Why Obituaries Read Like Novels©2002 David Boyne |
|---|
When walking my dog yesterday morning, two things happened that made me think about the infinite variables affecting the content and direction of each of our lives on this lonely planet.
First thing: When my dog "assumed the position", and I reached into my pocket, I discovered my pocket was empty. I had left the house without a plastic bag. Having not missed one scooping opportunity in nearly two years, I was mortified. I looked around, checking for witnesses to the petty crime that was about to occur, and saw, hanging from a bare limb of a stunted, scraggly, leafless tree- a white plastic bag. I walked over, lifted the bag, and put it to good use.
Sometimes we get what we need.
Second thing: Ten minutes later, walking on the sidewalk, enjoying the warm sunlight, my dog and I heard a loud noise approaching from behind. We both stopped, and turned, and stared.
A young man and woman were walking side by side. Both were frowning, hard. The woman wore headphones. The man wore headphones. Both listened to music— different music—so loud that my dog and I stood meekly aside, the crashing music as effective as a gang of large, aggressive men determined to clear a path for the glowering couple.
She yelled: "What the fuck do you think I did it for?"
He yelled: "Just shut the fuck up!"
Neither looked at the other when they yelled.
My dog and I lingered on the curb as the two strode into the street. Halfway across the street the man turned to the right. The woman stood in the middle of the street and watched him walking away.
She yelled, "I don’t need this shit!"
Then she started walking in the same direction the
man had gone, but not fast enough to catch up with him.
With the infinite variables affecting the content and
direction of each of our lives on this lonely planet,
these two souls had somehow found each other.
Sometimes we get what we deserve.
One more thing on my mind is this friend of mine. Call
her Kelly.
Kelly recently sent me an email. She told me how she
had just met an old friend she had not seen in years.
The two women had been close in high school, talked
a bit in college, then had completely lost touch with
each other.
Kelly’s friend had majored in accounting. Kelly
had majored in Medieval Clothing. Honest. Her dissertation
had been on the uniforms of Charlemagne’s troops.
Or something like that.
Kelly’s friend is now married. She is the Chief
Financial Officer of a corporation, the mother of a
daughter, the employer of a nanny, and the owner of
a new house on the beach in Venice, California.
Kelly is married, too. She is the underpaid assistant
curator of a University’s clothing collection,
the mother of a daughter, and the renter of an old farmhouse
in Indiana.
In her letter to me, Kelly asked if I could grasp the
mix of emotions she had felt upon meeting again, after
so many years, her wealthy, "successful" friend.
Both women had husbands, and daughters the same age,
and established careers. Yet each was living a life
so completely different.
Kelly wrote that she realized how "untraditional"
her values must seem, in comparison to her friend who
was "living the American dream".
Kelly wrote that she could not imagine having such a
life that included, among other things, a live-in nanny.
Here's what I can imagine:
If Kelly were somehow uprooted and transplanted into
her friend’s "American dream", within
minutes she would begin to influence the infinite variables
that affect the content and direction of her life on
this lonely planet.
Within minutes, Kelly would have begun a journey that
would ultimately, inexorably, return her to a life very
much like the one she now has, with a loving husband,
a precocious child, an off-beat, low-paying, highly-satisfying
career.
Sure, there might be some differences. Her rented farmhouse
might be in New Hampshire, instead of Indiana.
Sometimes we get what we want.