Tagged: relationships
High Class
“Do we have cauliflower?” she asked after he mentioned broccoli.
“Nope, just broccoli,” he answered.
“Why don’t we have cauliflower?” she persisted.
“Because I didn’t buy any,” he said, not giving in.
After finishing her broccoli, she watched as he slid the grilled chicken on to her plate. Together now, they began to eat.
“Oh,” he interrupted, “did you want barbecue sauce?”
“Yes,” she said, “the new sauce.”
“I know, I know. You didn’t like the hot stuff.”
“Hot stuff?”
“Nevermind. Here’s your sauce. And here’s my sauce.”
To the sound of silverware squishing into chicken, they returned to the task at hand. Suddenly, she let out a shriek.
“What?” he asked, fearful that even the new sauce was too hot.
Spitting out the chicken, she replied, “I don’t like the roasted ones. That one’s roasted.”
“Huh?”
“See daddy? Roasted,” she said, pointing at the grill marks on the chicken.
“Oh. You don’t like the burnt part. Excuse me, the roasted part. Okay, you don’t have to eat it,” he allowed. “High class H-, you’re high class,” he thought, pride swelling.
“To Forgive Divine”
“But you know that there’s more to the quote than ‘to err is human’, right?” his friend pressed.
“Certainly. That’s the whole point. The full translation is “To err is human, to forgive divine.’ But it seems like forgiveness is a lost art. One mistake, one err, and you’re done. As the random soldier in Last of the Mohicans says, ‘And I will not live under that yoke.'”
“What am I? Chopped liver? Shit man, I’m still here.”
“I know you are. That’s because you’re my friend. You know how to forgive. You’re dee-vi-ine.”
“Whatever. You know what I meant. Are you done? I have stuff to do.”
Needs
“I need things, you know?” he said, as his friend’s eyebrows raised and eyes widened. “I’m serious.”
“Oh, I know you’re serious.”
“One thing I need–I mean this is a prerequisite to life no different than air–is to be able to make mistakes,” he explained.
“I guess I can buy that. Don’t you have that?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. But then there are times when the pressure to not err is so great that it’s asphyxiating. Have you ever felt that?”
“Uhm…I don’t think I understand what you mean.”
“I mean that there is a feeling, something ethereal, maybe it’s not even real, but I feel it just the same. There is a peculiar feeling I get when I know what the right thing to do is, the right course of action, but at the same time I don’t really want to take that route. It’s like I can see a bunch of infographic style arrows pointing to the right decision, and yet another option, one that is not highlighted, holds greater appeal,” he continued.
“Okay, I think I can say I understand what you mean. If you’re simply trying to describe that you feel like always choosing the right thing makes you feel less than human, or that always choosing to do the right thing makes you feel not alive, then yes, I have felt that feeling. For me, I think I can relate on the patience virtue. I know when I need to be patient, but there are some times I can’t help but ask myself, “‘What am I even trying for here? Most perfect man ever?'”
“Exactly. That’s exactly it. Didn’t someone famous say, ‘To err is human?’ I feel like that sentiment was taught under the premise that erring is only something that happens by accident. What does it say about me if I err on purpose?”
“Uh…that you’re human.”
“Oh. Good point.”
Sounds of Life
His fingers slid along the front side of the envelope. He recognized the sender as one capable of bearing no news or bad news. The fear of bad news might be why he heard his fingers as they slid, a sort of low hiss. He was near his breaking point. His body was on full alert. Finding a slight opening near the seal, he heard the envelope tear as he wondered why anyone would ever buy a letter opener. He unfolded the pages, hyper-extending the crease with a pop. Next, the sound of paper against paper filled his ears as his left hand unveiled the second page.
Then, there was no sound.
In that moment, in that void, he did what any good soul does when receiving bad news. He used the limitless silence to escape. He filled the silence with questions, with doubts, with denial. That led to him filling the silence with Lawrence Fishburne’s voice. “You have to let it all go Neo. Fear. Doubt. Disss-Bee-lief.” Finally, he filled the void with a smile. Because the truth was–the truth was that from rock bottom there is only one way out. Up.
