Essay: So What About Arranged Marriages Anyway?

I have something of a problem with choices. This is, I suspect, a faintly un-American thing to say, but the fact is that I don't have a lot of respect for a lot of choices. I'm a lowly English graduate, not a psychologist, but my own experience on the human stage (both as a player and an observer) has led me to the conclusion that more choices only create more discontent with those choices. When I go to Amy's Ice Cream, I prefer to pick a random flavor that looks delicious (say, Dark Chocolate) and blend it with a "crush'n" that might compliment (possibly, Junior Mints) and enjoy! Because I find that the longer I daly over creating the most ideal culinary concoction, the more I wonder - as I eat my ice cream - whether or not I made the right choice. And, in fact, some science supports the claim that more choices lead to poorer decision-making.

This over-abundance of choices has been my biggest problem with online dating.

Actually, the problem is larger than online dating, so let me back up. I have questioned for years why so many people I know are single. In my nostalgia, I don't imagine things being this way once upon a time. I say "this problem" and I'm going to go on treating this like a problem for one reason: most single people I know do not want to be single and are unhappily single. And of course, this debate ties closely into the debate on why there are so many more divorces than there used to be. There is a definite case to be made that thinking more critically about one's choices before marriage is only a good thing, and that a higher divorce rate speaks to the empowering of women (and men) to leave unhealthy unhappy relationships. There's a lot to be said about reexamining traditional gender roles and some of the social inequities There's a real case there, but it's not one that I'm interested in right now.

This is because I do not fall in the camp that says that monogamy is an outdated custom. An unnatural custom perhaps and doubtless a difficult one, but I believe those two facts are only advantages for monogomy, not strikes against it. So then why are there all these lonely singles out there? And lonely divorcees?

I believe part of the answer is too many choices. We are a more culturally-diverse world than we once were, and the boy or girl down the street isn't as likely to come from a compatible background for me, but I suspect that every day, us lonely singles pass by other lonely singles who are perfectly qualified to push us to grow, to stretch us, and - ultimately - to make us happy.

And this is where we get back to online dating. Because online dating is almost a charicature of the problem. Unable to find romance on your own? Instead of providing an overwhelmed brain (tired from seeing prospects at the bar, the bowling alley, the grocery store, the gym, and being unable to choose between them enough to put yourself out there) with a reduction in choices (Here: Choose between these three.) online dating provides a cornicopea of additional choices! And what I find in myself is the urge to be even more selective than I would ever be in real life! Your dog is named smoochy? That's a no. You live more than 10 minutes from my house? Why bother? It doesn't help that we are overloaded with information about the prospect, information our simple little brains can't juggle all at once, and we make poor decisions. I have serious doubts that we are ever really thinking through pros and cons when it comes to relationships but to whatever degree we can make rational decisions about that special girl or boy, the overabundance of choices only hinders our decision-making process.

So what is a boy to do? Because the fact of that newly-diverse culture hasn't gone away. The days when I could point to a girl across the room and we would share enough of the same ideology and beliefs and background to be able to work through the areas of difference, the days where love really was all it took because few cultural and personality differences, if those days ever existed at all, they are gone now. Some of the women I pass on the street truly are incompatible and pursuing that road too far could only lead to heartache. But I suspect fewer women are incompatible than I think - either in the grocery store or online. (Of course, even if I took this idea to heart, the women in question probably are more hesitant than I, and for good reason; men have earned a bad reputation.)

So again, what's a boy to do? I really don't know. But I suspect modern dating - online or otherwise - works like getting ice cream at Amy's. Like picking a major in college. Like taking city streets to avoid highway traffic. You just make a decision, pursue a course of action, start moving, and you enjoy it! And try not to wonder if there was a better option you missed. Because life's full of roads that split and it only brings suffering to wonder if the other road would have been a better choice.

Poem: Girl Troubles

Girl Troubles
to the girl with the dark eyes

            It’s a tragedy
                 when your face looks like that:
beautiful,
            shining,
                        beautiful,
            and I can’t capture it.
                 Can’t draw it.
                      Can’t sculpt it.
                           Can’t even describe it.
                                Can’t force it into a bottle
like fireflies, like Tinkerbell, like magic:
            to be looked at when I want,
            to be shared with who I want.
So mysterious,
            it’s a tragedy.

