Southwest.” We have the easy camaraderie of two
guys thrown together in a buddy copy comedy who never speak and then exchange
money after a car ride. It is, in some ways, reminiscent of the story of
Cinderella.
When I was younger, I used to try and look half decent on
flights. Particularly Southwest, where people are actually choosing whether to
sit next to you or not based on your appearance. In fact, for a couple of years
I used to engage in polite conversation fairly often with people who sat near
me. We’d talk about sports, or cities we lived in, the people we were visiting.
At some point in time I realized this was stupid. Now I put on my glasses early
and where a sign that says, “I am just looking for a place to drool.” I don’t
remember my flight to Houston, which is just as well. Okay, I remember
occasionally waking up and thinking, have I been sleeping with my mouth open
for an hour, only to fall back asleep with my mouth open for another hour.
In Houston, I walk around the airport looking for a meal
under ten dollars. This is always hard to find in an airport, because they have
what is called a monopoly and can therefore price fix. I use the term walk
around loosely, as most of being in the Houston airport, which is enormous and
can be seen from space, is dodging carts, driven by people who say, “Cart!
Cart!” in a way that tells you that leg severance awaits you if you don’t move
out of the way of the cart. After a while, you start to realize that not
everyone on the carts are old or disabled, and that rich people in the Houston
airport are probably just paying extra for rides to pass the time, yelling,
“Cart! Cart!” in the way that the gentry used to splash mud on the poor in the
streets. Sometimes, I think about not moving, but then I think about my family,
and how much they’d miss me if I went in a cart accident and I move aside,
mentally castigating the rich cart folk.
I eventually settle on Subway as they are the one restaurant
offering anything under ten dollars. The sandwich is actually quite good, and I
follow that up by sneaking over to steal WiFi as a guest from a restaurant that
I’m not frequenting, sitting suspiciously close to said restaurant, and
sometimes walking by and asking the wait staff where I can pick up the best
signal. The thing about the Houston Airport is that it’s fine once you learn
its ways. Eat cheaply, steal WiFi and dodge rich people carts, and you’ve got
it made. I might even move there. From Houston I post to Facebook saying things
like, “I’m in Houston,” because I could tell people on Facebook were all
wondering where I was and were relieved to know that I was in Houston and were
earnestly texting friends to let them know that I was okay, everyone could calm
down, I was now in Houston. I don’t understand social media even though I use
it somewhat frequently. It’s the sort of thing, like hot dog meat, or why it’s
so easy to pass people asking for money on the street after I’ve just eaten an
expensive meal that’s best not interrogated.
Sadly, as in most great romances, I was forced to leave
Houston. From there, I flew to Vegas. I’d never flown in to Vegas before, and I
will tell you what I learned about people flying to Vegas: they are much older
than you’d think they’d be. The median age on the flight is somewhere around
sixty, and the atmosphere as everyone is waiting can only be described as
jubilant. The majority of the people look tanned, retired, and happy to have
the opportunity to get away for the weekend to see some shows and gamble, or,
lord help me, have sex in some hotel room with their spouse, partner, or
someone they met at an old folk’s home. I’d always thought that everyone in
Vegas would be younger, but I’m starting to realize that all that stuff about
rat races etc, turns out to be somewhat true, in that you don’t really have
time to get away to Vegas when you’re younger because you’ve got only a certain
number of days off and families and obligations etc. taking up your time, which
just means you’re probably not getting to Vegas until you are sixty, though
luckily, from what I’m seeing, by then, you will be immensely excited about it.
On the flight to Vegas, I sleep and drool against the wall
quite handsomely. Sometimes I’ll wake up to make sure that I’m not leaning on
the person in the middle of the seat, and to see what kind of shape the drool’s
made. My partners on the plane are a couple, woman of sixty or so and her
partner, who looks to be late seventies. At one point she says she has to go to
the bathroom, and he says that he can’t move. She orders him a whiskey
straight, and I can just tell these people are going to watch some tigers
jumping through fire in Vegas. Yolo.
When the plane lands, those of us who are flying on to San
Jose are vociferously told to remain seated until they can get a proper count
to see who’s staying on. I remain seated, because I am afraid of authority. The
rest of the passengers on the plane do not share that healthy fear and start
milling around and mumbling about the Gestapo, an act that causes the steward
to get back on the line and tell us all to sit down again or there will be hell
to pay, which just makes the natives more restless, and they start taking down
bags and changing seats anyway. I feel like pulling them back and warning about
the dangers of defying stewards on a flight, but no one seems interested. I’m
eventually counted and wind up with a much crappier seat than I would have if
I’d just braved their disapproval of me moving around the aircraft.
The flight to San Jose is mercifully not full, and only an
hour or so. Now that I don’t have middle passenger to drool and sleep on I lose
all interest in sleep and wind up cranking out a few extremely short stories.
When we finally arrive in San Jose and my dad drives me back towards his house
I cower in fear at the large shapes in the distance. He explains to me that
what I’m seeing are called foothills, or small mountain ranges, and I ask him
why all the trees aren’t really dense and close to the freeway and why
everything is so far apart and big, which is the overall feeling of California,
it just seems like people have a lot of room there.
I don’t know if some secret metaphor lies in the space, in
the last vestiges of light turning the brown foothills a pale gold. I’ve been
gone from California long enough to no longer recognize all that space as my
own. Now when I look at it I know that a metaphor lies somewhere out on all
that open road, those widely spread apart houses, but I don’t think I’ve been
gone long enough yet to grasp it.
I was in CA for a wedding--a friend of mine who I’ve known
since kindergarten, which turns out to have been a hell of a long time ago now,
is getting hitched in Saratoga. A city, that every time we pass my dad asks if
I’d like to stop and visit the house he grew up in, and I say no, either
because I think we’ve already seen it once, or because I’m in a hurry, or
because I’m a bad person, I can honestly never remember which it is.
I spent the previous night trying to prepare a Halloween
costume because we’ve been asked to wear a costume to the rehearsal by the
bride. I haven’t dressed up in six years or so, and every time I think of what
I should be my mind just yells out, “Ninja! Ninja!” because I was a ninja from
ages 2-9 and have always wanted to learn how to throw a pair of ninja stars
around a corner, because, obviously. Instead, I wind up sneaking into my
daughter’s room and stealing back a cowboy hat she’s commandeered since it’s
the only thing that qualifies as any sort of costume. I go through a series of
shirts, insisting that I’ll look just fine in the vest only, though S tells me
that I would look like a bit of a “wh—e” and I tell her that if she thinks
that’s a bad thing then she’s misunderstanding the spirit of Halloween. I
finally settle on something more demure, which turns out to be clothes that I
wear every day with a cowboy hat attached, so, less a costume than a hat.
Luckily, when I arrive at my dad’s he’s able to outfit me in
some authentic cowboy boots, a nice long brown leather jacket and a bolo tie.
My father has these things, as I understand fatherhood, because he is a father.
The thing about being a dad is that you need to have all sorts of strange
things, particularly hats and clothes lying around. It is one of the many ways
in which I feel deficient, however, it was a large reason why I held on to that
cowboy hat for twelve years. I knew someday my son would need a cowboy hat for
some dance, and I’d be able to provide it. My Christmas list this year is going
to consist of fishing tackle, cowboy boots, a large knife, and three different
colored jackets of leather, pleather, and vinyl, as well as a collection of hats
ranging from Michael Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt.
Properly outfitted, I prepare for the next morning of fun by
waking up at 4:30 AM, because my body, my stupid, ill-suited for this brilliant
mind of a body, decided to wake me up on east coast time despite the fact that
I went to bed at 11:30 west coast time. I try reasoning with my body, but it’s
an unreasonable creature, and we wake up together and pee, and eventually wind
up falling asleep hours later and stumbling down to breakfast around nine, though
I’m ready to tear the leg off a live pig and gorge myself since it’s noon east
coast time, and I haven’t had anything to eat.
