2.04.2008

metathesis (reaction)

My friend sent me a book for my birthday called Eat Pray Love. The author Elizabeth Gilbert goes city to city and she concludes that every city has a word, and every person has a word, and to truly feel at home you must find a city with the word that matches your own.

And when I read this I liked the idea, but I thought, Every person has a word? One single word? Just one? But that’s what you get in this game: One Word.

I’ve played out the exercise with friends where we list what we’re looking for in another person with the shortest list possible. Because many of us start with things like Plays guitar and Curly hair but in the end of course there are more essential qualities that stay, and they are few and they are indispensible. My list until this point was Joy and Bravery. My list was too long.

And sometimes I worry that my list needs some fleshing out. Sometimes I look at my recent relationships – at where I was willing to go and what I was willing to do, at how quickly I adapted – and I worry that I am like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride, in that scene where with the thinnest of metaphors she realizes that she had always liked her eggs prepared however her various boyfriends liked theirs. She has no taste of her own, so adopting someone else’s suits her fine. Sound familiar?

Canada: Ok. Casual: Sure. Kids: Why not.

But actually? I know exactly what I like. I took a very long time, which we could affectionately call my twenties, figuring this out. In my twenties I did basically whatever the fuck I wanted to – lived where I wanted and studied what I wanted and acted how I wanted, significant other or no, frowning parents all the while. It wasn’t the most generous period of my life but I learned a lot.

For example. I like to travel. I like words. I like dancing. I like to grow and make and eat good food. I like getting sweaty outdoors.

But more importantly, I know what matters to me. And how my eggs are prepared doesn’t make the list. Scrambled, poached, overeasy, whatever. It doesn’t mean I lack a sense of who I am - it means I don’t need to negotiate every little detail in order to assert who I am. It means I know when I can say Ok, Sure, Why not - and really mean it.

And I say these things often, because I am who I most want to be in situations that require me to give things I don’t yet know how to give and do things I don’t yet know how to do. Go to design school, learn to draw. Move to Quebec, learn to speak French. Date a father, learn to share. And how else do you discover things that you never knew you’d love? How else would I have come to appreciate Catholic mass and canoeing and reading Supreme Court decisions?

So here’s my word: Game. According to thesaurus.com, that’s brave bold courageous dauntless desirous disposed dogged eager fearless gallant hardy heroic inclined interested intrepid nervy persevering persistent plucky prepared ready resolute spirited spunky unafraid unflinching valiant valorous willing.

And if Elizabeth Gilbert was looking for a city that matched her word, I guess I’m looking for a person who matches mine. I don’t care if he likes the music I like or votes for who I vote for, and I don’t care if he has obligations tying him to one place or dreams pulling him somewhere else. We can make that work. It’s not a compromise. It’s the point.

But he better be Game. Cause I’m likely to want to do all sorts of ridiculous things it’s never occurred to him to do – sleep in our yard, adopt a couple foster kids, speak in another language for a month – and I don’t want him to be all Why would we do that? I want him to say How Intrepid of you! How Hardy and Desirous! Let me go get my Thermarest / deep reserves of openness and patience / Italian-English dictionary. Calloo Callay.

4 Comments:

At 10:14 PM, Blogger We are the summer masters. said...

My problem is that my mind drifts, always, back to the last girl. Whoever the last girl of the moment is. Which is I suppose proof that there's probably never any particular credence to the idea that the last girl just might be the right girl. But it doesn't change the feeling, either.

The tricky part is that I'm not even so in love with the last girl. Certain things about her, sure, but really it's the potential of who she might become if she ever struck the courage part you're always talking about (by the way, it was the joy and bravery bit when I knew your blog was worth following. You're always sorting out the same soul fodder I'm wrestling with, so there's a utility and kinship i feel in the reading). Paragraphs in the parentheses of an unfinished sentence, if that isn't my life then what is? Anyway. Hope is a tough thing to let go of for me, because I can never quite fully believe you're supposed to let go. Memory is a strange trap of melancholy.

It's been a quick shower since reading your post and my first instinct, if everyone was one word, is grass. Grass stains, the outdoors, soccer, silly wrestling matches, laying out beneath trees. For me I think it captures both the adventure and the calm, the homegrown and the never grown.

Hope you don't mind my musings back.
much love,
e

 
At 8:57 AM, Blogger tortaluga said...

heh. that's happening to me right now. disaster once told me that my inclination to look for the best in people (eg potential) really screws me. perhaps you suffer similarly.

it may screw me but i don't think it's misguided. because i don't think finding the "right" person is about finding someone who you see as completely flawless. i think you decide to love someone and then you just go ahead and love them, even the ugly parts, and hope they'll do the same for you.

it makes it hard, though, like you said, to let go. cause it's not like you can call up the difficult things about them and think "thank god i got rid of that!" the difficult things are just part of them, and you feel how you feel.

grass is a great word. thanks for writing.

 
At 11:20 AM, Blogger humble bee said...

is it not cheating that you are both using an entire paragraph of words to describe the one word that best fits you? :)

my one word is:

 
At 9:27 AM, Blogger Jules said...

'And how else do you discover things that you never knew you’d love'?

Exactly.

Some people are happy without seeking or taking chances and the world needs people like that too but that is certainly not you. I still think you ARE E. Gilbert.

I don't have a word, but my ideal place isn't a city at all...maybe that's my conflict

Also, I just used the J. Roberts egg scene to explain this phenomenon to someone in NZ who thought I was nuts. One of the most admirable bits of you is your ability to recognize when to go with the flow and when to speak up.

 

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