Stemware

Yesterday I kept thinking about the mechanics of T.O.'s real or created suicide plight. I knew that one of the simple reasons why we care is because he is familiar. Anything can become familiar and take on an emotional dimension that is hard to explain but very real.

My sweet neighbor Richard moved back home to Utah today. He's a good guy and I'll miss him in a neighborly way. I'd often help him smoke his cigarette second-hand on our building's stoop. Not friends exactly, but warmly familiar.

Last night, he, his friends and I had a few tumblers of wine. I enjoyed spending some time with them and it was heartwarming to see these old friends know that they'd be together again. Since everything was packed and in the UHaul, he asked me to grab one of my own glasses to bring to his place. I found out that I didn't own wine glasses. Forgot to replace them. That's okay. I quickly reached back to the way that I first learned to drink wine, the 8 oz drinking glass. Well, the 12 oz glass last night.

Thinking about the familiar reminded me of my father's father, a tough old bird who I loved. He spent his last years living with us, draining away. He and dad coexisted in our living room kingdom from dual La-z-boy thrones. I'd like to know the precise word count that passed between them during those many years. Not a lot. Grandpa was never a talker and he and Dad had their opinion about the other and there was no give. So stalemate is what really reigned.

After Grandpa died, I once talkied with Dad about Gramps. I and I think Dad was surprised when he said that he missed him. His explanation: "Well, I sat next to him for all those years." It's possible that demilitarized proximity yielded more empathy than talking would ever have.

Mere interaction has been interpreted as weakness in my family. Not unusual for relatives to have years-long spats about who was more stubborn. The argument was so self-evident that it didn't have to be made. Silence was a perfect medium in this showdown of character. This was a pure expression of familiarity personifying contempt.

I'm not as hot-headed as the best of my relatives. It's more normal for me to be with, be near someone and have a full heart and not tip my hand. It's normal to hold onto memories so when I see someone, it is like they have never been far from my sight. My curse is more that I am silent when my instinct says that I need to shape the silence into something that can break past the familiar. That might not make much sense, but, the thing is that I can't let some things sit.

I've got the gift and the curse of the familiar and I often can't tell them apart.