Tuesday, September 18, 2007

THE BIG WOODS... A FANTASY
on a WELL-KNOWN THEME

Love, it's too late for me to try for "careful,"
And far too soon for me to think of "wise,"
So you are stuck with one wild, crazy manic-
Depressive soul who yearns to know your calm.

What good can it do me to be so fearful?
I've left the cliff edge for the open skies.
With your pledge to be there I need not panic:
I should plunge toward your arms with sure aplomb.

And yet I find myself so often tearful,
And wonder what will come if your love dies,
Or even stalls—God knows, I'm no mechanic—
I inventory every doubt and qualm—

Till I recall your tender, endless patience,
Long victor over all my complications.


So, things just keep getting better...

...and more complicated. I've started flirting with the idea of chucking my jobs and trying to find something that involves a bit less of a commute to the Big Woods, where, at least during the school year, the Goat is fairly firmly rooted. Any normal person would find a job first and then go looking at real estate. But my fantasy life has always taken precedence. Any time we are out in his neck of the woods, I comment on houses for sale as an economic indicator, or remark on the beauty of some house we pass, but in reality I am thinking:

What if? what if I could? what if this were possible?

There is an argument that this is common sense. There's a bracing thought. What if looking for a house is my way of saying that I'm not sure I'm ready to move in with the Goat? or have him move in with me? Who am I kidding?

If common sense had anything to do with what is going on, I wouldn't be flirting with the idea of moving again in the first place. So, it's my fantasy life, but it is making a fair bid to elbow my reality aside and take over.

sigh

Having parted with the house I made when I had the money to do things, I now find myself perusing the very bottom of the real estate listings. It's easy to get depressed when brought face to face with the reality that a good half of the country deals with on a regular basis; after twenty-odd years of owning my own home, and making it in my image, I am now faced with something cramped, and weird, and run-down, not to say just plain awful: in short, what the "market" puts out there for hoi polloi. And I am definitely one of the polloi now. No more grandeur except in dreams.

However, this is a subject best left between my ears, as broaching it in "public" might make the Goat offer to let me move in with him [world's smallest house, though not as weird as mine] or to move into whatever I can find [and there is a limit even to the Goat's willingness to put up with the lower end of things].

Then there is the small matter of being a person without much employment, and seriously considering bailing out of what employment he has. In the real world, it would look like this:

hello[1]hiFind a job in the Big Woods. Nail it down.

hello[2]hiLook for a house in the Big Woods.

hello[3]hiFind a really friendly banker in the Big Woods...

Well, as of this spring I am definitely looking for [1]. But if [2] shows up first, I will probably do what I can... we are dealing with a Troll's Eye View of the World here. You know how scientists doing research are always warned that they will find whatever they are looking for? Do you suppose the same thing could happen to someone without a shred of objectivity?

Perhaps I could get my mother and/or grandmother to co-sign on the loan. Wouldn't that be a come-down for the guy who was always so sure he could do it all himself? Well, for thirty years I did. And I was proud of it; I can't help it. I guess that's why they say pride goeth before a fall, because there is generally not much left after one, let alone two in succession. I wish I could do it all myself still; I just can't any more...

Sometimes I don't even know which gutted me more completely: the loss of my marriage, or the loss of my profession and all my self-definition around achievement and skill, and winding up as someone who was in competition with everyone else without a skill of any use to anyone here in the little pond, where for better or worse I am. Just wait until I get out into the Big Woods... I suspect even the little pond I've been swimming in here will turn out to look like a Great Lake in retrospect...

Having said all that, at great and repetitive length, I have to say that my admiration for the Goat grows every day. If nothing else, I am providing him with constant, hot-and-cold-running opportunities to prove his skills at patience... and falling deeper and deeper into that sea in which there is no touching bottom...

If I weren't so profoundly, profanely happy, I would ask you to pray for me.

Cause I am really lost now.

Lust was easy.
Love is the killer.

Hang in there, all.
C

3 comments:

  1. "Lust was easy. Love is the killer." lol.
    I worry because if you're like me, you are not thinking logically when you're in this mode. I wonder what does Goat have to say about it? He may have a clearer insight on whether this is a good idea or not... perhaps...

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  2. Have you thought about going back and doing what you did before you did what you did?

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  3. Profoundly, profanely happy... Good for you, Troll.

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