Sunday, August 22, 2010

Stretch Out and Wait

She reached over and gave me a kiss, told me she loved me, and let me fall back into a dizzy stream of dreams. Again I awoke. Was it moments later or hours? She held me close and told me it was her grandfather’s birthday. I tried to quickly assemble everything I could remember of her deceased grandfather but nothing surfaced in time for her to continue: “I’m going to watch TV. I can’t sleep.”

Sleep.

When I awoke, I found the sun had already started its ritual. She was curled up next to me again, dreaming heavily. I reached for my phone to see what time it was, as is my habit, though these days it doesn’t much matter. Neither of us have jobs to go to and each day is very much like the last. My shuffle roused her from her slumber and she peered at me curiously through half-closed eyes.

“How long were you awake last night?” I asked.

“From 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.”

“You must be very tired.” I said.

“Yes.”

“Honey?” I added. “I love you.”

This is part of the ritual. We’ve greeted the day this way for 20 odd months and it still hasn’t lost anything. She repeated the same and we made our way out of bed.

Our morning hours are usually spent at our respective computers, reading our preferred media and occasionally sharing something interesting, insightful, funny or disturbing. If there is coffee to be had, I am the one to make it. If there is toast, she takes the helm. We have simple patterns that we depend on, simple gestures that communicate something larger, something unspoken. It’s the source of our playful portmanteaux – the namesake we take in which we combine our first names to create our singular identity (“Melieter’s Ultimate BBQ” and the like). And it’s not just cute and silly, though that’s certainly a part of it.

I said that neither of us have jobs to go to, but that isn’t to say we don’t work. Melissa works from home, assisting her clients sail the high seas of investor relations. And while I’m awaiting a permanent position, one no doubt requiring a buttoned shirt and tie, I pass the days writing freelance for advertising agencies. Financially, things could be much better, have been in the past, will be in the future, but while we are where we are, we have the luxury of letting time slow down, of taking moments to thank each other for coffee and toast, of sitting across the room from each other while we quietly earn a living. It won’t always be like this. Things will get better, things will get worse, but it won’t be like this.

The phone rang. It was for Melissa and it revealed that money might be coming soon. An email arrived. It was for me and it said that money won’t be coming soon. But there will be more emails and more phone calls.

I decided to head down to the gym. While sweating away on the elliptical trainer, a heavyset shirtless man of Mediterranean descent ambled in, turned on the lights despite the abundant natural daylight, and heaved a heavy sigh. He appeared to be in his late forties, almost completely bald, lost in vacant thought and panting. A younger man walked in, I presume his son, sharing the same build and unfortunate hairline. The son immediately took to the bench press. His father then pulled out a small pink digital camera and started taking photos. While framing his shots, his expression remained motionless, still lost, still panting. After three or four flashes from the camera, the son took to the stationary bicycle and began pedaling furiously. Again papa bald man took a few snaps, this time smiling vaguely, perversely.

Finally the son decided to pose on the treadmill, despite the fact that it had been broken for several weeks with a massive belt tear. While the son was idiotically hopping up and down on the disused equipment, the father took a few more action shots and they then repeated the whole process again, this time with the son assuming the role of photographer.

There was no way for me to escape their lens in all of this, but I couldn’t participate, I couldn’t acknowledge their presence. This was not easy or comfortable. They had somehow transformed the gym in a way that made the air strange, and all I could do was stare at the wall in front of me, exerting all my energy while remaining effectively motionless, pretending as though this was the most natural thing in the world.

Having completed my workout, I returned upstairs to find Melissa beaming. She has the remarkable ability to smile in such a way that leaves me frozen in my tracks, and I doubt I will ever tire of it. The room had turned gray in anticipation of the approaching storm. I showered and changed, and by the time I finished, the clouds had broken and it was time for dinner.

Our daily budget does not allow for an extravagant menu, but in Thailand you can always find something remarkable just around the corner. So we set out with an umbrella and did our nightly forage. Melissa found a grilled fish and Thai papaya salad. I returned with fried thin noodles mixed with chicken and greens. We plated our food and sat by the TV to watch a movie about a mute quadriplegic that manages to find hope. The previous night we saw a documentary about a blind artist that loses his vision in a vicious attack and manages to find insight. Melissa stretched her legs and rested them on my lap. The movie played on, but we didn’t pay much attention. We simply let things slow down, trying to make time stop as though it was the most natural thing in the world.