From R. M. Dolin’s novel “The Dangling Conversation – A Park Bench Philosophy,” Part 12.
MANDY
“I can’t do it, not on short notice and certainly not like this. Sometimes Henry can be a real shit; first he springs this on me last minute, then he gets mad when I say no, now he’s pouting like a little boy who can’t have ice cream. Not every idea’s a good one just because you think it is, at least not after factoring all the ins and outs and what-ifs. There’s implications and stipulations that can’t be ignored just because it’s last-minute; that’s what he doesn’t get.
“I’m not a prude or some sort of fuddy-duddy, but last minute’s unfair. It’s not like he didn’t know about this months ago, which begs the bigger question, why does he wait until the last minute? He claims he wasn’t gonna go but then got pressured and doesn’t want to go alone. Is that supposed to impress me, make me feel desired or even appreciated, I think not! Saying he wants me to go because he doesn’t want to go alone is like asking a stranger to dance because you’d look foolish on the dance floor alone. And it’s not even that if we’re being honest, his story’s just not stacking up; at least not to me.
“It’s our first fight and that’s sad, maybe not a fight per se, and probably not our first; a strong disagreement, if there’s even such a thing, one where we wind up not talking to each other pretending peace can only come when the other acknowledges wrongdoing. On top of that, this thing is like nine hours away; then there’s the time off, he skips work whenever the hell he wants but I have to schedule around lost days. I don’t get paid for not working; we’re not all hoity toity professionals ya know, some of us work for a living.
“He says he won’t go if I don’t and I say fine, which should be the end of our argument, right; only no, because I have to now deal with his pouting and the way he makes me feel guilty. I got nothing to be guilty about but there it is just the same, a feeling that gnaws at me like a dog on a bone, like I’m some sort of fool.”
WES
“After my winter trip to Versailles where Nadia and I reconnected, I invited her to visit me, it seemed the natural next step in maturing our renewed commitment; and it made logical sense, I was full time in DC back then but kept a place in the mountains north of Albuquerque where the State Department would let me work remotely from time to time. I told you about the cabin I bought back when I taught mathematics at the University of New Mexico, an amazing property on the soft side of a mountain surrounded by magnificent Ponderosas creating a treetop canopy covering the property in shaded isolation. Ponderosas are king of the pines, towering fifty, even sixty feet high but only branching out at the crown, leaving the forest floor open and inviting. The house is mostly windows without curtains, and why not, I’m on acres of secluded forest with no neighbors, just sunshine and nature and no one peeking in to see me prancing around in my birthday suit.
“I invited her for July, which is the best time to be in New Mexico; it’s monsoon season and these incredible high-energy thunderstorms roll in each afternoon for an hour or so. The storms start out as virga rain, which means drops evaporate on their way down creating these dark wispy streaks in the sky below the base of the storm cell. Virga is Spanish for “fallstreaks,” which is exactly what it looks like, cascading waterfalls in the sky. The evaporating rain creates a natural swamp cooler effect keeping high desert heat in check. The air’s so damn fresh after a rain, like nothing you’ve ever smelled or tasted; and yes, you can actually taste mountain air after a thunderstorm; not something you’d want to try with our crappy city air.
“If you want to go somewhere with Henry, head to the mountains; not the playdough hills around here, or the baby steps of the Cascades or Appalachia, but real mountains like the Jemez or Sangre de Cristo’s, they’ll change you forever. They say the Jemez are magical, can’t say how or why, but after living there off and on over thirty years can attest it’s true. It’s not the dense mix of Ponderosa, Piñon, and Juniper, or the rugged way plateaus cut into cliffs, it’s this aura, a kind of mysticism that plants thoughts in your head, deep meaningful stuff you never have time or space for anywhere else. On mornings after a slow but steady rain, a light fog forms in the mostly open meadow below my cabin; there’s a giant Ponderosa in the center, it’s like four feet in diameter and at least a hundred feet high. For some reason I’ve never understood, elk like to bunch up around that pine. The cabin initially had this dilapidated deck I liked to sit on cupping piping hot coffee while watching elk graze as their calves’ prance about in adolescent fun; makes getting up on a cold mountain morning early worth the effort; you can’t witness stuff like that and not be changed.