After breakfast, I walk across the street to grab a
cappuccino and walk down the wide avenues near my dad’s house and talk to my
mother while looking up at the mountain that my dad walks nearly every morning
to collect trash and occasionally fall spectacularly or wrestle a balloon from
a patch of poison ivy. I talk to my mother less frequently then I used to, but,
if she catches me in the right mood I’ll still tell her things like: I’m
considering that the meaning of life is that there is no meaning and that we’re
all just bits of cosmic dust flung together by random chance for a flicker of a
moment. You know, the sort of thing any mother loves to hear. I’m funny too
though, and I suspect that’s what she remembers.
After breakfast, I walk back to my dad’s house so we can go
get the rental car. I’d have a conversation with S that went something like
this before I left:
S: Can you borrow your dad’s car?
M: Definitely.
S: Does he drive an automatic.
M: Oh yeah. He drives an automatic.
Upon arriving in San Jose the first thing I actually noticed
is that my father does not drive an automatic.
M: Did you ever drive an automatic?
D: Not for about twelve years?
M: So I only missed it by a decade or so.
S tends to be the one who organizes things, diaper bags, the
house, our finances, our trips, rental cars etc. However, as I’ve mentioned
before, I’m occasionally funny, so I feel like she made out like a bandit in
this deal. Anyhow, as such, I took it upon myself to rent a car once I’d
decided that my dad and I shouldn’t spend our precious time together grinding
the gears of his Nissan in a parking lot and probably coming to blows, because
I don’t take well to being corrected, particularly when I’m wrong. I’m just
going to tell you that the iPad keys are smaller than you want them to be and
the screen isn’t as useful as it could be on Kayak either.
I’d originally planned on renting the car closer to my dad’s
home, but I couldn’t keep it for long enough. Like many people who live near
cities, he fears traffic as other people fear the grim reaper. However, I’ve
convinced him to drive back out to the San Jose Airport for the express purpose
of renting another car. It takes about twenty minutes or so, and when he drops
me off, I assure him that he can leave, and I’ll just pick up the car. He seems
concerned, but I am definitely not.
I love rental cars. How are they so cheap? How can I get an
entire car for the price it took me to get a cab twenty minutes to the airport?
What is happening here? I don’t understand it. And the forms, the forms! Am I
over twenty five? Yes I am kind form, thank you very much. It’s like the last
bastion of adulthood that you get to reach, and every time I check that box I
realize that I’ve done some things in my life and that I’m accomplished, and,
according to this form, probably responsible.
Strangely, to be in a rental car, is in some way to be in a
foreign place. Since I won’t be traveling to Spain anytime soon, I have to take
my comfort in leather seats, in agendas that are not already set. There is a
simple pleasure in not knowing what will come next, what an afternoon or an evening
will bring. This sort of pleasure diminishes as we age and our experiences
become more narrowed or defined.
When I finally get up to the counter and request my
reservation the guy asks for my license, looks at the computer, types
furiously, looks confused, types more, and then asks when I made my
reservation. “I made it last night,” I told him, knowing that he’d be proud of
me for planning ahead. “You made it for November 4-6.” I told him that the car
would be less useful to me when I was in DC, but he wasn’t able to help me.
Okay, actually he was very helpful and told me to use my smart phone, “Do you
have a smart phone?” I told him no, because smart phones, like the internet are
fads that will pass away soon, and I won’t be caught up in rushing into new
technologies like Beta tapes. He tells me that I should book a new reservation
but definitely not with his company as they won’t honor it in less it’s made at
least 12 hours out. I know that somewhere a small business man is rolling over
in his grave and bemoaning Obamacare’s clear socialistic tendencies, but I’m
enthused that this guy is just trying to get me the best deal as opposed to
trying to upsell me to an SUV.
Outside, where it’s colder than I want it to be, I report
the news to S, who is taking care of our two small children. “I’ve rented a
car,” I tell her, “in November.” She’s able to quickly snag me a reservation at
a reduced rate from Enterprise, and I remind her at least a couple of times
about how I told that one funny joke at a party, and I’m pretty sure she’s
overwhelmed with gratitude to have me, sometimes she hides it well.
I do love rental cars. I love the open road. I love driving
by myself with a destination in mind, but not quite getting there yet. I love
fiddling with the dials on the radio until I’ve found a couple of suitable
radio stations. I like the feeling of being some place new. I suppose, if I’m
reflecting, this is the mythic west that I’m a fan of. In general, I love
people, and yet, my God, to be truly alone, even if only for a few minutes,
what a rush. In more defined terms what I mean by, rush is, driving around in a
nice Chrysler GTO 300 with the windows down listening to whatever pop music is
playing on the satellite radio and driving back to my dad’s house. I suppose
our definition of the wild open road may differ.
Arriving
back at my dad’s house it becomes clear that there will be no time for the hike
or the drive or the walk that we’d planned. There is only time to put on some
nice boots, a cowboy hat and head back out onto the open road. On the drive to
Saratoga I hear a song by Katie Perry that may or may not be called “Roar,”
that my father and I had seen on the news night before as sung by a group of
children in a children’s cancer hospital. One of those small blips of life that
are seemingly available everywhere if you are willing to look closely enough at
the vast swaths of internet where sadness and beauty are conjoined almost effortlessly.
And, like the homeless person who asks you for a dollar on the street, you can
merely watch it and say, what am I to do with this?
At this point what I’ll do is immaterial because what it
turns out I’ll do when I hear this song on the radio and start thinking of the
children and the dying is cry. This is because I cry frequently when I’m alone,
particularly in the car. Given an open road and a decent playlist, I think I’d
cry daily. After this, as the sunlight pours down into the valley, and I drive
down a narrow strip of highway between the foothills I have a moment where I am
deeply thankful to be alive. I cannot explain it, surely you’d had
some of those moments yourself, perhaps daily, or you’ve at least read about
them in a self-help book. Anyhow, as I’m driving I am fleetingly just really
happy to be living and breathing and driving down the highway in the late
afternoon light with the music playing and all the threads of the evening not
yet woven together.
I’ve considered writing self-help books. The only reason
that I haven’t started is that I’m a deeply ungrateful person. My life is, by
most objective standards, good, and yet I am always concerned that it is not
better. I suspect, in the back of my mind that just having a couple of extra
million dollars, or a novel written would really round things out. I don’t know
what the market is for a self-help book that is constantly reminding you that
though things are good, they could always be better.
One of the things that I am grateful for is Saratoga, which
is small, and quaint and cute. And as I’m driving up to the wedding venue I am
going up one of those very steep hills in CA that people have put houses on,
presumably to lob insults and pitch upon the peasants, only to watch the feudal
system dissolve to their dismay, leaving them with houses and gardens perched
on damn near inaccessible hills, I pass a sign that says I should shift into a
lower gear. However, I have been upgraded to a Chrysler GTO 300. I’m fairly
certain that by jamming my foot on the gas pedal I can practically fly up the
hill, which turns out to be true and also acts as a good reminder that you
should never buy a used rental car on the grounds that the people driving them
are idiots just like you.
Once inside, I park, call the wife and kids to pass the time
and start looking for a bathroom. The pants are so tight that I swear they are
pushing on my urethra, and I wind up going to the bathroom three times inside
of thirty minutes. In the interim, I make polite conversation with a man in a
wonderful top hat, who turns out to be the bride’s father about his work in the
Forest Service around Quincy, where we lived for a year. He says that he’s
loved working there, and I reflect on how people used to think my wife said foreign
service instead of forest service when she worked there and would want to know
where she was stationed. Anyhow, this particular gem of a story starts rattling
around inside of my head, and I keep wondering when I should insert it into the
conversation until I realize that the moment has passed, and no one wants to be
reminded that they are not in the Foreign Service, in which I imagine you smoke
large Turkish cigarettes and pass the time complaining to local diplomats about
the heat and the coffee.
At first, I walk up a gravel path and admire the Japanese
gardens, the waterfalls and immaculately groomed bushes. I admire things and
walk around, trying to look like any other person at the garden that day,
except that I’m dressed up like a cowboy and am almost photo bombing all the
cute couples and families who came here to enjoy the quiet beauty and
presumably, my tight pants. After fifteen minutes or so I run out of reserves
of standing contemplatively while looking at the garden. I am a product of the
twenty first century and need distractions, a book, a notebook, an iPad,
something to help me pass the time. I sneak back out to the entrance for a
bathroom break.
