44
Pomegranates
0
terms
3
notes
47
“It’s a scrim,” I said.
“What do you mean, a scrim?”
“It’s like a scrim between me and anything I try to write. No matter what I’m working on. I’m not ever quite…touching it. There’s an obstacle.”
“A scrim.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a scrim,” I said.
“What do you mean, a scrim?”
“It’s like a scrim between me and anything I try to write. No matter what I’m working on. I’m not ever quite…touching it. There’s an obstacle.”
“A scrim.”
“Yes.”
She quoted from the Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped: “I scrim, you scrim, we all scrim for the scrim!”
“Ha ha. It’s not funny. The scrim is ruining my life.”
She walked in silence for a bit, and then said, “I think I have one too.”
We walked on, thinking scrim thoughts, with chapped lips. Tundra everywhere.
She quoted from the Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped: “I scrim, you scrim, we all scrim for the scrim!”
“Ha ha. It’s not funny. The scrim is ruining my life.”
She walked in silence for a bit, and then said, “I think I have one too.”
We walked on, thinking scrim thoughts, with chapped lips. Tundra everywhere.
“It’s a scrim,” I said.
“What do you mean, a scrim?”
“It’s like a scrim between me and anything I try to write. No matter what I’m working on. I’m not ever quite…touching it. There’s an obstacle.”
“A scrim.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a scrim,” I said.
“What do you mean, a scrim?”
“It’s like a scrim between me and anything I try to write. No matter what I’m working on. I’m not ever quite…touching it. There’s an obstacle.”
“A scrim.”
“Yes.”
She quoted from the Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped: “I scrim, you scrim, we all scrim for the scrim!”
“Ha ha. It’s not funny. The scrim is ruining my life.”
She walked in silence for a bit, and then said, “I think I have one too.”
We walked on, thinking scrim thoughts, with chapped lips. Tundra everywhere.
She quoted from the Isaac Mizrahi documentary Unzipped: “I scrim, you scrim, we all scrim for the scrim!”
“Ha ha. It’s not funny. The scrim is ruining my life.”
She walked in silence for a bit, and then said, “I think I have one too.”
We walked on, thinking scrim thoughts, with chapped lips. Tundra everywhere.
50
I had been gazed at by men for so long, had craved it, hated it, recoiled from it, loved it. Then it went away. Now in this strange, utterly safe, long-distance way, I was being regarded by a stranger again. I became dependent on it, perhaps because I was, like Lucy, unsure of myself and of whom and what I was. The man regarding me was putting me back together again, as men had done so many times before.
I had been gazed at by men for so long, had craved it, hated it, recoiled from it, loved it. Then it went away. Now in this strange, utterly safe, long-distance way, I was being regarded by a stranger again. I became dependent on it, perhaps because I was, like Lucy, unsure of myself and of whom and what I was. The man regarding me was putting me back together again, as men had done so many times before.
54
But once we were back at home, nothing had really changed, except now I was morbidly self-aware about my pomegranate consumption. The moment I sliced off the top of the pom, a moment that used to be one of uncomplicated joy, now felt a bit fraught. Unless I happened to be the receiver of unsolicited hugs from my children, the pom was the brightest spot of my day. Except for the bourbon. My world had become very small, in the way of addicts. This island: I had chosen smallness, safety. What’s safer than an island? During this period, the children sometimes discussed the coming zombie apocalypse, and they and their friends agreed it was good that we lived on an island. An island is safe and contained and one’s choices are necessarily limited by living within its parameters. Like, um, what’s that other thing? Oh, marriage. I chose this constraint, the constraint of marriage. I had chosen it in part because I was afraid of what would happen in the absence of constraints. I was pretty sure such a life, for me, would lead to chaos. Without the order of family life, without the specific tender witness and deliberateness and sweetness of Bruce himself, I would spin into who knows what outer darkness. And his own nature, as a person who reflexively chooses constraint and opts for refusal, would turn him into a fatal isolato. Or so I thought. And yet—hadn’t he slipped the constraint? No biggie—only as far as, you know, Yap. It didn’t occur to me that he might be chafing a little too.
But once we were back at home, nothing had really changed, except now I was morbidly self-aware about my pomegranate consumption. The moment I sliced off the top of the pom, a moment that used to be one of uncomplicated joy, now felt a bit fraught. Unless I happened to be the receiver of unsolicited hugs from my children, the pom was the brightest spot of my day. Except for the bourbon. My world had become very small, in the way of addicts. This island: I had chosen smallness, safety. What’s safer than an island? During this period, the children sometimes discussed the coming zombie apocalypse, and they and their friends agreed it was good that we lived on an island. An island is safe and contained and one’s choices are necessarily limited by living within its parameters. Like, um, what’s that other thing? Oh, marriage. I chose this constraint, the constraint of marriage. I had chosen it in part because I was afraid of what would happen in the absence of constraints. I was pretty sure such a life, for me, would lead to chaos. Without the order of family life, without the specific tender witness and deliberateness and sweetness of Bruce himself, I would spin into who knows what outer darkness. And his own nature, as a person who reflexively chooses constraint and opts for refusal, would turn him into a fatal isolato. Or so I thought. And yet—hadn’t he slipped the constraint? No biggie—only as far as, you know, Yap. It didn’t occur to me that he might be chafing a little too.