“Work’s a much different animal in France, they don’t have the stratifications we do; the “haves” pitted against the “have nots.” Everyone’s treated the same when it comes to vacations and time off. Professionals and laborers alike get an entire month off in summer; most in July, but the rest in either June or August depending on who and how jobs and people sort out. Can you imagine having an entire month off, even in my forced retirement I’m too busy for something like that; I literally wouldn’t know how to abandon my commitments for so long, even this park bench would have squatters by the time I returned to my routine.
“And neither did Nadia, or so I supposed; she had absolutely nothing else to do but wouldn’t come. I tried selling her on the entire New Mexico Mountain experience and the wonderfully romantic time we’d have; not only at the cabin but taking in all of Santa Fe’s cultural and artistic offerings. Nothing could convince her though and it wasn’t the cost, I insisted on paying for everything; she just didn’t want to and that really hurt. I’m ashamed to admit it, but in retrospect I probably pouted. Not only did it hurt, but I was offended and even more confused; I thought about breaking up and maybe even might have if anyone else had come along in a moment of weakness. Then the coin flipped, and my angry disappointment turned to terrorized panic as I concluded her not coming meant she was going to break up with me; that threw me into a tailspin of anxiety, profoundly scared me in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
“Men don’t really pout ya know; what looks like pouting is really the stoic way we deal with crap we can’t understand; “quiet retreat,” is a better way to describe us in those situations. The problem is we’re logically grounded, we hatch an idea based on saving money, or time, or whatever makes sense for us to optimize in the moment, then we build a plan around that and in the process convince ourselves it’s so damn perfect how could anyone not see it as the obvious path forward. Henry’s not playing games; he said he wasn’t going to go and now he’s been pressured to attend and his most perfect plan for going includes you at his side; you really should be flattered.
“Consider the alternative and be honest, what’s your reaction if he just ups and goes without telling you or asking you along? I guarantee you’re pissed; most likely accusing him of secretly wanting to hook up with his ex, whether he has one or not. Look at this from poor Henry’s lose-lose perspective, the dammed lad’s trapped.”
MANDY
“Even if that’s true, he could’ve asked me better. I’m not complicated, just want to be treated with respect, is that’s asking too much? And you absolutely called it about the ex, she’s gonna be there and if he goes without me, hell yea I’ll spend the weekend obsessing on how he’s hooking up with her. At this point I don’t see how he can possibly go; I forbid him from going alone and have no intention of going. How’s that for logically laying out an obvious path forward?”
WES
“Okay first of all, logic is devoid of emotion so let’s not pretend that was a consistently logical argument. Second, you improperly skewed the primary tenant; if you start with the binary outcome that Henry either goes or does not go to this event and exclude his not going since, as he said, he’s been pressured to attend, only two outcomes exist; either he goes with you, or he goes alone. Mitigating factors include that his ex will be there, that there’ll be drinking, probably dancing, and the very real potential for a moment of weakness, which leads to an equally important parallel branch in your decision tree, do you or don’t you trust Henry to act appropriately in a moment of weakness? If you answer yes, then send the poor bastard on his way and don’t hold it against him. If you answer no, either dump his ass for being untrustworthy or go with him to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.
