The Allure of the New
New experiences replenish joy. Relationships form and improve by sharing the anxious trial of newness, the sense of wonder. I would like to go to church because I haven't been in a long time. I believe in no God, but I'd like to go with someone to experience the sublime together, stained glass on a sunny day and a sermon preaching love, and when it's time to shake hands with other churchgoers to say, "Love be with you."
A bun-topped woman will whisper, "You're supposed to say 'Peace be with you' -- love can mean too many things," and it's not her fault that she gets it and it makes her uncomfortable. By "love" she also means, "yes, blessed passion's excess." I'm not going to judge her, but love be with her. Am I offering? Well, I didn't put anything in the plate.
More realistically, I would like to go with a new person to the same old bar and grill where the staff either like or tolerate me. I'd reflect his or her new wonder, feel wonder myself, and laugh. I do just like to laugh and laugh, insides aching, sick in every clinical sense. I would spend my life laughing, but sometimes I need to catch my breath.
A bun-topped woman will whisper, "You're supposed to say 'Peace be with you' -- love can mean too many things," and it's not her fault that she gets it and it makes her uncomfortable. By "love" she also means, "yes, blessed passion's excess." I'm not going to judge her, but love be with her. Am I offering? Well, I didn't put anything in the plate.
More realistically, I would like to go with a new person to the same old bar and grill where the staff either like or tolerate me. I'd reflect his or her new wonder, feel wonder myself, and laugh. I do just like to laugh and laugh, insides aching, sick in every clinical sense. I would spend my life laughing, but sometimes I need to catch my breath.
posted by JMH | 9:22 PM
5 Comments:
i love this. however, "sick in every clinical sense" worries me. i want you to be ok?
Holy Name? or there's that Presbyterian church down near 900 Michigan with that cool courtyard where the homeless hang out. it looks pretty in there, though.
North
Don't be worried. I'm well within my established norms. I sometimes arrange the words in scary sounding combinations probably because I've been watching the news.
In church I always thought it was "pleased to meet you". So I said it, even though I wasn't all that pleased with meeting them, them being mostly old and frumpy, smelling of medicine.
If I'm ever in Chicago I'll go to Gannon's and if I ever see anyone looking remotely like you I will ask "Where is the mustard?" and if the response is "the lamp breaks at midnight" I'll know it's you.
If the old folks are rich enough they smell like medicine. If not, then feces.
As for the coded response, I'll have to write it on my arm before I go out, every time I go out.
Post a Comment
<< Home