Love and Mrs. Bennett

11Jul08

Last night I went to the House of My Father for dinner, or rather, to The New House of My Father, bought after the Wrath of My Mother was decended upon The Ass of My Father in their divorce.

As per usual, I had no way of getting there save by a strenghtening march. I will not try your patience with yet another detailed description of all the bogs, messes, and clouds of rotting sealife I pass through on my daily travels, suffice to say, it was a nice walk, perfect for pondering.

For the first hour or so, I thought of black pant suits I want, of Sabatier knifes I want, of one certain striped Thomas Pink shirt I want, and of the impending financial ruin I face. Then, I came across a new view of the bay, eerily familiar.

On its choppy cold waters, many little dinky boats were floundering, sails flapping in useless prayer to the wind. Around this unrurly mess of a regatta circled a bossy woman in a small motor boat, yelling inscrutiable instructions to the half drowned sailors. There were near collisions, as a blue met a red, heavy leaning to starboard, in attempt to stop a run-in with a bouy, and one memorable tiny yellowhaired girl in a yellow boat made a laudable effort to set the course for open sea: preferring, I assume, a watery death to the loud yelling of above mentioned lady. 

On the grassy brinks, safe in the shade of the massive oaks, were sitting the parental units of the struggling navals: sipping large coffees and scratching their knees. I paused, fascinated. This was me, twenty years ago, (the one furiously trying to get the sail up, not the tearaway) learning to sail, and unsail, on the cold grey waters of the Baltic. 

As I moved along, the small golden rengade having being rounded up and fed lemonade, I thought of all the strange things I was taught as a child. The sailing, of course. The years of tennis, though I shied from the ball as if it were a…ball? French lessons with the nuns, pianolessons with the greyplaited Danish lady, flute lessons with the largish redhead. Acting classes, ballet, eaons of horsebackriding… And not to mention: how to fold a napkin and how to hold a glass, and how to press a sheet and how to say, in a pleasant tone, that you’d rather not say. Skills that I now realise must have been imparted largely to prep me for life in tennisplaying, horsebackriding, sheetstarching cirles: or that is, to be married to someone who appriciates his passés composés and his unstained silverware.

There is but one problem: those that tend to do, tend also to bore me to tears. There was a reason why I wanted to get out of minimalist suburbia to start with, and death by Josep Frank fabrics doesn’t seem a whole lot more tempting now. I do stereotype: but the polo-wearing, patio-resting, be-loafered barbequer is not what I am after. But then nor is the knife-sucking, bearded man of the wilds.

Luckily for me, since I do not seem to know what is what, my mother does. She is sublimely frank when it comes to what I should marry (or live with, rather, she secretly thinks marriage a bit common). Love, she says, has very little to do with it, and having bred for love herself, she knows. She has a firm and verbalised belief in parentally arranged liaisons, and needless to say, has never approved of any of my boyfriends.

The entrepreneurs she dismisses as unintellectual, and the poets as unreal. The kind ones as quiet, the lawyers as just another type of tradespeople, and the disinterested post-docs as weak earners. And these her opinions would just be so much blogfodder, were it not for the small matter of me somewhat sharing them. 

The entrepreneurs are too loud and the poets are too prone to getting their guitars out at inopportune moments. The kind ones aren’t really kind, just low on self-esteem, the lawyers are too difficult to get to boogie down and the disinterested post-docs just blather on and on about some damn continuum or other, or else, deconstrution.

(Apart from this, there is a cross-section problem, that has more to do with our times than their professions, I think. The lack of reserve. I like my lovers big on conversation and rare on effusions of emotion. Today, they all say the love you too bloody soon. The whole matters-of-the-hearts matter has become something much too easily debated. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is not attractive, I prefer a stiff upper lip and a good cufflink.  Where is the man of integrity I want? The Rhett Butler (didn’t say a word about love till page 560) or the Will Ladislaw, who loved his honour more, at least till the happy ending. Men who would not make you the center of their world but who got on with it, smuggling and revolutionizing for all they were worth, instead of leaving the office early to soppily stare into your eyes. I blame therapy, I really do.)

Getting back to the point. For a while, my inability to just like some poor sod and get on with it has worried me. I mean, discarding perfectly nice specimens, just because they do not fit you perfectly, is bound to end with a karmic draught, isn’t it? I sort of felt that maybe I cannot expect 19th century morals, 18th century breeding and 21th century equal childrearing responsibilty all rolled into one nice and tall and landed gentleman. Maybe I should just settle for the LOL-writing, You-tube watching someone in IT, perhaps, or that nice banker with the loud shirt.

Well, watching the boats dip their wrong parts in the waves yesterday, I thought No. So much chilling to the bone and Do Re Mi Fa cannot have been in vain. I am sure that somewhere, out there, is a man who will appriciate both a fine hand for placecard writing and a free spirit. And sure, I am willing to compromise. On the landed, maybe, or the riding crop. Till then, I have a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice at hand. Along with another cup of tea it’ll do me nicely.

 

PS: You know how you tend to take on the behavior of your environment? Well, I am realising that lately, my close social circle has consisted of cows… and I better push of, before I emulate any more of their masticating, flyswating, charge at people randomly personae and actually start to lactate. Tomorrow morning I am taking to the road, or more like, to the dusty strip right beside it. 

Am planning to do an average of 120 k a day, will be posting, I think, from various metropolis (es/ae) along the way, such as Sölvesborg, Ljungbyholm and Västervik.

Filed under: Mr. Wrong(s): Break-ups, Non-starters, Dogs, The Theories and Practicalities of Finding Love   |  2 Comments
Tags: family, humour, love, relationships