“The decision tree for my Nadia visit/non-visit was similar but decidedly different. Her ultimatum was I either spend the summer with her in France or spend it alone. I don’t remember the exact order of her excuses, there were way too many that wrapped around themselves in a convoluted spiral that couldn’t be decoupled. She said she was afraid; America, according to her, is a violent slime pit with New Mexico topping the list of most violent places in our uber dangerous country. She’s seen too many movies glorifying gang and cartel abuses, read too many stories about corrupt government officials oppressing innocent people. She couldn’t be comfortable always worried about being killed, or kidnapped, or imprisoned on trumped up charges, or sold into slavery. It’s sort of ironic given that she’s a Berber and the Barbery Coast pirates were the leading cause of violence, kidnapping, and slavery along the Mediterranean for hundreds of years.
“But that was then, and this is now, and I guess that’s not really the point, is it? The point is-, well actually that’s not the point either. The point is she didn’t want to come, we could sit here all night dissecting the what’s and why’s, but they don’t much matter in the end do they; it’d be like looking at the aftermath of a burned down house and focusing on how the fire started, which in the ash heap of a crisis has no meaningful value.”
MANDY
“Henry argues that there aren’t any real barriers preventing me from going, at least not any that can’t be overcome. Maybe I can’t counter that, but that’s not the point; not when I’m stuck in the whirlwind of not being ready or willing. The thing is, relationships need to proceed at a certain pace along certain paths, they mature through measured moments that must occur in specific order; you don’t get wet then jump in the lake. I’m not saying we can’t do stuff like that, just not now; especially given how it all came about. So what if I’m irrational, it’s a woman’s prerogative. What you and your logic fail to account for is the tangential layer of complexity we’ve yet to touch on, which is the significance of saying yes.
“Men have it easy when it comes to relationships, you ask me away for the weekend and it means nothing more than going away for the weekend. You ask a woman away for the weekend, especially to an event like this, and the implications are staggering. First off, what does it say about our relationship that you’d invite me; are you suggesting we’re going to the next level, or do you disregard me to the point where you assume I’ll do anything you ask? And how would I be introduced, I’d hope for “fiancé,” given where I think we’re heading but could be happy with “girlfriend”. What if Henry introduces me as his “friend”, especially to his ex? Inviting a woman away for the weekend is not something frivolous and a girl doesn’t say yes unless she’s solidly sure where she stands.
“What if his family’s there; I assume they’re the ones pressuring him to attend because it sure as hell had better not be his ex. At some point his mom, or his sisters, or some nosey cousin will corner me alone for an interrogation; what am I supposed to say? What does Henry want me to say? Everything’s cut and dry for guys, but us girls operate from a considerably more multilayered playbook and quite frankly, Henry’s not done enough to convince he’s even thought about all this from my perspective, or that our relationship is mature enough to survive interrogations.”
WES
“I couldn’t see the difference from me being at Nadia’s place with her or her being at my place with me but apparently the distinction was like night and day. What I do know, is coming to New Mexico had nothing to do with her alleged extenuating circumstances. My cabin’s deep in the Jemez, so deep in fact, there’ll be times, depending on summer rain or winter snow, you can’t get in or out. Sometimes, depending on wind or lightning, Santa Fe pilots fly over and if you know how to look and what you’re looking for, you can see my cabin. I still look, it’s pretty painful, but I can’t look away. Experts say you can’t see your death in dreams, but I do, each time I see my cabin I feel the executioner’s axe on my neck and the delight he takes in his labor. The horrible hope for humanity is that we’ll do better; only flying over my cabin reinforces how I long ago lost hope.
“I love that place more than I need my next breath; love the beauty, the solitude, the rugged way it makes me part of nature; I can’t imagine anywhere on earth being better. Summer monsoons keeping things cool while winter snow blankets the mountains with a pristine quiet that’s impossible to describe; an absence of sound so surreal you dare not speak under penalty of being that arrogant guy who violates serenity.