Afterwards I stand and wait in the gravel and see my first
grade teacher, the groom’s mother, and my favorite childhood teacher, drive by.
And as she arrives at the gate I’m prepared to say hi to her except that she
walks right past me and it is her daughter who says hello and gives me a hug,
at which point my old teacher says that she thought I was some deviant part of
the bride’s family and not someone dressed up in costume. The interesting thing
about the groom’s sister is that she’s only a year younger than I am, and yet,
growing up as good friends with her brother it was and is my perception that
she was at least three to five years younger than I was. And it’s funny how
when you’re young, your perception of age can be so vastly skewed. That said, I
spend the rest of the weekend asking her how she’s liking her
mid-twenties, because there is no way to keep yourself from becoming old than
by constantly being surprised by how young other people are. I don’t suppose
the fact that I sat in a rocking chair and insisted on doing some needlework
during the wedding prep helped.
Back at the wedding top, I’m waiting with the groom’s family
for everyone else to arrive. And they do, dressed up as a hot dog, the mad
hatter and a gun toting NRA hunter. And really, what else could anyone want?
I’ll tell you what they could want, some Fireball. I received a half-glass of
the liquor Fireball, a cinnamon whiskey that tastes almost exactly like the
Scope flavor, and I’m fairly certain that you can, and I have, used it as
mouthwash. Fireball is something I have once a year on our guy’s trips, and it
has become emblematic of these weekends and actually brings to mind the fun of
Nashville, and Austin, and Portland, and Kansas City in the way that a certain
perfume or scent can remind you of an old love. Being reunited with a little
bit of Fireball is being reunited with the fun we’ve already had, watching
people dance impromptu to a song in Austin, the late nights and amazing bands
in Nashville, the pictures we all posed for in the Rose Garden in
Portland. It is less a mouthwashy flavored whiskey than a sign that the
good times are about to start rolling.
The only downside to this reunion of friends is that one of
the groomsmen is missing after being in a rather horrendous scooter vs. car
accident that didn’t end well for him or the scooter, though I’ve gotten no
update on the scooter’s condition, which seems a bit thoughtless. Naturally,
one of the first things my friends do when they arrive is show me a picture of
a gaping wound in his leg, the ham string exposed completely, skin shorn away.
We are but sacks of flesh. A long time ago we took bets on which one
of us would be the first to kick the bucket, because you know, given enough
time to write even a group of monkeys could write Shakespeare. This particular
friend was the near unanimous pick to win or lose the betting pool, depending
on your belief in the afterlife. And we give him credit for at least taking an
honest shot at proving us all right, though admittedly we’re all rather
relieved to be wrong for the time being. Other comments include, “If he didn’t
want to come to the wedding I feel like he could have just said no. Well, he’s
an actor, and they have to do everything dramatically.” By this point in time,
he was at least out of the ICU, so I feel like the jokes were kosher.
Untethered
from certain afternoons, in thin strips of light, one can think that we’ll all
gather again someday for a funeral. For now though, eat drink and be merry.
As soon as
we’re comfortably at the rehearsal, exchanging compliments about our costumes,
we start drifting away from the larger group of people. We’ve been friends
forever which necessarily means shutting out other groups of people to maintain
your friendship. Sadly, we get drawn in to conversations by other partygoers,
or I think we’d have fallen off the side of the hill in the garden in attempt
to seclude ourselves. Belonging to any group entails a necessary act of
seclusion or shutting off. In order to spend time with A, you are necessarily
not spending time with B. Actually, math confuses me, so I’ll leave the analogy
alone as I believe all I proved above was the necessity of motion as it relates
to Xeno’s paradox.
Including my own, I’ve been in twelve weddings. I’d
like to think this makes me a wedding expert. However, I’ve never once been the
bride, or the maid of honor, or the mother of the bride, or the wedding
coordinator. At any wedding, at least one of these people is stressing out
about every last detail, which makes them extremely useful and like hell to be
around. As far as details go, I’ve pretty much haven’t made it beyond getting a
tux and having a corsage pinned on me. I’ve learned nothing. Here’s what I do
know: at an assigned time I’ll be walking down the aisle in the
company of a young woman who will be dressed in a gown that matches in one way
or another other young women also walking down the aisle. I will be walking
slowly. Later, at the conclusion of the ceremony, after the bride and groom
have been married and run off, I’ll be walking down that same aisle, except,
this time no one really cares because the bride and groom have already gone and
everyone is looking for purses and hats and directions to the reception and
wondering if there will be an open bar, which means that you can walk or skip,
or strip down to your underwear and it’s unlikely anyone will notice.
I get matched up randomly by the
groom and stand idly next to my bridesmaid, who says, “Who am I matched up
with?” Apparently wearing a cowboy outfit makes you invisible too. I might use
it to try and rob banks. At some point, we practice walking down the aisle. We
walk down the aisle two or three times because that is the prescribed number of
times that you walk down the aisle at a rehearsal. I have to tell you that
after eleven weddings I am walking down the aisle like a champ, smiling regally
and nodding to people in the crowd, even though there isn’t a crowd, and I’m
smiling at no one. The key to this whole endeavor is to walk slowly. However,
fast you are walking, walk slower. If you find that you’ve come to a complete
stop, start walking backwards. You’re still going too fast. Also
don’t forget to smile benevolently and nod like you’ve been there before
because a photographer is going to be taking pictures and you want to look like
the sort of person who knows how to walk down an aisle like a pro. The only
downside to this whole multiple wedding business is that I keep getting older,
and I have to compensate for my declining looks by smiling even more regally
and walking even more slowly. I wish everyone had gotten married when I was 22.
After
we’re done rehearsing we stand around and give the groom a hard time about
being a DO instead of an MD, crediting him as almost making it through to be a
doctor. Either every one of us is good natured or secretly hates the others,
but the groom takes it in stride, claiming that he can heal cancer with a
properly applied neck massage. I don’t remember the exact distinction between
DO and MD, but I’m pretty sure it has mostly to do with massage therapy and
acupuncture vs. you know, medicine.
Before
we head over to the rehearsal I stop by the hotel and have a glass or two of
champagne with my friend and his wife. And I have to tell you that it is good
to see everyone’s wives at this wedding. We have been taking guys trips for
five years now, and whatever stereotypes you have of a bunch of males hanging
out over the course of a weekend in some random city actually all turn out to
be true. Basically, it’s like every show on CBS, totally scripted in such a way
so that you know the writers aren’t even trying, but it pleases the masses. We
tend to play video games, drink beer, (though not me because I suspect beer
tastes like dog piss, I haven’t had dog piss, but I have had beer) and trade
off color stories from our shared pasts. And so it is good to see the wives for
once, the people with whom my friends have willingly chosen to spend the rest
of their lives. And, being married myself, I realize how strange it is that we
see each other out of this context, out of the day to day grind that comprises
every working person’s life, job, come home, watch television, eat ice cream,
sleep and rewind. I feel especially benevolent towards them because I am
drinking glasses of champagne, and two glasses of anything turns me into a
lover of humanity. After two glasses of wine, you can probably talk me into
saying that communism probably just needs to be given one more shot because
it’s such a good idea that will probably turn out well one of these days.
I
don’t entirely remember what I had at the rehearsal dinner. Someone needs to
send me with a card to write down the normal things that I do on these trips,
because my wife is forever calling and asking me how the dinner was, or whether
I brought more than one pair of socks, and, though I remember sometimes, it’s
often a bit foggy. This is primarily because I eat like a person who’s life
depends on it, with the kind of focus that you see from Olympic athletes. I
don’t do a lot of things well, but I do eat quickly. If I wasn’t married, this
is probably what would wind up on my online dating profile. I can tell you that
the wine was good that I spoke to the groom’s mother, told her that she was my
favorite teacher in first grade for installing confidence in me, which is true
and good and at least part of the reason that I’m in an education program right
now. Note: I had lasagna, the Caesar salad and a torte for dessert. I remember
everything.