Then, as always, laughter broke the silence.
Why I Write
Actions speak louder than words. I really want that to be true. I remain unconvinced.
Growing up in a Southern Baptist church and having a healthy competition in me, I really soaked up the power of the preacher. I memorized bible verses better than my peers, took pride in reading out loud better, prayed better, and spoke more. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk–all in naïve earnestness. I walked the walk as well. It wasn’t a fear of hell, but more a genuine wish to show people it wasn’t that difficult to avoid sin as I understood it.
Of course I was sinning all the while (“making mistakes” if you heathens prefer).
Until I graduated from college I had never read for pleasure. Simply movies for me. And I was as evangelical about movies triumphing over books as I was about saving souls. Catch-22 fucked that all up. I fell in love with reading as quickly and madly as Yossarian fell in love with the chaplain. After the last word, I literally had the thought, “If this is how good reading can be, I wonder if there are other books like it?” Obviously, there were. One of them being Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In that gem, there is a part about telling the truth to people vs. using flattery on people, and the point is listeners are awful picky about one while rather forgiving with the other. Given that I had the gift of gab, I made errors left and right that my listeners had no problem pointing out. My strong character and integrity-first approach to life seemed to bail me out of most situations when I strayed from the truth in large ways, but I slowly began to realize that writing might be a better outlet for my ideas than talking. With writing there is proofreading, and re-writing. As a writer (versus speaker), I have time on my side. So I started writing. This was 8 months ago.
There is something more, though. In the story that I tell myself to make sense of this crazy, crazy world there are some written words which have changed the world. Specifically, there are books that exposed how someone felt about life. Books that took courage. Upon publication, the reading public needn’t have said a word. They simply had to show their support through a purchase. And then life as we know it changed. I understand one of these moments to be the release of The Feminine Mystique. Within its pages, a woman wrote about an unnamed problem, that being women feeling unsatisfied as housewives, and it soon became clear she was right. I am shocked every time I contemplate that women back then could have been too ashamed to admit to each other how they were feeling about life. At the same time I am so hopeful. Consider what life might be like if enough of us shared ourselves via the written word. Maybe we could start doing this life we’re given better.
And so that is why I talk, and that is why I write. No one should have to live in shame. No one should be hiding behind social graces. For whatever reason I don’t mind if others find out I was wrong or stupid. It’s kind of exciting to me when it happens, as it is so rare.
In sum, I write first to reduce shame, second to reduce mistakes that happen when talking, and lastly, I write because people who read what I write tell me I write well and I am compelled to believe them.
Now you know.
A Letter To Combat
Dear Combat,
I’ve been thinking a lot about you recently. While I’d love to report that my memory of you grows fonder as the years pass, quite the opposite is true. To begin, I want you to know I feel like you took something from me. I think you took something I didn’t even know I had it until it went missing. I’m talking about care. And concern. Care and concern for things. Take work for example. How am I supposed to believe anything that is not life and death is worth spending energy on? Of course I’m capable, and of course I’m qualified. But the drive to ‘fight the good fight’, when it isn’t a fight, is gone. I think you took it.
I also feel like I’m not sure how people expect to be treated. While we were together, everyone was equal. It was beautiful. During missions the mission was all that mattered. Everyone checked their feelings at the door. Now, people’s feelings are the mission. Every experience since being with you has included not only completing the mission, but making the person feel like the mission was completed. Instead of results, people want to purchase experiences. I just don’t understand it. I know you don’t either.
Lastly, for now, because of what you taught me about what’s important and what’s not important when lives are on the line, taken together with the depth of the learning experience, I can’t shake the appearance of having a large ego. It’s like I’m expected to just forget all the lessons you taught simply because not very many people ever learn them. The trouble is, as you know, I couldn’t forget your instruction even if I wanted to. With you, there wasn’t endless debating. There was action. There was doing. Indecision was an enemy. Now, decisiveness is a detractor. It doesn’t make sense.
