by Lauren Marks
Later that night, I continued to ask the questions of myself that Grace had asked of me. I wanted to understand what had actually happened between us. And what I wasn’t able to say in my interaction with her in person became a lengthy exploration in my journal.
in this essay itself..in words, I am in returning to the (world of words) each utterance every sentence every phrase to me are seem supreme profoundly gratifying. with naked experience, my dressing it tail words that tailor (fit) to it.
communities people perceive us
I tell my good friend that in some ways I am like—>a soldier returning from the war to the soldier’s home. the to find it that the world he knew doesn’t have seem to fit before, and expected it be to be . . .
She says gravely “But you weren’t in a war”—>Perhaps she is right. Some analogies are verbodden. Each sufferer to each singular condition.
15
Over Christmas, some of our extended family came in from Minnesota to celebrate the holiday with us. I expected that the influx of so many bodies and sounds would overwhelm me, but I did a little better than I had when my cousins had come from San Diego. I didn’t seek out places to hide, at least. Everyone was their vacation self and instead of rushing about, people adopted a leisurely pace, wandering through the house in their pajamas. It was a tempo that matched my own inner speed nicely. Michael had come back down from Monterey, and though he told me he had patched things up with Amber, he was wise enough not to invite her over. We all spent a cozy night together playing board games by the fire, my grandmother and me sipping cider from the sidelines. The next day, I was on the train to see Jonah.
On the Coast Starlight, I spent the majority of my time in the observation car, its walls made entirely of glass, letting the landscape wash over me. I collapsed into the rocking click-clack of the carriages; the Quiet had become harder to access as my inner and outer voices had become louder, but I now was able to drift in and out of it with no effort at all.
With thirty-five hours to kill, I thought a lot about Paris.
• • •
For such an ancient city, the buildings in Paris were much cleaner than I had expected them to be, or at least they were in the part of town where Krass was subletting. The structures were as decorative and ornate as petit fours. I loved Krass’s apartment, and staying there made me feel like less of a tourist and more like a traveler. I spent as much time as I could wandering around the city, taking it all in. Krass encouraged my solo expeditions, but I loved seeing the sights with him, too. Walking by his side, every block was enriched with a storied piece of history. His knowledge of the city was inspiring, and only added to its allure.
Krass was a pronounced aesthete and his philosophical musings usually drifted toward art, beauty, or sex. As a teacher, he often told his pupils to go to more museums and eat more delicious food, but he also advised them to fall in love more and have more sex. The way he spoke so freely shocked a few students, and in professor evaluations, some even remarked how “Krass” lived up to his name. But it was theater school, and rules of conduct and decorum were pretty lax. Krass rarely discussed the details of his own escapades, but he insisted that monogamy was overrated and should generally be avoided.
And, on principle, I espoused the same liberal ideology as Krass.
During the early stages of my relationship with Jonah, I told him that we shouldn’t be exclusive. It was an odd condition to lay down in the beginning, especially since things were going well between us, and Jonah was still so smitten. He was crushed that I had even suggested it, probably assuming I thought of him as inadequate in some way, or that I wanted to be able to see several other men concurrently. That was not the case. At the time, I could count all of my sexual partners on one hand, and when I had committed to someone, I never once cheated on them. However, I strongly linked sexual autonomy to self-reliance. Monogamy was too much like ownership, especially for women. I didn’t want any of my relationships to form such slavish attachments.
In general, I distrusted the desire for ready-made coupledom. It was ridiculous to me that two different people were expected to combine all their desires, hopes, and worldviews as soon as they paired up. I had always wanted my independence. I thought the terms boyfriend and girlfriend were too possessive, and employed the term lover much more often. It was a reciprocal word, an active word that described what we did, as opposed to what we were.
