Praying

I’m recalling past days with a past lover, and in the background I hear a drone, a noise so inane that it is silence, in a way, because it matters that little… but then I remember that silence can sometimes say so much.

I am thinking about the day Michael Jackson died. I was married to a chef, and we had just walked in, carrying sandwiches from Subway. Our kitchen remained mostly unused, save the frozen food I would heat up and consume listlessly on the sofa while he was at work. As I juggled the plastic-bagged sandwich, paper soda cup, and a messenger bag, I heard the familiar and hated sound of the television being turned on. I didn’t know I hated the sound---not then. It wasn’t until later that I would realize the hours lost to that noise, moments that could never happen, conversations that could never be. An entire life sat unlived, just beyond that glowing screen, and he and I never did find it. Our lives had a soundtrack of CNN politicos, ESPN commentators, and reality show blather. I would spend my day in a university, surrounded by intense dialogue and discussion of important ideas, walk to the L train entertained by the delightful symphony of city life, and spend my commute pouring over assigned reading. I would gaze out the window once in a while as I pondered a new idea. The Art Institute buzzing past the bus window to my right as I considered political theories, the sun shining unabashedly on the Chicago River and glinting off the Trump Tower as I tried to make sense of an economic text.

Soon enough, I would arrive at my stop, and, in reverse of most people, I left the solace and inspiration of my commute for the tomb that was my house. Upon entering, ideas left me, the drive, the life, dried up. This was where I slept, where I dressed, where I took care of necessary bodily functions and grooming. I vacuumed it. And then I would leave again to continue living. For when I entered my house that was not a home, I would find the television on, the man I married asleep on the sofa, and I knew that this would be the scene until I’d surrender and go to bed. We’d converse for a while, sharing highlights from the day spent apart, and then I would start my studying and the TV would continue and he would fall back asleep and eventually, we’d decide we were hungry and it was too late to cook, and we’d eat a frozen pizza.

We were having a day like this when Michael Jackson died. Before I had even set down my things, the television had been turned on and Anderson Cooper was telling me that my favorite musical artist was dead. It was June, and a few days before my one year wedding anniversary. I did not know it at that moment, but in only a matter of months, I would stand again at my front door, crying like I was for Michael Jackson’s life, but for my own life. The man whom I thought would love me until I, like Michael, could no longer make art, would tell me that he was not interested in being married to an aspiring writer anymore.

With the divorce, I did not have money to pay the mortgage, so a new television was not in the budget. I went without. I set about remaking a life, buying what I needed on credit, and two friends repainted the place as a divorce gift. They rearranged the furniture and discovered that when a television is not the focal point of a living room, we media-obsessed humans have a hard time knowing how to orient our lives. “Well, what do you want to look at?” one of them asked. I thought about what made me happy. In those days of living in the red, choosing between feeding myself or my dog, not very much made me smile. I went simple. “My books,” I said, “I like to look at my books.” So the living room was arranged thusly. And as I laid on my sofa and cried each night after work, it was some comfort to read the titles of books that had made me laugh or made me think. My wet eyes would catch a title I hadn’t thought of in years and I would get up, retrieve the book, and re-read it. During those nights, I thought of this surveying and reading as an escape from my reality; yet now I know I was actually working to forge a new one.

I spent my time at home writing and reading and listening to music. I would call friends. I would think in silence. I would play with the dog. When the silence became too lonesome, I would go outside and enjoy the sounds of the lakefront. I thought a lot. I was constantly thinking.

The months wore on and my luck changed. Forgive me for skipping ahead, but there isn’t much to say about the first six months on my own. So much was happening but at the time, it felt like nothing was. I felt desperate and alone and I wondered if anything would ever feel normal again. But, eventually, I began dating a man, even though I had told myself it was too soon. Something about him told me it wasn’t. Or, even if it was, I’d have to make it work, because he was special. A month after that, I got a job that doubled my income and I was able to keep the house that, slowly, was becoming my home.

It’s funny how quickly, or how slowly, things happen. I’m not sure which. In the end though, it seems that suddenly you find yourself in a certain place, living a certain way, and you can’t quite recall how you arrived. I realized, it seemed, in an instant, that I was living a lie. That the life I wanted to have and the person I wanted to become would not ever be if I stayed married. My life was not full of ideas and art and joy, but a low humming from a box in the corner of my living room, where I did not do much living. And while it was years in the making, the realization and the decision-making and the fall-out happened in less than a week.

In the same way, I come to realizations now, but they are much more pleasant. Years of wanting this life, years of not having it, months of repercussions after deciding that I would die trying to get it brings me to moments when I realize that for a year, I have not had a television in my home. Instead, I spend hours talking with, laughing with, writing with, eating with, and loving a person who inspires me. It will hit me when we spend an hour drinking tea together in a bubble bath; when we spend an evening researching, shopping for, and preparing a meal together; when we spend our day off in libraries and second-hand bookstores.

When I am alone in the house, I do what I did when I was alone and not expecting anyone to return. I read. I play with the dog. I think. I think a lot. My eyes scan the covers of my books and I re-read some. I still leave for the lakefront, but it’s no longer an escape. I don’t escape one life for another, as I now live one cohesive existence that is all me. And I am sobered by the knowledge that this all so easily never could have been.

Every day, and I mean every single day of my life, I marvel at how fortunate I am. I am in love with one of my most brilliant humans I have ever met. He is kind and hilarious and thoughtful and talented. He cooks and loves like the Italian he is. His passion and intensity for living life is rare, really. And, lest this read like a fairy tale in which the damsel in distress is rescued by love, I will say that my life began before him. He is here because he complimented the life I was creating for myself. And I don’t know whether I am more thankful for the life I chose and was lucky enough to realize, or for someone to share it with.

Khayyam knew something of awe and gratitude. He also knew it was misplaced when spent on mythical figures and deities. Instead, he looked at a body. A real, tangible, live body, perhaps his own or perhaps his lovers or perhaps both, together, and he worshipped there. He said,

And all this body of ivory and myrrh,

O guard it with some little love and care;

Know your own wonder, worship it with me,

See how I fall before it deep in prayer.