Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting,
challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.
Mis on see, mis sunnib kõigele rasvase kriipsu peale tõmbama? Kuigi ma siiani eitan, et siin on vaid inimesed, kellel on probleeme või kes millegi eest põgenevad, tean väga hästi, et see on ka tõsi. Kas ma põgenen? Kas mul on probleeme? Tundub, et ma ei oska enam sügavale enda sisse vaadata. Ma ei tea mida tahan ja tegelikult pole ma seda kunagi teadnud. Või siis, tean, aga ei tea, kuidas seda saada. Või siis tean, kuidas seda saada, aga olen teelt eksinud. Tunnistan, paljud unistused siin elus jäävad täitmata rahakoti tuuletõmbuse tõttu. Tean ka seda, et olen võimeline leidma teed. Ja ka seda, et kui selle leian, siis pean taaskord tunnistama, et olen üks paras hobune (1990) ja see tähendab, et ei ole harjumust oma tegemisi lõpetada. Nii ka täna.
Kõige paremini selgitab vist minu tänast internetituhlamist mõte, mida ütles mulle suure südamega sõbranna, kes teab seda tunnet:
nagu suur pissihäda ja enam ei kannata oodata, ei tea kuhu see lasta. jookseks maailma lõppu kui see oleks ja hüppaks sealt siis alla.
Kannatamatus on selle nimi. Mitte ära oodata asjade loomulikku kulgu, mitte olla teadmatuses ja samal ajal teada, et see, mida sa varem tahtsid ei ole enam sama ajal, mil oled selleni jõudnud.
Ma tahan olla iseseisev, mitte sõltuda… rahast, jah. Ja ma tahan sõltuda. Sest täna avastasin, et kui olen üksi, siis mõtlen end SõnaOtsesesMõttes lolliks. Kui olen koos, käsikäes, kõrvuti… Siis ma ei mõtle, vaid liigun ja vaatan, mis edasi saab. Mulle meeldib nii rohkem. Aga mina, ullike, ei ütle enda paha tujuga ju muud, kui “Have a nice day!”, mis sest, et pärast kahte sekundit, kui ta Skypest lahkub, tahan olla jaanalind ja kõige eest peitu, ka oma mõtete eest. Minuga koos olemise üks reegel on vast see, et kui oled, siis ole alati, isegi siis, kui märkad vaimuhaige tunnuseid. See on ainuke võimalus nende leevendamiseks ja hajutamiseks. Mõtlen end katki, kogu aeg, kui mul on liiga palju aega ja üksindust.
Kuigi ma tahaks tellida kodukorterisse säästvaid ehituslahendusi tundvad kutid ja lasta kõik teha minupäraseks, koduseks, hubaseks. Veidi feng shuid ja kirjusid aksessuaare ja voila! unistuste kodu… Aga seda näen ma vaid üksi elades ja üksi ma ei taha olla, sest ma ei taha mõelda, sest ma ei taha hulluks minna… Me ei ole määratud üksi olema.
Miks elu nii keerluline on? Miks see paksus (mitte suurus) nii oluline on? Miks meie ümber on nii palju purunenud unistusi? Mõtleb ju iga pisikene plikatirts, et “ükskord kui MINA suureks saan, siis…” Aga kui sa oled suur, siis matad kõik maha ning lepid vähemaga. Miks?
Ma pean vist aktiivselt visualiseerimisega tegelema hakkama. Ja positiivse mõtlemisega ja “Saladusega”. See võib olla lora, aga kui mõtleme kogu aeg, et ma ei ole seda väärt ja juba minu vanemad leppisid sellise eluga ja ka naabrimees on rahul… Siis miks? Miks? Aga miks on Maali seal Põlvamaal oma põhumajas seitsme lapse, abikaasa ja peenramaaga õnnelik? Miks Jürgen (mitte Vebber või kes iganes) töötab oma MacBook Air’iga siis kui tahab ja on täitsa võimeline ostma kohe homme uue köögilaua ja kardinad…. Või uue suure voodi, kus saaks oma armukesega hullata?
Tõsiasi on ka see, et kes töötab palju, teeb seda mitme muu tegevuse arvelt. Siis meil ei ole enam aega pöörata tähelepanu enda pudrukulbiga naisele, oma kilkavatele lastele ja mõnuspehmele abieluvoodile.
Olen alati tahtnud olla koduperenaine, suure pere ema ja hoolitsev kaasa. Aga ma ei suuda siiani aksepteerida mõtet, et laseksin enda mehel selle võrra rohkem toetada. Mehed ei pea perekonda ülal pidama.
Lihtsam on vast üldse ilma perekonnata, eks? Üksi?
Lisan siia veel ühe Fulghum’i essee, mis kirjeldab täpselt, et üks pisikene asi (kollane värv, yeesh) viib katastroofini. Milleks üldse midagi teha?
One reason I hang around with my friend Grady is because I like to watch him put on his shoes and socks. We work out together at a gym, and after we shower off and are getting dressed, the high point of the event comes. When Grady does his shoe-and-sock performance. He carefully examines each sock, trying to decide which one he wore last on which foot so he can reverse them now and put them on opposite feet so he doesn’t wear out the big-toe side. He also turns them inside out to even the wear on both sides of the sock. I’m not kidding. This is a complicated ritual, not easily carried out- I know, I tried it once when Grady wasn’t around.
When Grady has his socks repositioned correctly, he then puts one sock and one shoe on one foot- all the way to tying the laces. Followed by the other sock and other shoe. I observe that most people put on both socks and then both shoes. Sock, sock, shoe, shoe is the usual order. Grady is a sock, shoe, sock, shoe kind of guy. I’ve never talked to him about this. He might have a reason- a long reason- and I don’t think I want to know.
