The beauty is in the after-effects.
My friend decided to adopt droopy-faced Kala for a homecooked dinner. I sat on the kitchen stool, watching them putter around their kitchen. They’ve got a place for keeping the good frying pans. They know the best time to go to the market for the freshest vegetables. They know the name of the neighbor’s dog. We sat down and while eating, they recounted for my benefit, in turns, about the suspected reincarnation of their pet cat to a fish to a lizard and back to a cat; finishing each other’s sentences like periods and capital letters. It’s nice to see other people happy. It’s wrong that it’s easier to feel sorry for yourself than to be happy for others, but sometimes you just want to stop seeing other people in their bliss.
I said thank-you for the meal it-was-delicious, and they bid me good-night, come-join-us-for-Christmas-dinner. I said I’d think about it, but we all knew I wouldn’t come.
Halfway down the street I remembered leaving a cd on their couch, but before I could knock I saw them lying on their carpet, pointing at their ceiling and walls, discussing animatedly; perhaps arguing, wallpaper or paint? The Christmas lights bounced off the girl’s shiny blouse and suddenly I knew what I was looking at, it was Pure Contentment, not being anxious but not being relaxed either. You would suppose it would be boring, but it seems like, being with someone you want to be with is always your Home. Their sudden laughter made me afraid they would catch me absorbing their ‘feeling’.
So I left. Left, leave, leaving, trying to find. The gradation has flattened into a monochrome. You abandon the steep decline for a plateau.
Sometimes, all your efforts to keep busy catch up and it feels easier to cry for home than to go looking for it, because at this point, it is, realistically, the only thing you can do.
