One of the best days in my recent trip to England was the rainy day we spent in a very cozy room with a fire, alternately watching TV, drinking tea, and making out. One of the things that came on was this weird American movie from the the 40s on Channel 4. It was about a woman whose husband leaves her for a rich old lady. The spurned wife starts a chain of beachfront restaurants and wins the affections of a smarmy mustache guy who ultimately hates her because she has to work for a living (even though he keeps asking her for money) and smells like a restaurant. The woman has one good daughter who dies and one bad daughter who steals her boyfriend. This woman's life keeps getting worse and worse, and for some reason it was all hilarious to me, even though there were a lot of parallels with my life, except my husband left me for a rich young lady I don't have any kids to steal my boyfriend. And I don't own restaurants, etc., etc. The theme of "it sucks to be a broad on your own" was really funny to me, I guess because it hasn't changed at all in movies or in our collective unconcious. Also, R. is in a play now where he's playing an annoying American in a kind of Noel Cowardesque drawing room comedy, and the dialogue seemed sort of perfect for him. For someone who's spent his whole adult life in the States, his American accent is really bad. English people almost always do Southern accents when trying to emulate us. Maybe it's because of George Bush.
I went to one rehearsal of the play, which is community theater. R.'s friend, a 65-year old millionaire, is playing the butler, and kept fucking up his lines because he had just smoked a bunch of crack. Earlier that morning, a lone horse had stopped by the cottage just to, you know, say What's up. A three-legged dog down the road is the protectress of a small dairy farm, where the cows wander up from the valley of their own accord every evening at five to be milked. R. screamed at his French ex-soon-to-be-tenant "Get off my property, you French asshole!" He yelled this in Spanish. The very kind old woman who insists on doing R's laundry gave me a long sad look when I didn't answer her question about getting married. Or I didn't answer it right. She gave me this look over a plate of very tiny pancakes ("flapjack") she had made and a very elaborate tea set. Then she asked if R. could take the hoover upstairs because of her hip. And open this jar. Every morning I watched the sun come up while lying in bed and often there was coffee brought to me during this event. Every night I watched the sun go down and the moon come up. The wind was like a person. Can you understand why I want to live there? If I get my wish, I'll live there part of every year.
I keep feeling like I have to justify everything. Why am I quitting my job? Why do I have a boyfriend who lives in England? Why do I like living alone in a very expensive apartment in one of the most expensive cities anywhere? I have these very tiring, intense conversations with my family members where I exhaustively explain each of these things. I'm gettting really sick of it, actually, because I don't think they really care. And I realize that I'm probably really Explaining It All To Myself, but I don't even think I need an explanation. I've always felt that I need some kind of story to parallel all of my activities, like a mini commentator showing the world that yes indeedy, I am one important motherfucker. My brain won't shut up--I keep thinking about the line from that Mary Ruefle poem where she says her mind is like the back of a tapestry. Every time I meditate, I have to dig past all of those twisted and knarled threads, and sometimes I just kind of get buried in the mire, rather than get out on the other side, where there is most surely light and peace and maybe levitation? I'm alone almost all of the time, but things are freaking loud in here. I want the things I do to just be the things I do, without analysis. This is what I want today. I was going to try to draw a parallel with movie I discussed at the beginning, but you know what--never mind.
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1 comment:
ah hell, shrew. this is life, the life of life: do what brings you joy and fuck what people expect you to be. you're a poet. ain't that enough? Plus, and I love this: If you aren't standing on the edge, you're taking up too much space ;) I miss you too. c.
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