At some point my friend and I went downstairs and had a shot
of whiskey and chatted with the bar tender. After our drink, he pours us a
glass of something else, pushing it towards us. We take a drink, and it tastes
delicious, not alcoholic at all, with a smooth and fruity aftertaste. It’s the
sort of drink that you know only a professional could mix up, managing to mask
the strong flavors of alcohol with a few splashes and sprigs of roots and
tubers. I’m tempted to ask if he’s a mixologist. “This is really good,” I say.
My friend agrees, and I ask, “What is it?”
“Cherry coke,” the bar tender answers, proving that old and
true adage, alcohol tastes awful.
Here's the rule about going out: you never regret just going
home. It turns out that no matter how awesome of a time everyone else had the
night that you stayed in : drag racing, dancing in a burlesque house and going
to a speakeasy where they serve all their drinks in boots, you don't really
care. Because you stayed in, and fell asleep at 1 AM yourself after eating some
ice cream and watching half a season of Keeping up with the Kardashians on
Netflix. You're never going to regret that night.
As a parent of children under the age of three, I often regret being out past 6:30 PM. I start to panic: "we need to get them home. Do you know what happens if we take them home at 7:30! Do you know!" Honestly, this monologue mainly happens internally, but it is deeply frightening. For those of you who don't have children, if the children go to bed late, and then you go to bed right after them, your life can seem like a meaningless circle of feeding and crying and working and bed and then probably death. If the children go to bed early, you can spend the evening benevolently reflecting on their sweet smile and funny jokes. No child is sweeter than one who is sleeping.
However, sans children, everyone decides to leave the rehearsal dinner to head down to a bar for karaoke.
Like most people, I believe I'm an above average to, probably should have a small record contract singer. However, over the years my wife's use of the words like "tone deaf" and "do you hear any tunes?" has lead me to believe that I might not be as talented as I once thought. This is what comes of a whole generation of children who were told that they could be anything they wanted to be. We all thought we'd be astronauts, NBA basketball players or the premier of Soviet Russia by now, and we are sad as a result. It's best to set expectations low. Jimmy, we think you might make it one day as a yard duty at an elementary school.
It turns out you can't do everything. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to win the gold medal in the long jump. The only time I should ever be singing karaoke is with Scarlett Johannson in Tokyo in one of those private rooms during a mid-life crisis.
The first time I went to do karaoke in San Francisco, years and years ago, I thought it was going to be a fun evening of laughing and singing. Except, we were in the world's most serious karaoke bar. After the second lady did a medley of Whitney Houston hits followed by another woman belting out some Mariah Carey, it occurred to me that karaoke was a deeply scary undertaking. It was clear that these people came to the karaoke bar to be discovered. Maybe I should have posed as a really young agent. I didn't. These people were intense. After a long night of waiting out these beautiful singers, a few of us cranked out a nice rendition of the Back Street Boys "I want it that way" much to the delight of one middle aged woman who clapped and got out of her seat. Sadly, the rest of the crowd just looked on like we'd just sacrificed a goat.
The bar is described as a "dive" bar. However, I suspect that Saratoga actually only has one bar downtown, so it's also the "hipster bar," "dancing bar," "best place to eat chicken wings and do interpretative dancing with a hula hoop while you break up with your ex-girlfriend bar" in Saratoga. The bar area takes up more than half the space in the pleasantly dark room. We're seated on two low slung couches and two easy chairs, passing stories back and forth, sharing drinks and laughs while a pair of guys bang out some Temple of the Dog "Hunger Strike," and something by Nirvana. And I'd have been happy to play out the night that way, reflecting on how amazing the music was in the nineties, but it was not to be. Apparently, when you go to karaoke, someone actually karaokes.
To be honest, at first I promised to just be a back up dancer for my friend and his wife doing a lovely duet. And the next thing you know I'm getting promoted from back up dancer to lead singer "performing" (probably too nice of a word) a rousing rendition of "Party In the USA" by Miley Cyrus. Luckily, despite being on lead mic, I could not hear anything I was singing. The crowd was also deeply appreciative, despite not knowing it. In fact, I suspect that the mic they gave me was a dud, like when I used to give unplugged video game controllers to kids I was babysitting. Eventually, I passed the mic off to the groom's sister and danced to one of the catchiest songs of the last ten years. Afterwards, at least two people came up and said how surprised they were that I was capable of having fun. I attributed it all to the cowboy hat. At the end of the day, it's one of those times when you have to ask yourself if you have any regrets, and I'd have to say that I wish I'd followed it up with "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. You live and learn.
After that, the floodgates were loosed and various members of our group did a poor job singing songs and a fantastic job of having a wonderful time. Sure a ton of rounds being bought from the bar helps, but it also helps to be in the company of such fine people, who make you laugh and smile and remind you that life can occasionally be a kind of gift.
I hear people talk disparagingly of heaven, reflecting on how boring it would be to spend an eternity strumming away on a harp and singing praises. But what if heaven wasn't quite like that. What if it was more like a small bar in the center of a sleepy CA town, where drinks were flowing, the music was bad, but it was being sung by people you love, and you were all laughing and dancing the night away. Maybe we wouldn't last an eternity, but I think I could spend a few nights there, praising in our own strange way.
As a parent of children under the age of three, I often regret being out past 6:30 PM. I start to panic: "we need to get them home. Do you know what happens if we take them home at 7:30! Do you know!" Honestly, this monologue mainly happens internally, but it is deeply frightening. For those of you who don't have children, if the children go to bed late, and then you go to bed right after them, your life can seem like a meaningless circle of feeding and crying and working and bed and then probably death. If the children go to bed early, you can spend the evening benevolently reflecting on their sweet smile and funny jokes. No child is sweeter than one who is sleeping.
However, sans children, everyone decides to leave the rehearsal dinner to head down to a bar for karaoke.
Like most people, I believe I'm an above average to, probably should have a small record contract singer. However, over the years my wife's use of the words like "tone deaf" and "do you hear any tunes?" has lead me to believe that I might not be as talented as I once thought. This is what comes of a whole generation of children who were told that they could be anything they wanted to be. We all thought we'd be astronauts, NBA basketball players or the premier of Soviet Russia by now, and we are sad as a result. It's best to set expectations low. Jimmy, we think you might make it one day as a yard duty at an elementary school.
It turns out you can't do everything. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to win the gold medal in the long jump. The only time I should ever be singing karaoke is with Scarlett Johannson in Tokyo in one of those private rooms during a mid-life crisis.
The first time I went to do karaoke in San Francisco, years and years ago, I thought it was going to be a fun evening of laughing and singing. Except, we were in the world's most serious karaoke bar. After the second lady did a medley of Whitney Houston hits followed by another woman belting out some Mariah Carey, it occurred to me that karaoke was a deeply scary undertaking. It was clear that these people came to the karaoke bar to be discovered. Maybe I should have posed as a really young agent. I didn't. These people were intense. After a long night of waiting out these beautiful singers, a few of us cranked out a nice rendition of the Back Street Boys "I want it that way" much to the delight of one middle aged woman who clapped and got out of her seat. Sadly, the rest of the crowd just looked on like we'd just sacrificed a goat.
The bar is described as a "dive" bar. However, I suspect that Saratoga actually only has one bar downtown, so it's also the "hipster bar," "dancing bar," "best place to eat chicken wings and do interpretative dancing with a hula hoop while you break up with your ex-girlfriend bar" in Saratoga. The bar area takes up more than half the space in the pleasantly dark room. We're seated on two low slung couches and two easy chairs, passing stories back and forth, sharing drinks and laughs while a pair of guys bang out some Temple of the Dog "Hunger Strike," and something by Nirvana. And I'd have been happy to play out the night that way, reflecting on how amazing the music was in the nineties, but it was not to be. Apparently, when you go to karaoke, someone actually karaokes.