You know I love you, right? Don’t you? At the same time, I just can’t help wanting to blame you either.
In the end, I guess I really just wanted to say “Thanks” and “No Thanks”.
Your Son,
Pete
PS – This is just a little thing, and I don’t know if it’s you or just flying that is responsible, but I’m not loving how I can’t pass up a bathroom without feeling like “Might as well. Who knows when the next time I’ll have a chance to go will be.”
Error In Yesterday’s Captain’s Log
Yesterday’s post, “White Hot Flame”, contained a copy of a back-and-forth between a fellow student and myself. The trouble, however, is that there was a typo. Where I wrote “Hey S-“, it should’ve simply read, “To Anyone Who Feels Like Reading At The Moment:”
Now, you might be wondering, “What’s the difference?” Well, I’m exceedingly happy to share the answer, the difference, with you here.
If I wrote that post to “S-“, who, like you and I, is a real live person struggling to find her way in this crazy, crazy world, it would have been an attack on her character. It would’ve have been an immature, undignified, and disrespectful personal attack. And I don’t do that. At least, I don’t do that to strangers. For someone to get me to deliberately and proudly sacrifice my character in an effort to attack theirs, well, that requires a special bond. To be specific, that requires the bond that only family can form.
But if the post was written “To Anyone Who Feels Like Reading At The Moment”, then it reveals itself for what it really was. It was a rant. And I’m allowed a rant.
See the difference?
So, a stranger wrote something that pissed me off, and I had a lot I wanted to say about it. Because I write a lot these days–because it was late and I didn’t have anyone to talk with about it–I wrote (typed up) what I had to say, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. So pleased in fact, that I wanted people to read it. I wrote something, and I wanted people to read it. At this point, no error has been committed–no attack. Posting what I wrote to the class discussion board, with S- as the addressee, is the mistake. That’s the moment my words transformed from “rant” to “attack”. I see that now.
Some of you who don’t know me personally might think this is all bullshit. That I’m backpedaling. You’d be mistaken. Just ask the people that do know me. To a man, they’ll confirm that my one true goal in life is to get you to love me as much as I love me. They’ll confirm that for a while I nurtured the goal by hoping that my smile would be enough to do the trick. When that didn’t work, I focused on my body. When that failed, I tried my voice. That I write to you now illustrates that while I’m 0-3 in my quest, I am not giving up.
Did I want S- to read my post? Yes. Because at least then I knew I had one reader. Did I want to attack S-? No.
So here I am, again writing. I’m exploring the feeling of remorse. Some of you might recognize these words as an apology. I can buy that. But for me, there is something more going on here. For me, this was a breakthrough. For me, this was growth.
Thanks Ma.
And thank You.
The only way to get there is together.
White Hot Flame
This blog has a persona that I’ve been attempting to carefully control. It hasn’t been the full picture, though, and sometimes I don’t feel good about not sharing everything. As an experiment then, here’s some of what you’ve been missing:
“Hi Pete…maybe not cold blooded, but perhaps a bit narrow visioned, or at least inconsiderate, as a result of white male privilege…brutal enslavement of women is not a thing of the past. Sadly, that is not made up. And I disagree that it was “cured” by the U.S. military riding in on their white horse. It happens here too.”
“Hey S-,
I just finished watching “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and I have to say I’m in the mood to talk about my feelings. Brutal enslavement of women is not sanctioned by anyone (public or private) in the United States of America.
What are you even talking about?
Individual crimes happen, sure, but those will never stop happening. In fact, I heard the other day that a white male was murdered. I cried myself to sleep that night. Because I’m white. And I’m a male.
The terrible crimes against women that happen in America and occasionally are bizarre enough to receive national news coverage (which are the only things I can possibly imagine you’re referencing as evidence of women being enslaved “here”–you do know slavery is against the law here, right?), these individual crimes aren’t even in the same categorical universe as the situation in Afghanistan–the situation that is causing Afghan women to choose to burn themselves alive.