            And it’s a tragedy
                 when your eyes sparkle like that:
beautiful,
            shining,
                        beautiful,
            and I can’t understand them.
                 Can’t read them.
                      Can’t write an essay about them.
                           Can’t even tell a friend about them.
                                Can’t explain them away
like galaxies, like whirlpools, like magic tricks:
            just a clever trick to entertain me,
            just a party trick to divert me.
So mysterious,
            it’s a tragedy.

            But it’s a real tragedy
                 when you look at me like that:
coyly,
            shining,
                        playing,
            and I can’t control it.
                 Can’t hold you here.
                      Can’t make you stay.
                           Can’t make you really see me.
                                Can’t make you really love me
like I wish you might, like I wish you could, like I wish you would:
            here in this crowd, among all these people,
            there in the sun and there beneath the moon.
But you wink,
            and flutter away,
so mysterious,
            and it’s a damn tragedy.

Poem: Shifting

This was originally written as a spoken word piece, to be accompanied by instrumentation.

SHIFTING

One: Up Until Now

Anger. Lust. Rage. Hope. Fear. Betrayal. Love. Betrayal. We push too hard and it all comes back and the world really is flat. When we're ants and we'll never live to see the curving planet and then the world might as well be flat. The sun rises just to set, a daily tease of light - a tease - and night always returns, always broods, waiting for the sun's inevitable death. The sun rises and we cry for its coming death.

Death. Birth. New. Old. Today. Tomorrow. Someday. Tomorrow. We hide in our foxholes and it doesn't even help. Drowning in our own piss and vomit, we wonder why we never stood up and braved the fire, but we keep our heads down. Some souls live and hope again and that hope makes us want to hope now, but it's the tease of fate - a tease - and death always returns, always broods, waiting for life's inevitable passing. The sun rises and we cry for its coming death.

Two: A Moment

What else is there to say? A moment. A choice. A breakthrough. A realization. A tear. We were wrong. We were hiding. We were lying. What else is there to say?

Three: From Now On

From now on, it is possible to love. To speak. To fight tooth and nail for life against the death that hides in the dark corners of our souls. To bring that painfully, searingly, blindingly bring light that is life into our souls to reveal the dark corners and defeat death. To love. To strain. To risk. To fail. To cry. To laugh. To hug. From now on, it is possible to live. To live! To live, my God, my God, my God, to actually live, sticking our heads out of that foxhole and living, pulling ourselves out of our graves.

And it is possible the sun doesn't set, not like we thought. Possible! Life! It's possible. Love! It is possible! And death. It's possible... but possibly it's not death, not like we thought. Possible. From now on, it is possible to want. To want so badly it hurts. Possibly that's okay. What is possible? From now on? For us, for me and for you, today, from now on, what isn't possible?

Freedom! Celebration!

It is possible!

Poem: The Jealous Wind

**This poem is intended as the text for a picture book. Each line is one page in the picture book.**

The Jealous Wind

The Wind demands attention like a petulant child
or a desirous lover.
This is not good weather for reading poetry
or writing fiction,
sitting here at this picnic table
in this park
by the river.
“Don’t focus on that dead paper,” cries the Wind in my ear.
“The sun is bright and the sky is clear, my dear,”
cries the Wind in my ear.
“And you stare at that dead paper!”
The Wind cries in my ear.
I can hardly hold the page down
when this jealous breeze tries to take it,
and though the sun warms my back
- almost uncomfortable –
the Wind pulls at me,
plays with me,
toys with me,
flirts with me,
bitingly cold.

“Leave those dead words behind, my dear,”
cries the Wind in my ear.
“Come lay in the grass and let me wrap you in leaves,”
says the Wind as its fingers
slide between shirt and skin
caressing my sides, bitterly cold.
“Come stand by the water and I’ll show you my waves,”
the Wind whispers softly, so coyly,
then tugs again at the book in my fingers.
I pull my jacket tight around me.
I shrug off the Wind’s lustful touches.
I lean into the table, clamping the book to the table with both elbows.
The sun warms my back
– almost uncomfortable –
as I read my book of poetry.

“You fool!” screams the Wind in my ear,
whistling,
roaring.
The gusts are suddenly more than I can bear, pushing me back, and
my book flies from the table,
flies across the park
into the lake.
Black dust now whirls around me,
darkening the sky,
cutting my skin,
burning my eyes,
and I jump to my feet.
“You fool!” screams the Wind in my ear,
whistling,
roaring.
“I could have loved you!
“It could have been a beautiful day!”
The tree above me shakes and moans,
and with a terrible crack,
the branch falls,
pinning my leg to the ground.

