Tentacles

Have you ever considered the endlessness of space? The way it just keeps going, the way stars are actually in the past, how it’s all proof of magic, proof that there’s something more than a mindless existence between our shopping centers and our genetically altered food?  It can’t all be written down on the 1040, can’t be counted in the GDP, can’t be protected from terrorists.

What about the people who chose to live in apartments instead of in a place with a patch of tress and garden? Do they really think we’re alone, that our only possibility of a purpose is not only focused on but exclusively concerns humans? Do they ever listen to music? Have they ever seen the stars?

As I stepped out of his car, I felt my skirt swirl around my legs, blowing awkwardly high, up to my knee.  I didn’t feel like kissing him anymore, even to say goodbye, so I shut the door before he could undo his seatbelt, and opened the door in the back to get out my stuff.

“See you later!”

“Oh, uh, ok.  Yeah, see you later!”

A sweet smile hiding disappointment.  Does she even like me? Is it wrong not to care if he gets paranoid like that? 
Would he understand the guilt I felt about disappointing my parents by enjoying his lifestyle?  It wasn’t even about the sex, it was about crossing the mental barrier, thinking in “woodsman” instead of “corporate”.  As I walked over to my own car, driving off to complete the journey home, I realised I had to do something.  Couldn’t let them  find out I had switched over, even if it was only temporary.  I had tried to do it before, and imagined my mother having half her mental process on the outdoors side, but only now, thanks to the drugs, the woods, and the boy, did I actually get there myself.  100% and purely in this new lifestyle, this new culture.  I started freaking out.  I needed to like being rich, and want to spend money again.

By the time I had gotten back into the city limits, I had more than compensated for my earlier mental disobedience.  But did my father, for example, even realize that there was this other way of looking at things?  That it’s tangible for anyone?  Or that there are 10,000 other ways of looking at things?  Take it to a man who has never once lost his sobriety to any substance, any religious fervor, any artistic insight, any foreign language conversation.  His lifestyle has goals and levels of attainment.  Reading books is good, lots of books, and so it’s fine to not really have a social life.  (He is married, so he’s fine.) Paying off the mortgage is good, so when the bonus triples his paycheck one time, putting the extra $10000 towards it -- or towards higher yielding stocks to sell to pay it off later -- is the best option.  Not buying a boat, not blowing $100 on each family member, not fantasizing about a cruise, not even buying the $300 weather station he’d had his eye on.

Skepticism, even concerning organic produce and non-government academic programs, is a plus to him, as is making up for his own parents’ indifference by being over-protective of me.  I wish he would realize that I want nothing more than to spend time with him, but he makes it so difficult sometimes by his staunch refusal to understand.

Maybe he got a glimpse once, and it scared him.  His parents didn’t drink, none of his three sisters had any substance abuse -- although one is clearly schizophrenic -- and he’s a smart man.  Valedictorian of high school, undergrad, and graduate school.

By the time I got back home I was talking steadily to myself, ready to support my parents’ philosophies as naturally as ever without losing my own slant on them.  This time as I stepped out of the car, my own legs swirled about me, like the tendrils of a jellyfish.  I drifted on them to the door through the garage, offered to my parents a favor to which I had the night before said no.  My tentacles flew me to the dinner table, where I translated a letter to French, and we all sat around and chatted.  Normally I would have loved it, but I was still seeing things a little sharper than normal, and couldn’t easily focus closely.  Or distantly.  My mother was being extremely goofy, which was a good sign.

Now that I grasped really how little my father understood about other modes of thought, I gave him credit for trying to understand my interest in travelling the woods of Germany or pursuing the Japanese countryside: he didn’t get it at all.  He’s the sort of man who wants a bug-free existence and the most convenient way to keep it so.

I put my front two tentacles on the table, both a gaudy orange-red.  I wanted nothing more than to cut off all my hair, shave my scalp, then apply some perfumed lotion.  I felt slightly sticky and itchy, vaguely uncomfortable.  Time to detox.  I would start with the tentacles, all twenty-or-so of them, just trim them off at their base.  Maybe my jeans were too tight.  God, had I really slept with him?

After dinner, I was in a cleaning mood.  I wanted to scrub down my room, vacuum and dust, put all those books somewhere, finish the gift I was making, re-alphabatize all my CDs, throw out my old seventeen magazines.  Paint.  Produce.  Some days it’s “consume, consume, consume”, others it’s “recharge, refresh, renew”.  Give, take, or harmonize.  This was definitely a “give” day, and all because I felt grotty from prolonging a shower.

The next day I felt guilty still, but somehow almost pleased because of my earlier productivity.  I had four hours to reflect and focus before work.  I didn’t want to see all those people.  I hoped they wouldn’t notice the difference, wouldn't be able to smell the change on me.