To be honest, at first I promised to just be a back up dancer for my friend and his wife doing a lovely duet. And the next thing you know I'm getting promoted from back up dancer to lead singer "performing" (probably too nice of a word) a rousing rendition of "Party In the USA" by Miley Cyrus. Luckily, despite being on lead mic, I could not hear anything I was singing. The crowd was also deeply appreciative, despite not knowing it. In fact, I suspect that the mic they gave me was a dud, like when I used to give unplugged video game controllers to kids I was babysitting. Eventually, I passed the mic off to the groom's sister and danced to one of the catchiest songs of the last ten years. Afterwards, at least two people came up and said how surprised they were that I was capable of having fun. I attributed it all to the cowboy hat. At the end of the day, it's one of those times when you have to ask yourself if you have any regrets, and I'd have to say that I wish I'd followed it up with "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. You live and learn.
After that, the floodgates were loosed and various members of our group did a poor job singing songs and a fantastic job of having a wonderful time. Sure a ton of rounds being bought from the bar helps, but it also helps to be in the company of such fine people, who make you laugh and smile and remind you that life can occasionally be a kind of gift.
I hear people talk disparagingly of heaven, reflecting on how boring it would be to spend an eternity strumming away on a harp and singing praises. But what if heaven wasn't quite like that. What if it was more like a small bar in the center of a sleepy CA town, where drinks were flowing, the music was bad, but it was being sung by people you love, and you were all laughing and dancing the night away. Maybe we wouldn't last an eternity, but I think I could spend a few nights there, praising in our own strange way.
I don’t know how I’ve spent all this time in CA without
talking about death. Weddings always remind me of death. Perhaps that’s because
everything reminds me of death. I read somewhere recently that the most
commonplace thing that a writer can muse on is death. I have a horrendously
short memory, which means I tend to take the latest thing I’ve read as Gospel,
largely because I’ve forgotten everything else that has come before. As such,
I’m trying not to write about death as much. I think the quote may have been
from Borges, but I also know that he’s written multiple times about infinity
and at least once, and amazingly, about immortality, so maybe it wasn’t him.
Maybe it was written by someone who was dying.
I sleep about 4.5 hours before my body wakes me up because it’s seven AM on the
east coast and it’s time to eat and go to the bathroom. It’s these small,
insistent reminders, hunger, toilets that belie that feeling or dream that we
are all spirit imbued by soul. If we are, then we are still trapped in these
very hungry, very tired bodies. I get up and eat breakfast in the dark at my
dad’s old wooden table, where I’ve memories of eating my first bowl of Lucky
Charms in the company of siblings who live thousands of miles away but who were
once only a chair away. You see, everything is always about loss. Perhaps when
I think of weddings, I think too of partings, how they say, till death do you
part.
For some reason, it takes me hours to get back to sleep. I roll around in the
double bed, making a mess of my sheets and periodically checking my phone to
see how much time has passed. When I finally sleep, it is short and hard. I
wake up to a pool of drool large enough for a goldfish to swim in.
I take a warm shower and start to shave. I’m clean-shaven
about twice a year, and I’ve decided that my friend’s wedding, a man I’ve known
since he was five, will be one of those occasions. I’m using a disposable razor
for the occasion, and though I think I remember all the nuances of shaving, it
becomes clear about halfway through that my face has quite forgotten. In the
mirror, I notice some unsightly razor burn coming up, and I also notice that
underneath the overgrowth of beard that I’ve been letting go, an area on my
chin and some on my upper lip have formed rashes shaped like Missouri and West
Virginia respectively.
I am not, I think, a vane person. Though, in fact, I am a
vane person. I just mean in the context of knowing other American 21st century
human beings I’m not a particularly vane person. which means, of course, that I
am in fact, rather vane, but I attribute this vanity to the culture rather than
to any personal failing, or at least the proliferation of reflective surfaces
and venues to post pictures. I suspect that it was much easier to go around
with a rash on one’s face when there was no mirror to confirm one’s
shortcomings. I point the rash out to my dad, though he says he can’t see it. I
suspect that he’s going blind.
“Look,” I say, “my friend is paying a large sum of money for
me to appear as a bit actor in these pictures, and I’m not going to mess it up
by having large splotches of red on my face.”
It turns out that all of the pictures are taken from far
away, and that my face needed no touching up, but I appreciated the fiction I
spun for myself to justify the vanity.
My dad concurs, though I know that underneath his
concurrence is the thought that I’ve probably spent too much time taking
selfies in the bathroom mirror.
When I get downstairs, I tell my dad that I’m going to the
coffee shop. He says he’s sorry that he doesn’t have coffee that I have to
wander the streets in search of it. The thing is, I don’t drink coffee every
day, but I do love to drink it on vacations. I want to wander the streets in
the warmth or the chill, perhaps I’ll stumble across someone playing a violin
in front of a church, or find a small shop where they sell Parisian style baked
goods, though I’m in America for this trip, on the outskirts of a city, so
instead I’ll hop over a plastic bag or two of fast food and ignore the
mouth-watering pictures of hamburgers painted on the windows. Except, none of
that really happened that day, that morning, I drove away in the car without
saying a word and called him from the store.
At the shop, I get a small coffee and a ham and cheese croissant. The croissant
tastes exactly as it should, rich, soft and warm. I do not know if I should
pass the homeless man on the street on the way to get a second breakfast
without thinking much of it. I think that we all should be sitting on verandas
overlooking the sea while eating pastries. It seems my wishing that the world
was so does precious little good.
The truth of the matter is that I’m eating the croissant in the car and am in a
hurry. I call my dad from Albertson’s to let him know that I’ve gone.
“Where are you?” he asks,
“I’m at Albertson’s. Do you need anything?”
“Why?”
Pause. “I’m looking for makeup.”
I go the idea from my brother. I kid you not. The thought
would never have occurred to me, but he was out last spring to give a talk to
200 or so people and had some sort of blemish on his face that he decided he
needed cover up for. Up until then, it hadn’t really occurred to me that this
was an option for men, but as I stared in the mirror at the splotches on my
face, I knew what I had to do. I’m no fool, and I quickly discerned that all
they had at Albertsons’ was makeup removal stuff.
I drove down the street in a hurry and stopped at a Lucky’s
and headed straight for the makeup section. Within moments, I had identified
precisely the sort of thing that I needed, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted a
liquid, or a solid, whether I needed heavy duty or light duty, or what the hell
any of this would actually look like. My heart was beating fast as though I was
trying to pick out a dirty movie or doing something illicit. I pulled two
packages closer to me, trying to discern exactly what type of makeup was the
best and managed to knock them on the floor. As I was bent over, trying to pick
them up, a nice saleswoman dropped by and said, “Do you need some help?” I told
her no, and felt indignant that she would have asked.
I eventually settled on something from Cover Girl of
Maybeline and scanned the store for one of those self-check machines. Luckily,
they had one, and I was able to purchase the equivalent of a Hustler and slip
out the door. In the car, I peered once more at my face. I had made a good
decision.
Back at my dad’s I stood facing the mirror and unscrewed the
cap. How much are you supposed to apply? I settled on half a rouge stick or
whatever they give you with those things, and applied it liberally. It turns
out that when applied liberally makeup doesn’t actually look all that good.
Sure it covers up the spots, but it does so only by replacing them with brown
splotches. I let them sit for ten minutes, trying to decide if it was better to
have brown or red splotches before attempting to rub it in, and I have to tell
you now that makeup is magic. The redness disappeared and what was left was
only a trace of extra color.
From there, it was a quick touch up in the bathroom, toss on
a suit.
“We didn’t iron that,” my dad says. I’d told my wife before
I left that I distinctly remembered my father ironing things while we were
growing up. When I ask him, he says that he never ironed his shirts.
The suit is only slightly rumpled, which is par for the
course for me. I head back down the freeway, turn on my satellite radio station
and listen to the sound of Katie Perry singing “Roar,” and I picture the kids
in the hospital beds, making up a dance to this song, and I think of weddings,
which are really all about death and for the second time in two days I find
myself looking past the freeway, to the sky beyond, strung with clouds on
clotheslines, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this strange gift that is
being a thinking, seeing, feeling, human being on this earth. It is strange
that to have it happening again so quickly, as I am, by nature, morose, but
something about the slant of light, the foothills in the distance and the wind
rushing in through the partially open window remind me of the gift that though
I love other people so much, I am reminded the most of when I am alone.
