The Painted Veil, Atonement

Back when I was twelve, Maugham’s The Painted Veil seemed to me to be the most romantic thing ever. Or the most romantic thing I had ever read. Same thing. Yes, I had already read Wuthering Heights, so clearly my top choice was somewhat cynical.

But I guess that even at that age and even in a family such as mine, the specter of “choosing” a marriage partner “guided” by family pressures was a possible destiny. And so, the romance of two strangers voyaging inwards, discovering themselves, and truly loving appealed to me for its positivist prospects.

I saw the movie last night. By myself. Which isn’t strange at all; the strange part is that I go to the movies by myself all the time but can’t watch them at home by myself--I fall asleep or get bored. Same thing, I guess.

But I watched this by myself at home. And yes, some of the intensity was bodice-ripping (she lets her wrap slide off her shoulders, he takes two purposeful steps to reach her side, they kiss like the antidote is hidden at the back of their throats and only their tongues can scope and reach it. Gross.). Yup, like I said, highly satisfactory. Although the older, wiser me did think that most of their squabbles were like PSAs on how not to communicate with your partner. But I stayed awake till the end. (May be because Edward Norton was in it. And someone told me that they once played pool with him.) (Look, I never claimed this post was going to make sense.)

Emboldened by my initial success, I thought I’d watch Atonement tonight. Why two movies in as many days? Because I have an article due on Friday is why. So anyway, I ordered Atonement because it was another book I greatly loved. And I fell asleep.

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MORNING

Branches crisscross the wet
And catch their breath.

In their maze
No monster waits
In their gaze
No slur, no praise

Branches crisscross the air
I, too, watch them there.

Don’t know why i love him

Me: Know something sobering? Rushdie--death threat, divorces, age and all--has turned out yet another book in the time I’ve spent writing this one dissertation.

Big A: Bet you he’s also been to a lot more trendy parties that you have.

Me: Now that’s just being cruel!

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National Poetry Month and daily poetry prompts

In the days when I could jabber on the phone for hours, one of my favorite things to do was ask my friend Deesh to read me a poem. He’d have me pick a date from a year or two or three years ago, and then he‘d look up his old notebooks and read me the poem he had written on that date. Since I was listening from a distance, I didn’t always “understand” it, but the mood it created was definite, roughly tangible.

When I started life on a different continent, I started doing it myself. And most of the time these are pieces that cannot stand alone--but re-reading them, they hint, rather than remind me, of laughter or disappointment or scrutiny that happened long ago. They’re typically unvarnished (unless I went back to tinker) but I like the way they process experience into a dappled utterance.

This month, in honor of National Poetry Month, Robert Lee Brewer will post prompts to encourage his wordsmith-audience to write every day. I may post there, but mostly may not--I’m not a particularly group activity type--but I’ll save some back here.

WORD-PICKING

Perhaps perfect words
fall like leaves, relief
not thoughts, stones
prodded, turned over

My son motions
at the fruit bowl
the bananas, he says
have gone Dalmatian

At the first, gleeful
lift of storm wind*
Baby pauses, parses
AaaAAAAAAngaa

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*“Breeze” was too tame, but I paused before I used “wind” because of its ambiguity--anyone who’s been around Baby A knows that she is a gassy little monkey : ).

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P-a-r-a-d-o-x (100 points on bingo)

If Big A and I seem all honeymoony and get called on it, I have to smile because, actually, we had a big fight while we were *on* our honeymoon. There we were playing Scrabble at the airport (and I was, typically, getting beaten) and then I found the following letters on my rack: p-a-y-m-e-e-t. There was an open “s” on the board and I could make bingo with “payment” if only I had an “n” instead of an “e.” Not that I was at all concerned. It was our honeymoon and Big A loves me. So, so, SO much. He’d let me sneak into the bag, no problem, right? Wrong.


Me said: But I’d let you if it were that important to you!

He said: (all preachy) “I love you, but I’m not going to let you cheat.” (Please note the charming way he insists on using the word “cheat” that I’m trying to gloss over.) Aww! This was his sweet, caring way of saying, Baby, I love winning this unrecorded game more than I love you.

So when we found Scrabulous on Facebook, I thought it was perfect—for him because I couldn’t try to wheedle him into letting me replenish my rack, for me because I could consult the OSPD any damn time I wanted. Except that in the intervening years, something miraculous happened. (Either that or residency has really worn him out.) Big A is the only Scrabulous partner I’ve beaten. Thrice. He didn’t even challenge a couple of my shoddily constructed double plays when we switched to “Challenge mode.”

Back then, popular counsel was that if he didn’t let me scam at Scrabble on our honeymoon, it ain’t ever happening. Man, were they wrong :). Hope floats; love grows.

________________

* Yes, okay, alright; keep moving. There really is no paradox here; just my attempt to warp a la Morissette.

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Hard Times

These last couple of months, things have been pretty sucky money-wise. I wait for pay-day the way I used to wait for pocket money. It seems like it’s that way for everyone and shoddier for a lot more.

One of my dear friends showed up a few weeks ago to say hello to the baby with his grandson and a small gift. Both his grown daughter and son live with him, so I wound up asking about everyone under his roof--plus a couple of foster kids. Remember I said both his grown children live with him? It’s so that they can make the payments on the house. This wave of foreclosures you’ve been hearing about in the news? Happening to them.

When foreclosure looms (if ever there was a threat that deserves the use of looms, it is this), over someone you know, you can’t easily console them. Not with platitudes, not with small loan offers, not with brainstormed ideas. It still looms. I could tell that both of us wished that the topic hadn’t come up, because we were tip-toeing around that elephant for the rest of the visit.

And then another moment of love happened. He works a 9-5 blue-collar job, but he’s also a lay preacher and had been urging me to christen Baby A “properly in a church.” Now I don’t know what Baby A is--perhaps Unitarian Universalist (which is evidently another way of saying I don’t know what we are)—but not “properly" anything at all. Since it’s important mostly to him, I say we’ll do it at his store-front church and we spend the next half-hour comfortably talking about dates, who to invite etc. And I think we’re past it and to indulge him further, I propose that he be the baby’s godparent, as well and he accepts delightedly.

But a few minutes later, he returns to that moment. I think you should choose someone else, he says. I’m surprised. Why? I keep asking him, Why?

I’m stupid, that’s why. Choose someone with money, he says. In case something happens to you, I can look after the baby, but someone with money can send her to college too.

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WTF??

Happy women have up to a third less sex than unhappy ones.

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