Passage, 3

When I was writing my dissertation, Alisa and I had a conversation that seems more poignant now.

“You know, I’ve always wondered what I would do, teaching all these young girls. What I’d do if I was attracted to one of them.”

She turned to me and smiled. “And what did you conclude?”

“That it is impossible to find anyone else attractive when I have you.”

It was a lie, of course. I found those young girls attractive all the time. One time, my mouth even dropped when one of my students walked in. she was wearing a short skirt with high-heeled sandals. I don’t know what she was doing wearing that to class and I didn’t care. At some point I realized that I’d stopped lecturing.

I could say that later that day, I went home and I had especially vigorous sex with Alisa. Or that I vowed never to look at another woman, no matter how young, again. But that isn’t the point. The point is that I respected Alisa. I knew it would hurt her to know I found other women attractive. So I kept it tightly coiled inside me. That day, I let it out. But after that, I became more vigilant. Wound that tendency tighter inside my chest.

Now, as I drive the fifteen minutes it takes to reach campus, I find myself looking at the women running around its ring. And walking to their classes from the dorms. It does little for me, perhaps because I shut that part of me off so well. Or perhaps because I am mourning my loss. Maybe I just need to give myself some time.

___

Passage, 2

It always starts this way. But when I finally appear, it is only something small she needs. A lightbulb stored in the cupboard just above her reach. I walked slowly towards the kitchen. She stood, leaning against the counter, thin arms folded tightly against her chest.

This time, it wasn’t something trivial. “We need to talk.”

So right there, standing in the middle of the kitchen, in bare feet, an old pair of shorts and no shirt, I learned that my wife of sixteen years was going to divorce me. Not that she wanted a divorce. No. She was going to get a divorce.

They say that this often happens to men. They are blindsided by the torrent of anger. Pain seems to leak from every pore. And the men have no idea.

___

As I stand and survey my new quarters, I realize how much my life depended on Alisa. The details that I took for granted and wondered why it made her so angry when I didn’t put something back in the right place or remember where things went. Now I know. I’m doing it all myself. I never knew that there were so many choices at the store for organizing silverware. So I just decided to forgo it altogether. Now I just open the drawer, a tangle of forks, knives, and spoons, reach in for what I need and quickly shut the drawer again lest their menacing sharp edges threaten more damage than just delivering fat foods to my mouth.

The children are gone, and we only had to work out the custody of the cats. I insisted there. I needed one. At least that. I got the boy, naturally. Alisa was close to them both but even in the midst of her anger, she had compassion. She knew I could not be completely bereft of all comfort. So I got Maxie. I picked him out, anyway, even though he was more attached to Alisa than he was to me. Not anymore. He sleeps with me every night. On top of my back or my stomach, whichever is available. I am an equal opportunity back or stomach sleeper.

Passage, 1

As I grow older, of course it seems that time speeds because relatively speaking, a year is progressively a smaller fraction of one’s life. But it isn’t just that. It’s that the memories of my youthful days seem so immediate. I’m not certain if this is because I constantly refresh those experiences in my mind through a retelling—not just to others but to myself—or if it’s the significance that I’ve attached to them. I wonder if this is what happens to people with Alzheimer’s as well, that the memories they have so firmly in mind from their youth is because they have repeated them to themselves so much more frequently. Or if it is the content that renders these memories more visceral. Because of course, one is learning at a much faster rate when one is young as well. Obviously.

And yet, despite those things, I have found that I know less and less. The patterns which I sought aggressively about people and their behaviors, that I was so good at identifying, which allowed me coincidentally to become the unofficial therapist for everyone I know. My insight. This has begun to fail me. I have begun to realize that despite all the patterns I recognize, which necessarily sets me apart as being relatively unique, render me quite ordinary as well. The dream, that one can be unique at twenty is one I am, perhaps, finally relinquishing. Despite the lack of rites of passage in this culture, there are simply some things that are inexorable if one chooses a particular path that includes marriage and children. No matter how unique one images oneself, there is a sort of mundanity to these stages. An ordinariness that cannot be escaped.

“Rupert, please come here.”

Now what? What can she want? “Yes. Coming.”

“Rupert, please, come here at once. I need you.”

It always starts this way. But when I finally appear, it is only something small she needs. A lightbulb stored in the cupboard just above her reach. I walked slowly towards the kitchen. She stood, leaning against the counter, thin arms folded tightly against her chest.