LovelyDichotomy
05-23-2010, 11:54 PM
Hey everyone. I just made this account to post this.
First...A little bit of background. This is a short'n'quick recounting of something that occurred this morning. It's very close to a true story. I won't tell you which parts aren't real, because it's more fun for me that way.
Dear Leo
I haven't decided what to call her yet. "My lover" sounds like something out of a romance novel, and it's too strong, anyway. "My friend" is an understatement and doesn't fully explain our situation. We're still testing the water. Lying on my couch and talking about nothing of importance. I consider how long it would take for us to run out of things to say.
She asks me what the four yellow boxes on the bookshelf are. I don't recognize them. In fact, I've never read any of the books surrounding them. The bookshelf belongs to my parents, not me. Freud and Isaacson and friends. She gets up and moves toward the yellow boxes. After a brief internal debate, she grabs the one farthest to the left and returns to sit with me.
It's filled with papers. On top is a lightly penciled sketch of what must be my father sleeping, surrounded by short bursts of poetry. It's kind of sweet, but the tone of the writing suggests something vaguely worrisome. I can't quite tell what. I put it aside.
She pulls out a folded letter and skims the bits that are showing. She hesitates, and hands it to me.
It's from 1985, addressed from England. I can tell by the handwriting that my mother wrote it, and it begins by greeting my father. They're away from each other and she is writing home to him. Her writing is graceful. She sits roughly halfway between a letter and a poem. It's clear that she has chosen her words carefully.
She talks about what she remembers of their relationship. I notice that in the middle of a list, she includes the words "charm," "truth," and "beauty." I recognize these as nicknames used in quantum mechanics. My mother doesn't have anything to say about that, so she must have picked it up from my father. I realize that I don't actually know when they met, but evidently in 1985 they had known each other for a while if she had already picked up mannerisms like that.
She writes that she is afraid of losing what they had. She is obviously in love with him, but she can't tell if he feels the same. She's getting desperate and hoping for the best. It's a last-ditch effort. The letter ends solemnly. Instead of "Sincerely," or "Love," she says, "One-way kisses."
I've known for a while that my parents' marriage was a bit of a strange one. They almost never argue. They never fight. They're happy people. But they're not really married. Not beyond the paperwork, anyway. My mother wants a husband, and my father wants a roommate. I knew that they were constantly hiding their problems for fear of seeming out-of-the-ordinary, but I had no idea that it went back 25 years.
My friend on the couch asks me what the letter said, but I don't have an answer. I think I've run out of things to say.
First...A little bit of background. This is a short'n'quick recounting of something that occurred this morning. It's very close to a true story. I won't tell you which parts aren't real, because it's more fun for me that way.
Dear Leo
I haven't decided what to call her yet. "My lover" sounds like something out of a romance novel, and it's too strong, anyway. "My friend" is an understatement and doesn't fully explain our situation. We're still testing the water. Lying on my couch and talking about nothing of importance. I consider how long it would take for us to run out of things to say.
She asks me what the four yellow boxes on the bookshelf are. I don't recognize them. In fact, I've never read any of the books surrounding them. The bookshelf belongs to my parents, not me. Freud and Isaacson and friends. She gets up and moves toward the yellow boxes. After a brief internal debate, she grabs the one farthest to the left and returns to sit with me.
It's filled with papers. On top is a lightly penciled sketch of what must be my father sleeping, surrounded by short bursts of poetry. It's kind of sweet, but the tone of the writing suggests something vaguely worrisome. I can't quite tell what. I put it aside.
She pulls out a folded letter and skims the bits that are showing. She hesitates, and hands it to me.
It's from 1985, addressed from England. I can tell by the handwriting that my mother wrote it, and it begins by greeting my father. They're away from each other and she is writing home to him. Her writing is graceful. She sits roughly halfway between a letter and a poem. It's clear that she has chosen her words carefully.
She talks about what she remembers of their relationship. I notice that in the middle of a list, she includes the words "charm," "truth," and "beauty." I recognize these as nicknames used in quantum mechanics. My mother doesn't have anything to say about that, so she must have picked it up from my father. I realize that I don't actually know when they met, but evidently in 1985 they had known each other for a while if she had already picked up mannerisms like that.
She writes that she is afraid of losing what they had. She is obviously in love with him, but she can't tell if he feels the same. She's getting desperate and hoping for the best. It's a last-ditch effort. The letter ends solemnly. Instead of "Sincerely," or "Love," she says, "One-way kisses."
I've known for a while that my parents' marriage was a bit of a strange one. They almost never argue. They never fight. They're happy people. But they're not really married. Not beyond the paperwork, anyway. My mother wants a husband, and my father wants a roommate. I knew that they were constantly hiding their problems for fear of seeming out-of-the-ordinary, but I had no idea that it went back 25 years.
My friend on the couch asks me what the letter said, but I don't have an answer. I think I've run out of things to say.