But, my rules of autonomy didn’t last long. In the first few months with Jonah, I let myself feel worldly, and very much in control. At some point soon after that, though, I stopped playing the freewheeling character and let myself become much more attached. Jonah adored me, I adored him, and it turned out that I adored being adored. He wrote me love notes, which I treasured. It was a committed and monogamous relationship for a long time, and we never really discussed what the protocol would be if that dynamic changed.
It did change, of course. I don’t know the hour or the day exactly, but about two years into our relationship, Jonah took the “advice” I had given him at the beginning of our relationship and slept with another woman. And it was not a one-night thing. Technically, he didn’t lie about it. In fact, he was almost pathologically honest, but he did wait until I asked him about it. When I first found out, my heart turned so heavy it felt it might plummet straight through my body like a ten-ton anchor. We talked about the affair. I don’t remember much about the conversation, but I seriously doubt I was able to keep a dispassionate veneer. He knew I was hurt, and I knew he never wanted that. Still, I felt I couldn’t fully blame him. I’d introduced the possibility of this, and now I had to walk that walk. If I insisted on a monogamous relationship from this point on, I would have to reverse my former convictions. It felt like hypocrisy, like I was failing at feminism or something. I simply wasn’t willing to do that. So I didn’t even try to negotiate terms about the future of our relationship, which had plenty of ups and downs after that. Jonah and I broke up more than once, but we would also reunite for long and euphoric stretches too. Several months before I left for Paris, Jonah had become romantically involved with another woman—a friend of a friend—and this specific interaction was much more than a fleeting dalliance. Once again, I was confronted with the nettles of my supposed “empowered” rhetoric. Ostensibly, Jonah and I had the same amount of agency in pursuing the parameters of our close, but potentially non-monogamous, relationship. Jonah had slept with several women while we were still deeply involved, embarking on very short-lived affairs with all of them. But me? Since our pairing up as a couple, I had slept with one other man, on one night, and never again. I was somewhat disappointed to find out that my default was that of a monogamist.
Jonah and the newest woman stopped seeing each other months before I left the States, but this recent fracture of our intimacy still left its shards in me. I brought it up with Krass, but only in the broadest ways. He cared about my concerns, but he didn’t understand why I would even want to commit myself to Jonah, or to anyone else, at my age. If I forced Krass to comment on my ongoing romantic tug-of-war, he would sigh, and remark on how disappointingly heteronormative it was.
It wasn’t that Krass didn’t believe in love, quite the opposite. He loved love, and perhaps it was just the love of art that bewitched him the most. This was evident the day he took me to Montparnasse. One of his favorite museums was there, nestled among still-functioning artists’ galleries and lofts. Inside, he lingered over the informal photographs before planting himself in front of a picture of Kiki du Montparnasse, whom he called the patron saint of the neighborhood. He explained that she had modeled for dozens of pieces in this museum alone. She was the back in Man Ray’s Le Violon d’Ingres, and it was her bronze bust that sat in the lobby. Krass had been reading a biography of the district, which also chronicled Kiki’s love affairs. He pointed at a picture of Kiki wearing a wilted fox wrap, looking especially hungover.
You should take on her gig! Krass said, as if he were giving
me an actual job recommendation. You’ve got the same angular bob. And the same red lipstick. To be a proper artist’s muse, you’d have to take a lot of lovers, and swig a lot of martinis, but that’s not too bad if you ask me.
Though I never took this suggestion seriously, I appreciated Krass’s input, and it did make me think. I was in the city of Sartre and Beauvoir, for God’s sake. Jonah and I hadn’t exactly discussed the state of our relationship after the Union Square incident the month before, and if I was so dissatisfied with the way things were going, why couldn’t I exploit some of the “flexibility” in our relationship model myself? I daydreamed about indulging the whims of my promiscuous Parisian alter ego, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I had already discovered that I had an almost-destructive talent for devotion. It was just hard to pursue someone, or even be interested in someone, when another figure loomed so large in my imagination. In Europe, I didn’t want to breach my relationship with Jonah, as long as we were still having one.
