Duet

As the readers of My Mundane Life in Song know, I am incapable of packing. I am crippled by the idea of packing for a short trip, rendered useless when considering packing for a long trip, and the idea of moving is enough to make me want to implode.

I am, however, quite skilled at throwing things away, and especially fond of parting ways with formerly sentimental items. If NYC teaches you anything, it’s that you can’t form attachments to objects that don’t actually function.

While in MA, I took it upon myself to help The Parents purge their former lives. I was allegedly there to help dive into The Toys, but instead found myself forcing Father to go through his audio tapes from the 80’s. I found some of my own, and of course listened to the Straight Up single and that “Why is love a crime?” song by BabyFace before tossing them. I threw away my New Kids on the Block tapes, and Whitesnake! And Whitney Houston! And Guys Next Store! Who? I have no idea! I also forced Father to sit and go through the piano benches and the baskets of sheet music and the drawers of sheet music and the binders of sheet music. I got rid of my first ever piano book, the theory lessons that I always ignored, and all but one program from piano recitals.

Father said “How can you not keep these things?”

“BECAUSE I DON’T NEED THEM! I haven’t the space! And neither will you, depending on what happens! THROW IT ALL AWAY!”

He kept a lot of his sheet music, and forced me to take some that he “isn’t good enough to play.”

As part of my limited burst of productivity yesterday, I decided to go through all of the sheet music he’d unloaded. I’d brought it to NYC in the very same bag in which I used to carry my sheet music to piano lessons! I dumped the bag and rummaged through old recital songs (motor memory is such a strange thing) I can’t believe I ever played. I reminisced. I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the bag and put in the closet in the To Be Dealt With pile.

I found some Verdi duets that belonged to Father’s sister when she took piano lessons as a child. They are disintegrating.

After popping a pill to force me to cease being anxious about the fact that I’d stopped being productive and had been reduced instead to a sobbing pile of confusion hiding under the bed sheets while listening to Bright Eyes, I sat down at the piano and said “D, come play this duet with me.”

And he did.

And we sounded decent!

We had so much fun. I felt again like I have a partner in crime. I’ve been feeling disconnected from everyone and everything as of late. I feel like I’m going through something that nobody understands, and that he especially can’t understand, no matter how much I try to explain things. “You just need to stop thinking about it,” he’ll say, which for him is easy but for me is impossible. When I do stop thinking about it (which I do, most of the time, which makes me feel guilty and callous and undutiful), it creeps back into my life with a vengeance that reduces me to the previously mentioned sobbing pile of confusion that either cries in the bathroom with the door shut or pretends to nap while the stereo is blasting the same mix mini disc over and over and over again.

I spent a great portion of my confusion crying on the bathroom rug because I don’t want to visit D’s parents. I like them. I do. It’s just that when I visit nobody talks to me, and it has nothing to do with me. It’s the construct, and the construct has been deemed cultural. I admit that I don’t come from an easy culture, and I do everything possible to make sure that D is accommodated and comfortable. When the culture is overly affectionate and verbose and honest, it’s easy to remove oneself and find quiet or isolation. When the culture is reserved and silent and impersonal, it is impossible to find an outlet for communication, for talking, for a sense of belonging.

I can’t pretend that things are ok. I can’t feel even lonelier that I already do. I can’t be around a functional (well, functional by certain definitions) family and pretend that my heart isn’t broken. I can’t be silent and dishonest for three days. I just can’t.

And, most distressingly, I can’t tell this to D.

I was thrown into the fit because I said “D, how long did you want to visit your parents for before Christmas?” We need to figure this out so we can use the stupid plane tickets before I have a meltdown. We’d decided to visit them pre-holidays since they are off to Thailand for the holiday and don’t seem to think that visiting us in an option. “At least five days… three works days and a weekend.”

Nope.

“Oh, well, do I have to come for that whole time?”

“No, you can take a plan by yourself and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

And then the desire to sob, and the repressing of the sob, which becomes silence instead of enthusiasm, which becomes “What’s the matter with you?” which results in “Nothing…” and then crying in the bathroom, because I know that there is no way I am going to get myself to the airport to visit them. It’s just not going to happen. I can’t even bring myself to buy groceries these days, and he thinks I am going to get on a plane to visit his parents? His grandmother? Yes. His cousins? Absolutely! Various aunts and uncles? Certainly! His brother and nieces? Of course! But his parents? Absolutely not. They don’t care if I’m there, so why would I visit them by myself?

But can I explain this? No.

Instead I hide and wish I could take a few days to see my family and wish that I was dating someone whose parents noticed I existed and wished I could figure out a way to explain to him that this is one way in which marriage changes things, because I am nearly certain that his parents would be phased by my existence were we married.

I chilled out, said nothing, microwaved a samosa instead of going to the Amish market, ordered too many prints, and reappeared, chill, saying “D, come play this duet with me!”

We were both happier than we’ve been in a long time.

I don’t feel like we’re at odds, I just feel like we’re not on each other’s sides right now.

I asked him in the car “What do you think about all of this?”

He said he was mad, pissed, and launched into theory and nothing specific. He never said he felt bad for me. He never said he wished there was something he could do. He doesn’t realize that there’s so much he could do, and I can’t ask because I feel like having to ask implies asking too much.

I wanted to ask "Don't you feel bad for me? At all?"

I watched Friends With Money last week, and the Catherine Keener character hits the end of the rope with her husband when she burns her hand in front of him and he says nothing. She says something like “Don’t you want to know if I’m ok?” He says that he can see that she’s ok. “But don’t you want to know?” He says that he can see that there’s not a problem. “But if there was, wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you ask?” He says something like “If there was a problem, you would just tell me, and then I would know. Otherwise I’d just assume you were fine.”

This goes on for a while.

I wonder if as women we all just want to be acknowledged. Why would we tell them things if we don’t feel that they’re interested? If he burned his hand, she’d have said “Oh my god are you ok?”

And if D was going through this, I’d ask every once in a while “How are things? Are you ok?” and hopefully he’d feel that he could tell me.

And if D was crying one night, on the following day I’d say “Hey – are you feeling better today? How are you doing?” instead of calling and saying “Hey, I’m going to ride my bike. What are you doing for dinner?”

But instead we played a duet, and everything was fine. I guess you have to accept closeness in whatever form it comes, and if that means feeling really alone for a few hours and crying by yourself and being unable to say what you think followed by making music together, then so be it.