I am not big on possessions. By genetic design.
Besides books, I don’t own much, and the things I do have I keep for their sentimental value.
I’ve never owned any place I’ve ever lived, and to date that count is 23. All my clothes rest on 10 hangers in my bedroom. I’ve had 2 cars in the past 20 years (my Jeep saw me through 8 years and my Audi is going on year 13). Right now I’m not sure where a pair of socks might be, and I have more stamps in my passport than accessories in my kitchen cabinets.
Okay, in full disclosure, I am about a year overdue for a new car. My delay is that I want to stay with a manual transmission. Unfortunately it’s becoming more and more challenging to find a new car with a stick. But everytime I think I should acquiesce, I become that much more determined to get what I want. So, the search continues as my Audi runs out of freon.
I pay my taxes. I have a lovely career, and I want for nothing these days except for flights from Boston Logan to Bristol England to start up again.
I believe, slightly exaggerated, that if I wanted to leave tomorrow I could pick up what little I have and be gone in less than an hour. I am not bound by a thing. People somewhat, but not materials. And although this decree has become weighted over the years, I still am driven by this notion.
That’s why I feel that way I do about Stuff.
This is me. This has always has been me. Anyone who knows me knows this.
In my world there are two types of people: Those metaphysically born attached to floorboards, and those born to float. Neither is wrong. Both are celebrated.
You can be influenced by a side, for sure. But you are one, or you are the other. And so is the person you’re currently looking at.
I was born believing hooks are for tea towels and anchors are for boats … and a bird can be happy in a cage so long as the cage door remains open.
I am that bird in mind and soul.
I am often off on my own. I rest up high. I sing tunes to myself under the stars. I leave but I’ll be back.
Oh, and please don’t touch my door.
The first bits are subtle. The last is key.
I consider my mind to be my birthright, and my sole responsibility. I have a few people in my circle who would argue I am aggressively fixated on this right. I maintain I must always protect my door.
When little, who we are is sweetly explained as: Awwwww, loooook, Dave’s learning about Dave. As adults that translate to a more decidedly: Oh, that’s just Dave being Dave.
The similarities between the two is that we recognise in either case that it’s Dave. And in both, the inference is that we adore Dave.
I can think of two heartbreaking occasions when a relationship of mine went south because someone dear insisted they were doing something for the good of me and them, when it turns out what they were actually only seeing their own reflection.
In times of decisions and changes and need for understanding, this mistake makes for an unbendable situation where one stubborn head shouts Come Down! as the other stubborn head asks But Why?
You end up doing this:
When you’re supposed to be doing this:
The tenderness that once was Dave being Dave turns into a frustrated plea: For god’s sake Dave, enough with the fucking chirping!
As rams don’t we all look tough?
It’s like that scene from Cactus Flower where Walter Matthau attacks Ingrid Bergman’s “old maid” character after she refuses to play the pretend role of his wife wanting a divorce, just so he can marry the trusting but duped sexy Goldie Hawn (who already thinks he’s married).
Dr. Winston: You completely de-feminize yourself. I've noticed it around the office and me. Nurse Dickinson: Doctor, I was hired as a nurse-receptionist, not a geisha girl. Dr. Winston: You're afraid Ms Dickinson. Afraid of emotion, afraid of intimacy, afraid to live. Nurse Dickinson: If living is the way you carry on, then you're right. Dr. Winston: I'm only telling you this for your own good. Nurse Dickinson [looking away]: Funny, whenever people hurt your feelings, they're always doing it for your own good.
So what does it mean when we become rams instead of tulips?
It means there’s whole lot of work to be done to achieve a balance that compliments all and suffers none. It’s no wonder why it is so easy to stumble.
I look at it this way: We have only one mind and one heart, and we aren’t allowed to own others … So we have to remember to see the person across the table not as a clown, or malleable, or less than … but as one who walks with a purpose from birth.
And that includes when the person you’re looking at is you.
In the end, I’m the Dave with three plates in the kitchen, who hasn’t bought a car yet, and hums tunes at night to the Moon on my front porch.
That’s just Dave being Dave, and I’m charmed by Dave. Because how we embrace birthrights is the fundamental part of what drew us to each other in the first place, and what it is to cherish each other when together in a room, and miss about each other when we are not.
That’s either from a poem or a movie, and I mean it with all of my heart.
Happy Sunday.