“Before I had to sell cause of my troubles, I tore down the deck and built a covered patio using logs I harvested from the property, stones I quarried from a nearby stream, and surplus lumber I salvaged from construction sites. It didn’t much matter what time of day I sat outside because God-granted views were waiting to be painted. To the east at dawn, the sun would catapult over the Sangre’s waking the valley below to the newest perfect day. To the west del Sol softly signaled encroaching night, hovering a brief moment atop Redondo Peak like the lingering kiss of a lover who consumes your soul while daring you to touch those sacred dreams you dare not dream. Below was the open meadow fenced by a protective forest of Ponderosas, just after dawn and just before dusk the park would come alive with wildlife; everything from turkeys, deer, elk, black bears, and cougars; some bouncing about in naïve innocence as others stalk around with intense drama, whatever the movement, there was always something amazing to witness.
“When I first got the place, it was a wreck; the nasty wall-to-wall shag carpets were not only ugly and long since out of style, but not compatible with high mountain living. Phase one of my multi-year renovation involved laying down a solid oak floor, giving the place a rugged elegance. That floor lasted a solid twenty-some years before life extracted the torrent toll it takes on anything treasured. I was gonna refinish the surface, you know, sand down to new wood before slapping on a coat of fresh varnish; that was before I realized by the time I’d get past all the scuffs and scares there wouldn’t be much wood left.
“Nadia and I were together then but not seeing much of each other. As I said, for reasons she’s never explained, and I never understood, she wouldn’t visit. I still struggle to process what the hell was going on and how things between us slipped so South; it was what it was I suppose. The odd irony is that we’d be together in France and everything between us was as good as it ever was; she just had no interest in seeing or being a part of my world. It was always the same bullshit answer about America not being safe; something was an obvious barrier, but that wasn’t it. She’d say everything between us was good, but we both knew it wasn’t. I can’t speak for her, but the lie at least let live in a world where we were still in love; and I was, so in love I convinced myself she mostly still loved me. At some point though, for reasons no one can rationalize and don’t much matter, we all reach a point where we must learn life’s most unfortunate truth; being in love is not enough to sustain love.
“The thing about Henry, and me, and most men really, is we’re creatures of action, if we’re not solving a problem, we’re fixing what’s broke, and if nothing’s broke we bore down to optimizing inefficiencies. When we can’t identify a problem, find something to fix, or optimize a process, we go a little batshit crazy. That’s what I did when Nadia abandoned me, I went batshit crazy cause in the end, that’s the collateral consequence of love. I channeled my escalating anxiety into tearing down my dilapidated deck and building the covered patio. Somewhere between setting footings and finishing the roof, I get it in my head that it has to be perfect, a private Taj Mahal; a shrine exuding my profound love. Sounds stupid now, but in that moment, it was all-consuming and righteously justified. Winning Nadia’s love required nothing short of something spectacular and so, that’s exactly what my picture-perfect patio had to be.
“That’s the same time I decide my old oak floor can’t be refurbished because spectacular isn’t built on new coats of varnish over scared up floors. I feel guilty about ripping out a floor that can technically be refurbished but optimize a way around my angst. Rather than toss the old planks out like discarded memories, something no self-respecting engineer can tolerate, I repurpose them as the new patio’s ceiling.
“I almost can’t not think about that patio and how whomever has it now has no idea about the profound history it holds; at least for me. Who the hell takes a scuffed-up scared-over floor and puts it in the ceiling of their private Taj Mahal; only someone who’s batshit crazy right, but the thing is, in the end there’s only the end and a man doesn’t have to justify the crap he does when he’s batshit crazy.
“I’d have friends over from time to time; maybe for dinner, maybe for poker, maybe just to have a beer after dirt bike riding. Everyone pretty much comes to the same conclusion; first they’re impressed about a solid oak ceiling, even a little amazed to look up at a floor, but after closer examination they focus on the scuffs and scars and wonder why the hell I’d make a ceiling so damn flawed in a patio that otherwise looks so damn perfect. But that’s the deal with life isn’t it; like love, it gets encapsulated in a dichotomy of beauty’s ugly truth.