For a moment, I lie on the ground,
lightning cracking, storm rising, Wind howling,
too scared to breathe,
too scared to cry.
The Wind laughs and cackles and chortles around me:
“You prefer the dead page!
“You prefer the dead page!
“You prefer the dead page!”
The broken tree above me shakes and dances hypnotically,
and I pull desperately on my trapped leg.
And then the Wind quiets
and the dust settles
and the sun returns
and the tree stills.
“You foolish child, to choose the dead page over me,”
whispers the Wind in my ear, sadly.
“You will join your dead pages, my foolish child.”
And then one last howl.
One last push.
One last bitingly bitter breeze.
And the tree cracks again,
its trunk cracking this time,
and falls.

For a moment, as darkness clouds in,
the sun warms my back
- almost uncomfortable –
and a sparrow chirps,
and the Wind, whistling in my ear, whispers,
“I’m sorry.”

Poem: Arriving Early For a Movie

It’s waiting… but not really
Anything… or any kind of idea…
Or anyone….
Just waiting….
And yet that’s completely not true….
It’s everything…. It’s a crazy idea….
It’s you.

It’s waiting….
It’s leaning on a pole outside of a theater
Waiting
On you to meet me on what probably isn’t
A date… but I’m really not sure…
Not even if I should hope….
Waiting
To see if you come alone or if you bring
A friend…
A man…..

It’s just waiting… and that’s all it is….
Waiting…
For you.

Poem: The Present Progressive

The Present                                                                                   Progressive

(or… A Story of the Stars)



Dreaming. Thinking.

(But not really.)

Not sleeping.

(But might as well be.) The

talking is just so boring, the

lighting so (astonishingly) dismal, the world just so

big.

“I’ll begin talking about something…

                                                          …won't have time for discussing in detail…”

Drifting from the droning, imagining water

falling hundreds of feet from

some mossy cliff in South America.

Imagining thousands of Hebrew slaves

carrying thousands of tons of sandy-colored stone

to the site of a young god’s grave.

“Are you listening?

Really                                                                                                listening?”

The voice is asking, but rhetorically,

so these lips are staying shut.

“Are you catching the incredible significance

                                                                                          of what I am saying?”

Trying to remember

what he is saying.





Imagining

a painting of a heroic young god

crossing the Potomac. Standing

in a boat. Sailing

through a lucky fog. Except now

it’s changing

from a painting to a movie.



The little boat is rising and

falling. The wooden planks are

creaking as the waves are gently

lapping against the sides.

Lap-Lapping.

      Ta-Tapping.

              Bu-Bumping.

Tapping.

And W. is peering left and right and

back and right and

looking (with love) on his few nervous men.

“And many of the Tories were publicly

                                                                            wondering why those who were

screaming the loudest for liberty were

                                    being so silent about the condition of the American negro!”

Wondering why this isn’t meshing with the

swashbuckling hero in the movie, in the painting.

“By this, they were

                                                              implying that the great patriots were only

fighting for themselves!”

Dreaming that the stars are

watching the earth, great gods and

kings, growing slowly further away,

shifting redder with each passing day.

                                                                                    “It’s all about the Tories!”

That ever-aging thing is yelling.

“Are you starting to grasp the

amazing importance of these loyalists? Is it                                        sinking in?”

God, these stories

are all just so (depressingly)

boring.

Poem: Song of the Dark Prison

                        For those who grieve, and those who grieve, not knowing why.

Now,
            my love, I too am trapped in here (as well
            as on the bright, the vast, the summer sea)
            where ghouls and imps inside make Hell,

                        where fears and hopes, long trying, long vying, to dwell
                        where a whole and healthy heart once used to be.
                        My love, I – too – am trapped in here as well.

Now,
            my love must flee; it burns and yearns to tell
            the story of a broken heart, but cannot see
            (when ghouls and imps inside make Hell).

                        Where are You, Soul of Souls, Who knows to heal
                        where wounds and tears will long fester, unseen to me?
                        My Love, I too am trapped in here as well.

Now,
            my love bursts out. Its putrid demons it expels,
            and my heart exhales, weeping softly for all and any
            Whom ghouls and imps inside make Hell

                        Where are you, my loves, who Hell’s fire smell?
                        Where shall we meet, you and I, and together grieve?
                        My love, I still am trapped inside as well,
                        where now ghouls and imps sometimes make Hell.