If the first two weeks of 2014 are anything to go by, it'll be a tiring year. I'm back to not being able to sleep properly. Over a decade ago I had to learn the trick of falling asleep to a flickering television screen; I had become so used to curling up next to somebody that the sudden loneliness at night after he went away was all-encompassing. A friend made a comment to me recently that he only gets to fall asleep through exhaustion these days, and I've realised I'm at the same point.
Silence becomes suffocating. My happy equilibrium has been destroyed and I've crossed over from the Peaceful Alone and taken up residence in the world of the Discontented Lonely.
There is a wonderful line in 'The Great Gatsby' (all the lines are wonderful, come to that) -
“Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that green light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”
The end of any relationship invariably sees a smashed path of those enchanted objects stretching before us. Future moments are taken away. Memories are associated with a particular person and it is impossible to extricate them from the scene and replace them with somebody new simply because that is what we would like to do. Some music is lost to us forever. Phrases. Whatever meant something to us with 'them' becomes a barrier between any future 'us' that might be created. Everything from places to poems, scents to gestures, sends me tumbling back into a past I wish I could forget.
There are some people you'll meet who you know are playing a game. You blithely concede to become a part of that; some emotions are banished, and you are safe. Then there are those who catch you out – you don't realise until too late that it was all just a challenge to them, and once they are tired of the game they'll abruptly move on. Another 'Gatsby' thought:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...”.
It's almost easier to deal with those than the third category: those you are never quite sure of. Did it mean anything to them? Are they now laughing about you; using those same lines on somebody else? Or are they also awake at 4am, wondering what the hell just happened to their dreams?
The feelings will eventually creep away. You shut them into a loosely bolted casket and come to learn how to lean heavily on the lid. Yet again, though, I find myself wanting a sneak preview of the future – just to be sure that, once more, I emerge from the other side and manage to get a little peace again. During this past week, aided by distractions and friends and drinks, I have clutched a little desperately onto positive emotions and forced myself to organise some of the practicalities of life. And now, I am somewhat inevitably going through the opposing feelings; I'll be achieving a rocky but bearable equilibrium at some as yet unknown point. It's been done before.
Until then, along with Argentine lyricist Cadicamo, I want my heart to get drunk.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
Where the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
No comments:
Post a Comment