“Good, bad, or indifferent, we all have history; scuffs and scares we embrace while running away. Unlike most, I can simultaneously be here and there; can embrace my past while living in the present, I see the beauty in things others view as ugly. Like a hungry man, I never question the quality of my next meal any more than I rationalize the righteousness of love. Ask me about tomorrow and I’ll paint you a picture of my past. Ask me about forever and I’ll fill you with gallows humor of a dreamer who never stops dreaming while never really expecting his dreams to come true. Look at the dichotomy of Nadia and I, we’re falling out of love at the same time I’m building a shrine to affirm my unconditional admiration; it’s all sort of peacefully painful. I’m not saying pain is peaceful, that’s weird; but when shit’s piling high and deep you reach a point of quiet acquiescence, surrendering to an outcome you can’t control and when you do, this sense falls over you where you become at peace with the thing you hoped would never happen.
While others focus on the flaws my old floor masquerading as a ceiling proudly displays, I see is the ugly beauty of each and every well-worn plank. I can sit out there for hours reliving my life in memories; the deep scratches from all the times Max and I played fetch in the house or tug-a-war with his toys. There’s one set of scratches that are particularly precious from when he freaked out hearing his first thunderstorm; he tried to claw his way under the couch like he’d do when he was a puppy chasing his tennis ball. The problem was he’d gotten so damn big he didn’t fit. Even though I trained him not to get on the couch, he jumps up in my lap. It’s silly having a ninety-pound white lab curled up on my lap shaking in terror as lightening dances around my mountain like static on a worn rug. But he feels safe there, sort of like how I’d feel curled up in Nadia’s lap whenever the shitstorm of my troubles rained down on me.
“If you look closely, you’ll see different colored flecks of paint from a wine and painting party I had with my grad students; what a night that was, we clearly drank too much and collectively voted that the crap we painted had to not only be burned in the fireplace but could never be spoken of again. There’s a water stain on a couple planks from where the ice machine in the refrigerator I bought at a garage sale from a woman getting divorced started to leak; it wasn’t until mold was growing in the basement, I figured it out. You can find sun faded boards mixed in a random collage with pristine planks that were preserved by throw-rugs creating a map only I can decipher. There’s left over stains from the Christmas party where we had the brilliant idea to sing carols on the deck cause it was snowing, that cascaded into a whole series of equally bad decisions. If you went to my cabin and saw the ceiling, you couldn’t help but focus on all the scuffs and scars, but all I see are highlight reels of my life.
“I hung hummingbird feeders from the patio portales; nothing more really than inverted glass bottles filled with sugar water having nozzles at the base for the birds to feed. It’s fun having the little bastards around, hovering like tiny drones and squabbling like gossiping old hens. Hard to believe, but they fly up from Mexico each spring just to summer with me in the mountains, and man are they fighters, fierce badass Cholos. No sooner do I put fresh food out than they start marking turf; each bird staking a claim and fending off any and all challengers with intense determination; you can’t help but respect that.
“Sometimes they get to fighting so intense a bird bumps a branch or piledrives into a post and winds up stunned to the point of passing out. I scoop em up and hold them in my hand, gently massaging their breast, feeling the pulsating rhythm of their heart; so fast, so full of determination, so eager to rejoin a battle that seems trivially amusing to me but of paramount consequence to them. It’s amazing how small they are when curled up in your hand, a tablespoon of raw energy, brave and courageous with a tenacious passion. Can’t say why God made them possessive to the point of obsession cause if they just stood back and saw themselves with a modicum of perspective, they’d understand it’s futile to own a feeder, and the food it provides creates an unnatural dependency that seems life-sustaining but only exists through the generosity of others. They’re no different than us I suppose, you and I can’t own this bench any more than we can own the moon and yet it’s our nature to try; we can’t control how we feel about our lovers when we’re in love any more than we can control how they feel about us, and yet we’re compelled to try. In my Taj Mahal I allowed myself to believe I owned each sunrise over the Sangre’s and every sunset kiss atop Redondo Peak; Nadia not coming forced a fantasy shattering prospective. I am at best a wisp of wind devoid of form, a molecule of substance passing through Nadia’s world at the same random rate hummingbirds pass though mine.”
