I Could Be Wrong, But... |
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Plot Points I could be wrong, but to me, obituaries always read like well-constructed plots to novels. Why is that? I'm glad I asked. Let me begin small and work my way up: When walking my dog yesterday morning, two things happened that made me think about the infinite variables affecting the content and direction of each of our lives on this lonely planet. When my dog "assumed the position", and I reached into my pocket, I discovered my pocket was empty. I had left the house without a plastic bag. Having not missed one scooping opportunity in nearly two years, I was mortified. I looked around, checking for witnesses to the petty crime that was about to occur, and saw, hanging from a bare limb of a stunted, scraggly, leafless tree- a white plastic bag. I walked over, lifted the bag, and put it to good use. Sometimes we get what we need. Ten minutes later, walking on the sidewalk, enjoying the warm sunlight, some people approached from behind. We heard them coming. My dog and I stopped, and turned. A young man and woman were walking side by side. Both were frowning, hard. The woman wore headphones. The man wore headphones. Both listened to music-- different music- so loud that my dog and I stood meekly aside, the crashing music as effective as a gang of large, aggressive men determined to clear a path for the glowering couple. She yelled, "What the fuck do you think I did it for?" He yelled, "Just shut the fuck up!" Neither looked at the other when they yelled. My dog and I lingered on the curb as the two strode into the street. Halfway across the street the man turned to the right. The woman stood in the middle of the street and watched him walking away. She yelled, "I don’t need this shit!" Then she started walking in the same direction the man had gone, but not fast enough to catch up with him. With the infinite variables affecting the content and direction of each of our lives on this lonely planet, these two souls had somehow found each other. Sometimes we get what we deserve. One more thing on my mind is this friend of mine. Call her Kelly. Kelly recently sent me an email. She told me how she had just met an old friend she had not seen in years. The two women had been close in high school, talked a bit in college, then had completely lost touch with each other. Kelly’s friend had majored in accounting. Kelly had majored in Medieval Clothing. Honest. Her dissertation had been on the uniforms of Charlemagne’s troops. Or something like that. Kelly’s friend is now married. She is the Chief Financial Officer of a corporation, the mother of a daughter, the employer of a nanny, and the owner of a new house on the beach in Venice, California. Kelly is married, too. She is the underpaid assistant curator of a University’s clothing collection, the mother of a daughter, and the renter of an old farmhouse in Indiana. In her letter to me, Kelly asked if I could grasp the mix of emotions she had felt upon meeting again, after so many years, her wealthy, "successful" friend. Both women had husbands, and daughters the same age, and established careers. Yet each was living a Life so completely different. Kelly wrote that she realized how "untraditional" her values must seem, in comparison to her friend who was "living the American dream". Kelly wrote that she could not imagine having such a Life that included, among other things, a live-in nanny. Here's what I can imagine. If Kelly were somehow uprooted and transplanted into her friend’s "American dream", within minutes she would begin to influence the infinite variables that affect the content and direction of her Life on this lonely planet. Within minutes, Kelly would have begun a journey that would ultimately, inexorably, return her to a Life very much like the one she now has, with a loving husband, a precocious child, an off-beat, low-paying, highly-satisfying career. Sure, there might be some differences. Her rented farmhouse might be in New Hampshire, instead of Indiana. Sometimes we get what we want. | |||