The word this week was:
image
noun \ˈi-mij\
The couples at breakfast. Sunday morning, rumpled from the
night before or from fuzzy morning sex, the couples sit, eating. Coffee in
mugs. Pancakes, yogurt. You can tell the new couples because they are talking, talking,
talking; smiling, happy to be here this morning after a night before; relieved
at this breakfast, this miniature happily ever after, the rush that someone
wanted this too, this toast, this coffee, these blueberry pancakes, with them.
The longer-term couples sit quietly, murmuring to each
other from time to time, glancing at each other or past one another or each
reading a newspaper or book or a message on a portable device. They have gone
through the rites of coupledom: the demoting of friends, the drawing in; the fearful elimination of everything poisonously individual until there
is nothing left but an image of the other.
Alone with my book, I imagine sitting here with someone, a
mate, knowing each other better than anyone else. I lean forward and whisper:
“Surprise me.”
4 comments:
Oooooh. I was surprised.
I am one of those couples, the old couples. But we have plenty of poisonous individualism still to purge ... like today ...
That's really interesting the idea of creating ourselves in each other images until there is nothing else left.
My eternal struggle with the notion of coupledom is between the fantasy of trust and comfort and bonding ad the reality of ennui and disillusionment I see around me. There are still some rare examples of happiness, but for the most part, it seems an inevitable path to entropy. I don't see people becoming better than they are once they are in a relationship; I see people reining in the individualism that threatens the homogeneity of their relationship. Cynical, I know, and I hope to be convinced otherwise someday, but...
Karen, be my shining example!!!! :-)
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