MANDY
“It’s so sad you had to sell your cabin, I know how easy it is to love a house and how hard it is to let it go; I would have liked to go there, especially given you describe it. I’ve never seen an elk, or even a hummingbird for that matter, never witnessed the power of a thunderstorm rolling over a mountain ridge or felt the quiet solitude of a snow-covered meadow. I never experienced any of the wonderful things you describe but know what it’s like to be abandoned by someone you love. My ex and I met by chance at a conference; he was an out-of-state grad student presenting a paper and I was part of the team organizing and hosting the event.
“We talked briefly the night before the conference started when he picked up his credentials. We didn’t say anything of substance, but after a stress-filled day of dealing with arrogant academics who were anything but kind, his soft smile and patient words lingered long after he left. I didn’t see him again until the last day when I was sent to a breakout room to check on the status of the IT guy fixing an audio issue. There stood my ex, this calm self-assured grad student smiling at the audience as he patiently waits for the microphone; not upset or uncomfortable in the least, even joking about how Murphy and his Law always manage to find him.
“When the audio issues are finally resolved, he resumes his talk as if nothing’s happened, as if it was a planned part of his act. That’s his way, nothing ever rattles him, always calm and self-assured. I later learn though, he’s as riddled with insecurities as the rest of us, just hides it better than most; unfortunately, he can’t control the random ways it manifests itself. I wait until the session’s ended to apologize, but to be honest that had nothing to do with anything. He glosses over my apology so fast I forget exactly how it is I start telling my life story or how I so easily agree to meet him later for cocktails.
“From there it’s all happiness and Hollywood; a long-distance relationship that lasts right up until it doesn’t. I can’t explain what went wrong any better than you explain why Nadia wouldn’t visit. That’s the route love travels, we want to find answers, to pinpoint the what’s and why’s but in the end we can’t even though there’s always something to land on, even if it’s not the answer we set out to find. By the time our marriage is in a full-flown death spiral, I got a suitcase full of reasons I carry around handcuffed to my heart. Lately though, I suppose cause of Henry, the handcuffs have loosened.
“I wanted so much to blame my ex for what happened, I needed to believe I was the greater fool, for in that vanity I could deflect my pain. I was doing a pretty good job until Henry came along offering me a glimpse of the shiny side of love. I’ve never been someone to chase after shiny objects, which is why I suppose, each time I find the courage to risk a flip of Henry’s coin I worry to the point of stagnation it’ll come up rust. It’s not that I don’t want to go to his damn event, it’s not that I can’t work through the barriers, it’s that I’m not ready to completely flip that coin; that’s what’s really going on.
“And that makes me the greater fool doesn’t it, frozen like a statue, afraid to fall forward because I haven’t learned the lesson of my past; destined to fail at love because I’m afraid of love, never to be free of its fateful spiral.”
WES
“I can’t tell you to go or not go to Henry’s event, but I do understand your trepidation. You have to talk honestly to Henry about your fears, that’s the most important thing; if you can’t talk to each other your relationship is doomed. Not knowing, not understanding, will eat at him far worse than hearing your truth; that much I’ve managed to learn along the way. Not knowing why Nadia wouldn’t come to my cabin still gnaws at my soul with a relentlessness that can’t be silenced; It has nothing to do with the reasons she cited but beyond that it’s all speculation and wild-ass theory. I’ve been the greater fool; not for falling in love or allowing myself to love her more than she loved me, or for building a Taj Mahal she never saw, or for being love’s lampooned hummingbird, or not seeing things with proper perspective, it’s because she never loved me enough to truthfully tell me the what’s or why’s of what was really going on.”