Grady and I have played poker together for years- couple of hundred years or more. Well, no, it hasn’t really been that long, but his name isn’t Grady, either. His name ought to be Grady. Do you know people like that? People who got the wrong name when they were born. This guy is a Grady if I ever saw one, and I’ll leave it at that. And when I say I’ve been playing poker with Grady for a couple of hundred years, it’s because he’s one of those guys who can take FOR-BLOODY-EVER deciding what to do with a hand. If you’re dealing draw poker and you asked him many cards he wants, you could go out for a full-course Chinese dinner and come back and he’d not only still be thinking, he wouldn’t have noticed you left. Grady does not ever leap to conclusions.
But this isn’t about Grady’s poker playing. it’s about two gallons of yellow paint and the meaning of Grady’s life.
Grady has a problem with scale. Scale in the sense of the real world being the base reference and a road map being drawn on a scale of one inch equals twenty miles. Like that. He tries to live on more than one scale at time. In the real world and on the map at the same time. In the present and in the future at the same time. I will elaborate.
(In passing, I should point out that Grady is intelligent- he’s got several diplomas from upmarket private colleges hanging on his wall to prove it. but being intelligent doesn’t mean you aren’t stupid. His income is good, too. It’s his outgo that gets him in trouble.)
Anyhow, about the paint.
It all began seven years ago when Grady moved out of his marriage and out of his house, and into a bachelor apartment. Temporarily, or so he said. The apartment was a hole- in an old building that had once been pretty classy, but that was now dark, moldy, and depressing. The smell of stale bacon grease pretty well established the ambience of the building. He’s been temporarily there for seven years. Grady says he’s waiting for the future to clarify itself enough so that he can either fix up his present apartment, move into a better set of digs, or maybe move back home with his wife and family. Which is a real laugh because his wife divorced him, remarried, sold the old house, and moved to Wyoming five years ago. She is out of it, free and clear. There is some real lunatic optimism loose in Grady’s head, because he still doesn’t quite believe she’s gone and it’s all over. Grady doesn’t come to hasty conclusions.
He’s lived in this crummy apartment for seven years, and for every minute of that seven years he has been down and out about how awful the apartment makes him feel. He hates to come home to it at night. Says it’s so ugly in there. His friends agree. Nobody goes over to Grady’s house unless he wants to be depressed.
The walls are gray. The rug is gray. The drapes are gray. So’s the furniture. He ought to at least paint the walls. He even knows what color. Yellow. Two callong would do the living room, easy. It would be a start. And that’s the heart of the problem.
See, if he painted the walls, the furniture wouldn’t look good in there and he’d have to have new furniture, which means going shopping, and he doesn’t have time to go shopping, and interior decorations are too opinionated and trendy, so he doesn’t want one of those, and besides if he is going to buy new furniture, he might as well move up to a better apartment.
But the kind of apartment he wants is expensive and he’d have to sign a lease and change his phone number and have his stationery reprinted. And if he is going to go to all that trouble and expense, he might as well buy a house, because real estate is going up and up and why wait until he can’t afford it?
Or, who knows, his wife may finally decide she made a big mistake in leaving him and would want to come back and there he would be with a house his wife wouldn’t want and still having to pay private school tuition for the children of his second marriage. He’d need a therapist before long, and everybody knows what they cost.
Grady figures a couple of gallons of paint could cost half a million dollars in the long run, and who needs that?
And I agree. It’s a risk, I tell him. When the sun finally starts to die and gets so hot it turns the surface of the earth into boiling rock, his new house will burn down, and he will regret all the time and trouble gone to waste, and his insurance money and the deposit money on the nonexistent children’s nonexistent private school will be down the drain to boot. In between there will be carpenter ants, inflation, depression, famine, floods, earthquakes, mold, athlete’s foot, and entropy. Painting his apartment living room yellow could lead to the end of the world. Grady seems comforted by the depth of my comprehension of the problem.
“Grady,” says I, “you should turn yourself in to the Humane Society, and if nobody claims you in a couple of weeks, they will put you to sleep. It’s the only way out. Because you are too dumb to live.”
Grady’s stuck. And he thinks getting unstuck and coming unglued are the same thing.
Grady also has this scale problem. Trying to live in several different time frameworks at the same time. He’s trying to live today and tomorrow and next week and next year and next decade and next century all at once. And trying to live in his apartment now and in houses yet to come. I tell him he should just buy himself a cemetery plot now, dig a hole in it and pitch a tent over it, and move in. Save all that hassle in between.
So we had enough- Grady’s friends. Enough of his being stuck straddling the present and the future. Enough of his moaning and groaning. It was casting a pall over poker games. We decided to shove him headlong into the perils of the next phase of his miserable existence. While he was off skiing one weekend., we bought the lousy paint and repainted his grummy living room. Hauled half his furniture to the Goodwill, has his rug shampooed, the windows washed, and bought him a potted plant and one goldfish in a bowl so that something alive was in there with him at night.
Oh, he appreciated the gesture all right. He even cried about it. Took us all out to dinner and made a great fuss. But he’s not happy.
It’s the paint. The paint’s the wrong color. We used medium yellow. Lighter yellow was what he had in mind. And now if he repaints it, he will hurt out feelings, and if he doesn’t, he’ll go crazy living with that yellow, so Grady’s stuck again.
We sent his ex-wife a sympathy card.
And sent Grady a bill for the damned paint.
The only reason I still hang out with his has to do with getting some new curtains in our house. You know what getting new curtains means. Grady’s one of the few people I know to talk to about what getting new curtains can lead to. In fact, we may form a club called the Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don’t Society of America. A subsection of the Fellowship of the Fridge. We’d probably never get a membership going. Most of our kind of folks wouldn’t be able to make up their minds whether to join or just wait and see.
