Mar 05, 2001
A friend came to stay and his sadness was infectious. I had donned the end of winter blinders, the one's that can assist you in blundering through until something in the weather resuscitates the soul. But his sadness crept around my blinders and entered through the eyes. He lay on our sofa and was so sad that he wanted to sleep all the time. I tried not to look for fear of further contamination; I tried to remain frenetically active but ground to a halt. I tried to remember how lucky I am not to have lost a long relationship, but I grew fearful that perhaps we are all on an inexorable slide that the gods are polishing to a higher sheen with every passing year. We went and walked in Central Park and I wished we had Alex there to guide us as we didn't know the names of the birds or the trees and it would have been comforting to give them names. The birds are different from Irish birds. I remember realising this in Hyannis too on my first trip to America. We noted that Americans are ostensibly similar but very different from us. It reminded us of Gulliver's Travels. We had dinner with a friend and she and I talked and talked and he grew more and more silent. I began to question how good a friend I am capable of being, if one can be of any help to the sad friend. I gave him some xanax and put him on the plane. He phoned to say he had slept all the way from JFK to his bed in Dublin, not remembering how he had arrived in his bed. He sounded better. He said he had decided to drink wine rather than beer. Last night I realised that what I want to say to him is "defend against your own treachery." I want to say it to us both.
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A friend came to stay and his sadness was infectious. I had donned the end of winter blinders, the one's that can assist you in blundering through until something in the weather resuscitates the soul. But his sadness crept around my blinders and entered through the eyes. He lay on our sofa and was so sad that he wanted to sleep all the time. I tried not to look for fear of further contamination; I tried to remain frenetically active but ground to a halt. I tried to remember how lucky I am not to have lost a long relationship, but I grew fearful that perhaps we are all on an inexorable slide that the gods are polishing to a higher sheen with every passing year. We went and walked in Central Park and I wished we had Alex there to guide us as we didn't know the names of the birds or the trees and it would have been comforting to give them names. The birds are different from Irish birds. I remember realising this in Hyannis too on my first trip to America. We noted that Americans are ostensibly similar but very different from us. It reminded us of Gulliver's Travels. We had dinner with a friend and she and I talked and talked and he grew more and more silent. I began to question how good a friend I am capable of being, if one can be of any help to the sad friend. I gave him some xanax and put him on the plane. He phoned to say he had slept all the way from JFK to his bed in Dublin, not remembering how he had arrived in his bed. He sounded better. He said he had decided to drink wine rather than beer. Last night I realised that what I want to say to him is "defend against your own treachery." I want to say it to us both.
- rachael 3-05-2001 7:40 pm