It's strange to have written so much about an event, a
wedding, without having included anything much about other people. Believe it
or not, I did not attend a wedding that only involved me. And yet, I'm reticent
to write about other people for fairly simple reasons. First, I'll get them all
wrong. It only takes having five or so serious conversations to figure out that
we have only a fractional clue of what's going on in someone else's head. And
so, I am afraid of misrepresenting them, or having them appear anything but
clever and sane, on the grounds that I believe it's best to portray others in
the best light.
That said, I should say that as I headed off with my makeup looking quite smashing I thought briefly on the bride: the girl who was marrying my oldest friend. And the thing that impressed me the most about her was that she was nice. I don't mean it pejoratively. The term, like love, has been worn thin by overuse. And yet, if you were to ask me what one quality would likely sustain a long marriage, I'd probably say someone who is nice. Someone who will always, or nearly always, we aren't saints every day, think of you in the best light. This is the sort of person who will largely regard others as reified human beings, ensouled creatures, or at the very lest, not assholes who are in the way.
I've long made the joke that in relationships it's important to be with someone good looking because personality always fades, you start hearing the same jokes, the same stories, the same way of checking their watch, all those habits become familiar, and, barring sainthood, not endearing. And yet, someone who is nice will always be nice. And I can't say that I've ever found being kind to be out of style.
I was also a fan of my bridesmaid, who was funny and opinionated and mildly threatening. Precisely the type of girl who I would have been scared of when I was younger, but who I find to be quite entertaining now. The groom's father wore lederhosen to the rehearsal, and I have to be honest and say that his legs looked fantastic. And we'll just leave it at that. Anyhow, this wedding was made interesting and fun by a myriad of people who are going unnamed, and I'll apologize to all of them at some point when I see them again, which may be never.
I arrived on the day of the wedding as promptly as possible. I am a person who enjoys being on time. I am, for reasons often beyond my control, often late, and I can't communicate how satisfying it was to be on time. Sure, when you're on time, it actually turns out that you're early as no one is expected to actually be on time, and you wind up inconveniencing everyone around you by being on time. People are always feeling guilty when you show up on time though they are secretly wondering why you showed up so early. In this case the groom's mother and grandmother had to shuffle off to another room, so I could walk around the room in my tux with the sweet satisfaction that being on time can only bring, which is boredom as no one is really interested in talking with the person foolish enough to have arrived on time. I looked out the window at a small creek running through tunnels of grass and boughs of trees, such a beautiful place to be early.
In reality, being early is great because it grants you these great moments of silence that are never there when you are late. When you are late, you rush around and then arrive at the event just as it begins, or more likely, just after it has begun, and everyone always thinks this an advantage, but they miss the quiet moments this way: the view out the window, a conversation with an old friend that can only happen when you are early and catching worms or streams of silver light weaving through trees.
Eventually the stragglers arrive, and we take turns drinking from a bottle of Fireball and having our ties properly fixed up by my friend, who, after seeing the shoddy job that I'd done with my tie, insisted on doing a proper double Windsor. And, as he puts the tie around my neck, checking the length, as if he is my father, I ask him if he can see that I'm wearing makeup, "only a little," he answers without judgment, which is what friends are made for.
Eventually we had corsages put on, and I am reminded of my first high school dance, what an incredibly terrifying evening it was and will always be since we cannot rewrite the past. After a moment, my friend who has tied my tie comes inside and says he can see the groom and his new bride from the balcony, having their first look at one another. I step outside with him, and we steal a few moments of watching the two of them gazing at one another on a small brick path, bathed in light. They look magnificent. My friend says that the moment is beautiful and strange in a way, to have known someone since we were children, and now to be watching him, decades later, on the day of his wedding. We reflect on this for only a short time as we conclude thereafter that is probably strange or uncultured, to stand on a balcony when a couple is supposed to be getting their first look.
After a while, when its become clear that no sandwiches have been ordered, we drive up the small street and up the steep hill to the wedding. In this case, I've had enough fireball that I hand the keys off to the bride's younger brother, and I tell him to gun it up the hill. "Changing gears is for slower cars." Inside the small tea house where we start to realize that we're not getting any lunch, we, a bunch of married guys, give advice to the bride's younger brother, who is in college, about relationships and women, none of which I'm remembering right now, but all of which was, I'm sure, pure gold.
Outside, as we were talking about the tight knit nature of our group, and that brief period of time when we were going out in our early twenties, decrying our ability to have anything approaching a traditional good time, a friend of the groom's asked us what we did when we went out, specifically,
"What happened when one of you met a girl?"
We all looked at each other and laughed. "Girls?" my friend said. "No one ever met any girls."
H: Well then how did all of you end up married?
G: Just went with the first girl that would have us.
(This is of course a joke as we are all married to lovely, intelligent and discerning women, though the latter point may be in question).
And we passed the time in just such a way, laughing, going to the bathroom and waiting to be told to walk down the aisle.
After a bit, we stood around a small table with champagne and talked about death. It was a wedding after all. The bridesmaid I'd been paired with is a nurse in an ICU. I was telling her, as I tell everyone, how bad our nation, and I am, at thinking about death.
"I plan on living forever, or at least reaching the ripe old age of Methusalah.
The truth of the matter is that the most spiritually significant time in my life was spent in a hospital. I told her how I watched a very gentle old man go from simple rehab to death's door in the ICU. She said, with real conviction, that she loved to help people die well that the process of helping someone to end their life was fulfilling. Then she told me that they had also recently saved someone who's heart had stopped on an elevator. "We can do some amazing things," she said. And I could have talked like that for hours, about death and dying, but then I remembered that I was at a wedding, and such topics are probably better left for other days.
After more time passes, we are called to our duty: to walk down the aisle slowly while looking fantastic. I'm pretty sure I hit on one of two. In most of the pictures I look like my face is partially deformed: note, do not talk to the person you are walking with on the aisle. Smile straight ahead, nod at some people: you will look better in the pictures. At the front, seeing my oldest friend, I went up and shook his hand, a gesture I've picked up after so many weddings through the years, a gesture that never feels wrong but still appears strong and manly. I've seen people hug, which also acceptable.
The ceremony was one of the best I've been to, despite the service exceeding the usual 15 minute cap that I enjoy. The vows were written by the groom and bride, and were wonderful. And the sermon was about how important friends had been to the character formation and lives of the two individuals being bound together. In fact, I still remember spending the night for the very first time at the groom's house, a very scared six year old. "Don't worry," he told me, "we have an alarm." Moments later, when that alarm went off, I was pretty sure that my life was over. It wasn't the end that night. I know because I ended up at his wedding.
Back in the tea house we cracked open a bottle of champagne while we waited for the crowd to clear. A receiving line at a wedding is an interesting thing. I remember being shocked at my own wedding by the number of people that I barely knew. "Who was that?" I found myself asking S as each person left us to smile at the next.
At the reception, we all got wine and waited for the dinner to start. At some point, I knew that my wife would ask me about the food, but I was already forgetting what I was eating. I'm just not cut out for remembering food. We ate beans, maybe? Most weddings, when you're not part of the bridal party are pretty much about the reception. You want to know if there will be an open bar, who you are sitting with, and when the music will be queued up, so you can show off the latest dub step moves that you learned from watching Youtube.
After dinner, chicken maybe?, there were probably greens of some sort, it was time to dance. I’m going to digress here. I man not, in fact, a good dancer. Anyone who has watched more than five minutes of an episode of So You Think You Can Dance or those two kids on Glee would have to know what a good dancer looks like. I do not look like any of those people when I dance.
That said, I should say that as I headed off with my makeup looking quite smashing I thought briefly on the bride: the girl who was marrying my oldest friend. And the thing that impressed me the most about her was that she was nice. I don't mean it pejoratively. The term, like love, has been worn thin by overuse. And yet, if you were to ask me what one quality would likely sustain a long marriage, I'd probably say someone who is nice. Someone who will always, or nearly always, we aren't saints every day, think of you in the best light. This is the sort of person who will largely regard others as reified human beings, ensouled creatures, or at the very lest, not assholes who are in the way.