• • •
When my train pulled into the Seattle station, cold air rushed through the open carriage door. I slipped my winter coat on, and as I got off the train, Jonah was waiting for me just as he’d promised.
It was a short drive to his family home in Green Lake, but his father and sister were already in bed when we arrived. Jonah led me into the dark living room. The plastic tree was the size of a lawn gnome, sitting on a coffee table in the corner, its twinkling colored bulbs the only source of light.
I have something for you, Jonah whispered. And, from under the tree, he pulled out a long, blue velvet box.
Open it, he said.
Inside was a delicate chain with a silver pendant. It showed a pair of scissors on it, with an engraving that read, “We Part to Meet Again.”
It’s an analogy! I said, enthused by delight. I’ve been learning about those! You and I are like the blades of the scissors, right?
Thought you might enjoy that. Jonah beamed.
I feel silly now, I said, hugging him. I took a Christmas tin out of my duffle. I just made fudge for you and your family. I’ve got a present for you, too, but something small.
As Jonah unwrapped the paper, he found a used book about the James Bond movies.
Ah, he said, looking pleased. So you remember our Bond-a-thons, eh?
I nodded. We saw all the movies together, didn’t we?
Well, I saw the movies. You mainly slept through them. But . . . His voice perked up. We can make up for lost time and continue our Bonding experience. Not tonight, of course. You’ve had a long journey and you must be tired.
I was exhausted, but I had no idea where to put my bag.
Come bring it into my bedroom, he said.
Is that where I am staying? I asked. With you?
Where else? Jonah laughed. Unless you have any objections?
No. It’s not that, I said. We just hadn’t really talked about sleeping arrangements. . . .
Sorry, I thought it was a given, he said. There isn’t even a guest room in this house. I assumed the sleeping arrangements would be the same as it would be in New York, you in my bed, and me right next to you. Just like always. Is that okay?
Everything was okay and it wasn’t. I had never been in this space before, I hardly knew his family, so I didn’t know how to behave or interact with them yet, and I still didn’t know how to interact or behave with Jonah, either. And his comment about “just like always” didn’t minimize my discomfort. He had an effortless access to a long and detailed history of us that I simply did not have. But I was excited nonetheless.
Jonah took me down a passageway lined with potted plants to a bedroom with a single twin bed inside. A cat darted through the open door.
Well, here is the famous Neutron you’ve heard so much about, Jonah said, giving her a generous pet before shooing her away. But we don’t need a chaperone tonight, Neutie. Three’s a crowd.
The cat can stay, I said, a little relieved. Even though I was vaguely allergic, I at least knew how to behave around a cat.
I unzipped my jacket and Jonah slowly unbuttoned my sweater. I peeled off my black tights, and lay down with him. Strangely, I don’t remember if Jonah and I got any more intimate that night. We certainly did on this trip, but what I remember most from the first evening was my insomnia.
Jonah fell asleep easily, with me in a tight grip. Though I had loved feeling his arms around me back in New York, his body heat was unbearable in that tight, slim Seattle bed. I unpeeled Jonah’s knee from my thigh, his elbow from my torso, but his sleeping body kept seizing me in another bony entrapment. Occasionally, my nose would be hit by the swish of a cat’s tail. Instead of sleeping, I watched the moonlight creep across the plaster ceiling until I heard Jonah’s dad leave for work soon after dawn. That was when I crept downstairs.
Midmorning, Jonah found me in the breakfast nook, his face creased with pillow marks. I was picking my way through book one of Casanova’s memoirs, The History of My Life, which I had brought for the train ride. Reading was still problematic, so I had to be selective with what I chose. I had been attempting some general articles about the brain and aphasia, but I didn’t understand most of the scientific and medical terms yet. Although Casanova’s language was old, his memoir was a sequential story, with vivid descriptions and straightforward storytelling. There was nothing that required any major interpretation on my part, which made reading easier for me. Jonah jokingly approved of the salacious subject matter I’d chosen.
