easy silence
Yesterday I learned the word certiorari; it’s a good word, if not commonly useful, and Latin, and spelled so well, and I wanted to text the Latest Boy Disaster and say Latest Boy Disaster, look at this word I’ve learned! Because it’s the sort of word he knows. And whereas last week I found a puzzle he would have liked and I thought Fuck You and I did the puzzle all by myself, this week I have remembered that there is no time for such nonsense.
This week I learned the word certiorari, and there are only so many people in the world who could answer my questions about this word, and I only know one of them. Actually I know two, but one is on the east coast working hard, and perhaps less interested in a late night call about the American judicial system. So I know just one right here, and what are the chances of that? A year ago it would have been none. And though this particular person does not happen to want to date me and this hurts my feelings, and though he chose a rather grueling and inelegant way to say so, I would prefer to know him still.
He, on the other hand, needs Space. And (it seems) not the kind of Space that one needs when one is sick of someone and wants them to go away. Rather the kind of Space that one needs when one is tired of affecting and being affected by someone.
My friends X and Y recently gave up on their friendship, because they did not like how they affected each other. And I understand that it happens, and I’ve been there myself and made the same decision. But it makes me terribly sad. All the frustration that X and Y caused each other was such an aside to their very rare harmony, the way they both spoke about the desert, the way they both threw up their hands when the terms were too full of compromise. Sometimes I think we are all so spoiled with each other.
This weekend I was reminded that people’s tiny red planes can disappear into the water on what everyone expected to be a sunny Saturday afternoon flight, and everything left unsaid stays that way. Must we learn everything first hand? I don’t trust time much beyond the minute that I’m in. And right now, in this minute, I’d rather be talking about etymology over red wine, even if it’s awkward, even if it’s a little tinged with loss, even if it makes tomorrow harder. Tomorrow! What a presumption.
posted by tortaluga @ 8:45 PM
2 Comments:
ceriorari [Law Latin "to be more fully informed"] An extraordinary writ issued by an appellate court, at its discretion, directing a lower court to deliver the record in the case for review. The U.S. Supreme Court uses certioari to review most of the cases that it decides to hear.
-- Black's Law Dictionary, 2nd ed.
You can always call me. :)
as always, very poetic and evocative. it makes me sad to think of the things i've not kept up with that might not be there tomorrow. the plane I might not have met...
Post a Comment
<< Home