I've long made the joke that in relationships it's important to be with someone good looking because personality always fades, you start hearing the same jokes, the same stories, the same way of checking their watch, all those habits become familiar, and, barring sainthood, not endearing. And yet, someone who is nice will always be nice. And I can't say that I've ever found being kind to be out of style.
I was also a fan of my bridesmaid, who was funny and opinionated and mildly threatening. Precisely the type of girl who I would have been scared of when I was younger, but who I find to be quite entertaining now. The groom's father wore lederhosen to the rehearsal, and I have to be honest and say that his legs looked fantastic. And we'll just leave it at that. Anyhow, this wedding was made interesting and fun by a myriad of people who are going unnamed, and I'll apologize to all of them at some point when I see them again, which may be never.
I arrived on the day of the wedding as promptly as possible. I am a person who enjoys being on time. I am, for reasons often beyond my control, often late, and I can't communicate how satisfying it was to be on time. Sure, when you're on time, it actually turns out that you're early as no one is expected to actually be on time, and you wind up inconveniencing everyone around you by being on time. People are always feeling guilty when you show up on time though they are secretly wondering why you showed up so early. In this case the groom's mother and grandmother had to shuffle off to another room, so I could walk around the room in my tux with the sweet satisfaction that being on time can only bring, which is boredom as no one is really interested in talking with the person foolish enough to have arrived on time. I looked out the window at a small creek running through tunnels of grass and boughs of trees, such a beautiful place to be early.
In reality, being early is great because it grants you these great moments of silence that are never there when you are late. When you are late, you rush around and then arrive at the event just as it begins, or more likely, just after it has begun, and everyone always thinks this an advantage, but they miss the quiet moments this way: the view out the window, a conversation with an old friend that can only happen when you are early and catching worms or streams of silver light weaving through trees.
Eventually the stragglers arrive, and we take turns drinking from a bottle of Fireball and having our ties properly fixed up by my friend, who, after seeing the shoddy job that I'd done with my tie, insisted on doing a proper double Windsor. And, as he puts the tie around my neck, checking the length, as if he is my father, I ask him if he can see that I'm wearing makeup, "only a little," he answers without judgment, which is what friends are made for.
Eventually we had corsages put on, and I am reminded of my first high school dance, what an incredibly terrifying evening it was and will always be since we cannot rewrite the past. After a moment, my friend who has tied my tie comes inside and says he can see the groom and his new bride from the balcony, having their first look at one another. I step outside with him, and we steal a few moments of watching the two of them gazing at one another on a small brick path, bathed in light. They look magnificent. My friend says that the moment is beautiful and strange in a way, to have known someone since we were children, and now to be watching him, decades later, on the day of his wedding. We reflect on this for only a short time as we conclude thereafter that is probably strange or uncultured, to stand on a balcony when a couple is supposed to be getting their first look.
After a while, when its become clear that no sandwiches have been ordered, we drive up the small street and up the steep hill to the wedding. In this case, I've had enough fireball that I hand the keys off to the bride's younger brother, and I tell him to gun it up the hill. "Changing gears is for slower cars." Inside the small tea house where we start to realize that we're not getting any lunch, we, a bunch of married guys, give advice to the bride's younger brother, who is in college, about relationships and women, none of which I'm remembering right now, but all of which was, I'm sure, pure gold.
Outside, as we were talking about the tight knit nature of our group, and that brief period of time when we were going out in our early twenties, decrying our ability to have anything approaching a traditional good time, a friend of the groom's asked us what we did when we went out, specifically,
"What happened when one of you met a girl?"
We all looked at each other and laughed. "Girls?" my friend said. "No one ever met any girls."
H: Well then how did all of you end up married?
G: Just went with the first girl that would have us.
(This is of course a joke as we are all married to lovely, intelligent and discerning women, though the latter point may be in question).
And we passed the time in just such a way, laughing, going to the bathroom and waiting to be told to walk down the aisle.
After a bit, we stood around a small table with champagne and talked about death. It was a wedding after all. The bridesmaid I'd been paired with is a nurse in an ICU. I was telling her, as I tell everyone, how bad our nation, and I am, at thinking about death.
"I plan on living forever, or at least reaching the ripe old age of Methusalah.
The truth of the matter is that the most spiritually significant time in my life was spent in a hospital. I told her how I watched a very gentle old man go from simple rehab to death's door in the ICU. She said, with real conviction, that she loved to help people die well that the process of helping someone to end their life was fulfilling. Then she told me that they had also recently saved someone who's heart had stopped on an elevator. "We can do some amazing things," she said. And I could have talked like that for hours, about death and dying, but then I remembered that I was at a wedding, and such topics are probably better left for other days.
After more time passes, we are called to our duty: to walk down the aisle slowly while looking fantastic. I'm pretty sure I hit on one of two. In most of the pictures I look like my face is partially deformed: note, do not talk to the person you are walking with on the aisle. Smile straight ahead, nod at some people: you will look better in the pictures. At the front, seeing my oldest friend, I went up and shook his hand, a gesture I've picked up after so many weddings through the years, a gesture that never feels wrong but still appears strong and manly. I've seen people hug, which also acceptable.
The ceremony was one of the best I've been to, despite the service exceeding the usual 15 minute cap that I enjoy. The vows were written by the groom and bride, and were wonderful. And the sermon was about how important friends had been to the character formation and lives of the two individuals being bound together. In fact, I still remember spending the night for the very first time at the groom's house, a very scared six year old. "Don't worry," he told me, "we have an alarm." Moments later, when that alarm went off, I was pretty sure that my life was over. It wasn't the end that night. I know because I ended up at his wedding.
Back in the tea house we cracked open a bottle of champagne while we waited for the crowd to clear. A receiving line at a wedding is an interesting thing. I remember being shocked at my own wedding by the number of people that I barely knew. "Who was that?" I found myself asking S as each person left us to smile at the next.
At the reception, we all got wine and waited for the dinner to start. At some point, I knew that my wife would ask me about the food, but I was already forgetting what I was eating. I'm just not cut out for remembering food. We ate beans, maybe? Most weddings, when you're not part of the bridal party are pretty much about the reception. You want to know if there will be an open bar, who you are sitting with, and when the music will be queued up, so you can show off the latest dub step moves that you learned from watching Youtube.
After dinner, chicken maybe?, there were probably greens of some sort, it was time to dance. I’m going to digress here. I man not, in fact, a good dancer. Anyone who has watched more than five minutes of an episode of So You Think You Can Dance or those two kids on Glee would have to know what a good dancer looks like. I do not look like any of those people when I dance.
I remember my first dance, in high school. I stood
completely still for the entire night besides swaying to a couple of slow
songs. As a senior, I remember briefly moving around to Semi-Charmed Kind of
Life. Not for the whole song, mind you, but for some solid portions of it.
After that, it’s a blur. At some point, maybe during the latter stages of
college, I danced for fun a few times. By grad school, I thought it was a fun
way to spend some time. And now, I always have a good time: I’ll dance outside
to music with one friend or up on a table if it’s free. I’ll dance for hours
without ever getting tired, in less the music is bad, in which case, if someone
else reaches down to pull me back up, I’ll jump up on their behalf and get back
to work.
We’re weird about dancing in our culture. I mean primarily
American white middle class culture. We don’t know what to do with it. In fact,
at my Christian college, dancing on campus was banned until the year I started
out as a Freshman, because, you know, dancing=sex. I have a tendency to start
watching portions of Fiddler on the Roof and wishing that we were part of a
culture that didn’t think dancing was a strange and weird thing, only to be
done on television by washed up has beens or in the basements of bars. Kids
love dancing, and so I still get the chance at least once a week to slide
around the house with Sades twirling around.
I’m rattling all this off, in part, because a couple of
people at the wedding told me I was a good dancer, and I feel like I should be
honest and say that I’m not. But I’d also be remiss if I didn’t share a few of
the secrets that have taken me from standing on the wall for 3.5 hours( I am so
sorry to that poor girl who asked me to that dance) to jumping into the middle
of a group of strangers and loving it.