It’s not like that, I protested. Sex is only a very small part of the book.
I told Jonah how Casanova was born poor, and had lost and built his fortune several times over the course of his life. He was a soldier, spy, and cabalist. He pioneered one of the first national lotteries, in addition to being a confidant of popes. He was imprisoned in a few countries and broke out of more than one jail. In many ways, he made his entire career out of fantastic failures, and every time, he was forced to begin again. His new lives were often even more fraught with conflict than the ones before it. I loved how he was unapologetic about his upheavals. Somehow, I completely skipped over the people he hurt in the process, and the lives he was too careless with. But his fearless drive for change, and his constant adaptability, were the traits that impressed me most, serving as a reminder to me that a person could live several lifetimes in a single body. These often-ignored aspects of Casanova occupied my thoughts, and appeared in my writings as well. . . .
In my last life, I so strived to attain perfection. In this one, I embrace my flaws like a loved friend.
this period could warrants the canonization of casanova. if he had one singular governing principle there that was of wholeheartedly his lack of fear for failure. his experience illustrated that his ability to change. to have his failures as great as his successes.
Seattle’s low and heavy clouds made its tallest buildings look like shoulders without heads, and this skyline reflected my own peculiar brand of haze. After spending so much time by myself since the rupture, it was genuinely odd to me to be paired up again, with very little exertion on my part. I simply arrived in a location in the world and I had a ready-made boyfriend. When Jonah had visited me in Edinburgh, he had been my traveling companion and nothing more. Now we were lovers again. This dynamic was infused with exhilarating potential and flirtation. But, I couldn’t quite lose the unsettling sense of imbalance—Jonah still felt very new to me, and that feeling was not mutual.
Jonah drove us everywhere in the city. The Elliot Bay Bookstore, Pier 54, the Space Needle. He pointed out his old schools and theaters. He took me whale watching, got us massages, found the highest hill to watch the New Year’s fireworks display, and made sure I sampled the best clam chowder in town. I hadn’t come to Seattle with any plans and I was impressed with him playing the role of guide, but I also would have been pleased with so much less. I got the sense that he had tailored these tourist activities to my tastes specifically, but I wasn’t sure what my
tastes had been before, or if they were the same now. And the only time Jonah appeared to be aware of shifts in my preferences was when we ordered at restaurants and cafés. He noticed changes in my food choices. I didn’t like anything with too much salt, and craved apples and rare steaks. Jonah said he remembered me preferring vegetarian fare, with a special love for corn chips and guacamole. And though we drank a few cocktails in Seattle, he remarked that I never actually requested my favorite drinks, and I didn’t drink nearly as much of anything.
Then there was my voice. I had gotten much better at hearing myself when I spoke, and was making fewer mistakes in my speech. But I was out of my comfort zone. I was used to hearing myself with my family, with a doctor, with a therapist. Now in different locales and surrounded by new people, there was an onslaught of stimuli, and I was required to employ a new vocabulary. Sometimes I had word-finding delays. But other times, language would come up more automatically, like a reflex. Then I would second-guess this burst of fluency. I also had such an ache to put myself in context. Had I always sounded like this? Did I sound odd to anyone else? Jonah found it endearing when I asked him questions about how my speech was being received by people around me, and by him specifically. He did his best to be accommodating, but this didn’t stop the thousands of daily shocks to my system.
Jonah’s family home was another environment that took a lot of getting used to. It was not a familiar dynamic. While my family was open and overly involved in one another’s affairs, his was reserved and somewhat disconnected. Meals were rarely shared and there were a lot of closed doors. I hardly saw Jonah’s sister, and spent only slightly more time with his dad. Everyone was respectful of me, and of one another’s space, but to such an extent that it felt like they lived in their own personal apartments. Only occasionally would someone end up passing through a communal area. To me, it felt like no one was in charge and the absence of a mother’s presence was palpable.