Wait a minute. I think I know what’s happened here. Yes, it’s all becoming clear now. Because I look like your dad, who I can only assume you hate, you think you get to bring up my “race” or my “culture” or my “ethnicity” without fear of reprisal. That must be it. Am I close?
To be clear: (I was taught once to not use the phrase “I think” when writing, because of course each of us only ever writes our opinion. But for those of you who haven’t learned that ev-er-y-thing is opinion, I’ll use “I think” here.) I read M-‘s poem. I thought it was good. I didn’t think it was great. But I thought it had the potential to be great. I never doubted that Afghan girls were burning themselves alive, though I don’t have time to focus on the news these days, and until reading the poem, I wasn’t aware they were doing this. The purpose of this course is to teach us to write better, teach us to use imagery, etc., teach us to write in a way that causes the reader–any reader–to feel what we (the writer) intended to be felt. I did not “feel” that M-‘s word choice was as effectively-imagery-ridden as it could be, and, in my own style, I told her as much.
S-, R-, and K-, that you chimed in on this discussion did nothing except reveal how misaligned your understandings’ of life on planet Earth are. Suffice it to say, because I have responded to you despite the fact that you used words like “offended” and “inconsiderate”, I’m now very afraid that some actual repercussion will occur, and, if so, that could result in me losing some money. Because I clearly think I know everything, I composed a swan song that I’d like to share with you now. Please write this down, and when able, commit it to memory:
College is the last time in your life
When you might be given actual honest feedback.
However, at your bidding, in this class, and from now on,
I’ll only say the most unoffensive and considerate things about everything you write.
In effect,
I’ll lie.
That should cause
Some real growth.
I know I’m
Looking forward to it.
Pete”
The Miniature Van
People don’t remember that twenty years ago the first minivans had two bench seats. And just one sliding door. And no TV screens. Worse yet, the speed limits were slower. Road trips, coast-to-coast family vacations took longer. It was quite miserable having to spend time with your family.
Only then came bucket seats. And CD players. And space. And younger brothers. Soon, everyone sat in their own seat.
But there were occasionally short moments, usually right after a sack lunch at a rest area, when the trip would become bearable. And in those moments, the family played car games that involved talking to each other. Single words became phrases and phrases became conversations. Conversations, of course, became love. And love blossomed into memories.
A simple, yet fun, way to prolong the sugar high was a game where players had to name cities which began with the last letter of the previous city. Bismark, led to Kansas City, which led to Yorkshire, to Edmonton and so on and so forth.
Anyone who has played this game can remember that after a few rounds, everyone seemed always to get stuck on cities that ended in “y”. Not the youngest brother. Receiving New York City, he quickly returned Yukon. Oklahoma City became Yonkers, and Sioux City led to Yorba Linda. Wait, what? Yorba Linda? How did Sam know Yorba Linda?
As one, father, mother, sister, and brother all turned back to see how he was doing it.
Looking up towards the silence, young Sam feigned ignorance to the rules of the game as he closed the giant road atlas and its alphabetical index.
That reminds me. The first minivans didn’t have GPS either.
Sadness
The buzzer always startled him. This time was no different. Alone and lost in thought, he sat with his fingers resting lightly on the home row when it sounded.
“Shit that’s loud,” he cursed, hoping to keep his man card after the fright.
The words not coming, he decided to go ahead and do now what had to be done at some point or another. The hardwood floor reminded him that he had been standing all day; the carpet, that he needed to vacuum. Pulling open the dryer, he hoped no socks would fall into the below washer as he removed the ball of clothes.
Back in the living room, he pulled his work clothes out first. Once folded, he laid them on the couch. Looking into the hamper, he saw her clothes.
At first he chuckled, never ceasing to be amazed by the sight of how small they are. Then he laughed at the memory of how excited she gets when putting them on herself.
Hating that he was laughing at memories, he didn’t laugh again for a while.
Captain’s Log 