Dancing is supposed to be fun. I read somewhere about
something called a “flow” state. Essentially, it’s where you are doing an
activity that is challenging, but not too challenging, that also requires some
attention and activity of mind and body. Welcome to a free flow session. Forget
yoga, this will get your heart rate up more.
Rules
1. You never look
at someone else and feel intimidated. You are either happy that they are having
so much fun dancing, which you can acknowledge by smiling at them, or, if you
feel really good, by dancing closer to them. The only scenario in which
it’s okay to start trying to identify what they are doing with their feet,
hands, body, etc. is if you’re immediately going to try and copy it. You should
never be standing around thinking how damn good they look and how terrible you
look in comparison. You’ve already failed.
2. It’s fun to sing
along to songs. If you don’t know the words, learn the chorus and throw up your
hands or incorporate some sort of hand motion that corresponds with the choral
lyrics. People will think you know the entire song. As I’ve mentioned before, the
first time I heard Call Me Maybe, by the middle of the song I was miming
writing down my phone number and passing it off to other dancers. You can do
this.
3. Tear up the
dance floor. The best time to start dancing is when it’s empty, or just after
someone else has started in. The earlier you get out there, the more likely you
are to get a more productive flow state going. The only think you’ll be
wondering about the people watching you is why they are so foolishly watching
you when they could be having a good time dancing.
4. If you make eye
contact with someone, it is best to smile at them. Being in a flow state is not
about shutting everyone else out. By smiling at everyone around, you’re letting
them know that you’re having a good time, and that they should be too.
5. Enthusiasm. This
is related to three, but it’s probably the most important. You need to combine
all of the above into a whirling dervish of dance. You need to be lip synching,
doing something interpretative and smiling at everyone who looks at you. If
some part of a song comes on, where your heart is on the floor, you should
probably be pretending as if your heart is on the floor. If someone else is
violently lip synching, go hold a pretend mic next to them and sing along. If
someone is having so much fun dancing that you want to join in, engage them in
a dance off Guess what? Now you’re a better dancer than at least 50 percent of
the people there and probably more.
Note that the two relatively attractive women who see this kid dancing are loving what he’s doing while the “dudes” are the only ones who are too cool to have a good time. I’m guessing the two girls are more interesting to this amazing youngster anyway.
I don’t remember the songs at the wedding all that well, but
I do remember sweating. I remember dancing with a group of older folks at the
wedding who tried to encourage me to dance in the middle of their circle, and I
pushed a couple of them out instead because obviously they were breaking one of
the rules of dancing by not having more fun themselves. I remember watching my
friends and their wives have a great time dancing, even those that don’t
usually indulge. When I went back through wedding photos I saw around 100 or
200 or everyone dancing, and it’s one of the few times where pictures almost do
the actual event justice.
The room was full of people of varying ages. Most of whom
were engaged in the same task, losing ourselves in the music, in the sweetness
of a moment that will soon pass. We were sweating and laughing, and moving our
bodies as if, for once, they were no longer husks for carrying souls, but like
the hidden souls themselves, flailing around in the brief light, so ecstatic to
be alive.
After the party had ended, and the music had died, we did
what every real good honest to God reveler does: we headed back to the bar from
the night before. Like first love and a first kiss, it’s generally best not to
try and go back to the bar for the second night because it will inevitable pale
in comparison. What at first blush seemed to be quaint, turns out to just be
dingy. The feeling you had the night before, that perhaps, for a moment, you
owned the world, well, on a second look it turns out to have been induced by
alcohol. In short, the bar, the David, the Granitas you had, all suffer on a
second look by not being so intensely new, so satisfying.
And yet, we headed back to the bar for a second night. And,
just as I expected, it was just as amazing as the first night. It turns out
that a bar is just a place, a tiny particle in this vast expanse of the
universe, space, virtually undefined. What makes the space significant, or
insignificant, is being. It’s you; it’s me; it’s all of us together. Amongst
the tiny specks, of tiny particles, in the middle of the unknown, we are the
meaning makers.
It’s the first wedding that I’ve been at where the bride and
groom joined the guests at the bar for the after party. In that sense, the
evening was sanctioned in a kind of way that it wouldn’t have been otherwise.
It’s kind of like being at the Presidential ball where the President actually
visits. We are supposed to be there. Sadly, the karaoke is only on Thursday
nights. Though a lot of people seem excited that we’ll have the jukebox, I can
tell, deep down, that they already miss my rendition of Party in the USA and
are secretly wondering where the evening can possibly go that will be good.
They don’t say it, but it’s just one of those things that you “feel” in your
bones, like the truth of your own being at the center of the universe.
In the dark of the bar, we listen to the songs chosen by
strangers. And in the way of all people of every tribe and nation, we complain
about the songs they are playing because they are not “our” songs. Everyone is
buying drinks though I’m not partaking by now, besides a brief sip of Fireball.
I am watching the evening unfold now as if it were a movie. A few of us are
sitting on the couch, talking about the mistakes we made when we were younger
and foolish. Eventually, we settle into a booth and take pictures with a skull,
with each other, with this particular night. And I would say to you that the
evening was like a beer commercial, except that thought is insidious and it is
the beer commercial that is merely attempting to capture the ephemera of this
evening, as if by stringing together a few photos you could string together the
many nights we’ve all shared before, more numerous than the stars, uncountable
in number and more luminous. We are strung together by these nights and hours,
hanging out in the noisy light of a burning star. We are brief, and we are
beautiful.
These are, as I’ve made clear, damn fine people, and we are having a very good
time. Eventually our songs start to come up on the juke box. Wait around long
enough and things will go your way. We dance around this small bar, pushing
back chairs and couches, to Florida-Georgia Line, and we circle our arms
together around the bride and groom and sing Wagon Wheel while they twirl
around between us. It seemed like the perfect way to end the weekend, arms
around one another, singing in a dive bar to an old country sounding song, as
if we could go on this way forever.
The hollow feeling of leaving stays with me over Nevada, and
clear through to Colorado. We are on the ground for a while, but the feeling
doesn’t abate. As we travel east, the sun fades, an orange line above an
endless line of bruised clouds. For a while, I distract myself with the
internet. I’ve never paid for internet before on a flight because I come from
humble beginnings, and I think paying for the internet is one of those things
you don’t do, like murdering someone, but I make an exception. Online, you can
briefly forget that you are alone, but eventually the plane descends and the
feeling starts to return. It is hollow, and yet it aches as I am very hungry.
The cab ride home is dark and mostly quiet. The cabby and I
talk about his children, what hours he works, what hours I work, my children.
He takes the way that I’d have told the other cabby to take, and it turns out
that the first guy wasn’t ripping me off like I thought. The two roads that
diverged, one leading through the woods, turn out to be roughly equidistant.
The cab doesn’t have a video screen, so I am not subjected to images of people
inexplicably shooting each other for thirty minutes, though it’s kind of a
mystery that I’d like to unravel.
At home, I ask the cabby if I can pay with credit card, and
I can tell that he really wants me to pay with cash. I tip generously, assuming
that it will make up for using a credit card. The brief intersection of our
lives concluded, he drives back into the night, a flicker of taillights, an
image that I can only conjure up because I have sat down just now to think of
that night.
The feeling is gnawing though and is something akin to
hunger. I am not, I think, dealing with existential loneliness, but a visceral
type of loneliness that can only come with leaving behind those with whom we
are very close. The house is dark, and I slip into bed without turning on any
lights. My teeth will wait for morning. I don’t remember my dreams, but I can
tell that the feeling sits with me, like a patient grandmother at her knitting,
while I sleep.
In the morning, I awake and walk out of bed, due at work in
an hour or so. In the hallway, my wife has our youngest, a ten month old, held
tightly against her rib cage, balancing on her hip. “Your son missed you,” she
said, and it is when he reaches out with his right hand and grazes my face,
before going back to madly chewing on his blanket that the feeling starts to go
away. I am home. I am loved.
loved the 3rd paragraph...life,travel,and death are so complex...looking but not seeing...perception or
ReplyDeletedeception...10 people see 10 different things..