No Narrative

by | Apr 10, 2011 | 1 comment

sunday late afternoon.
Audrey put in a very melancholy lullaby album by a band I liked before she was born…
the singer’s vocals are ethereal and child-like- she sings “what a wonderful world” and “somewhere over the rainbow.”  I walk to the window as a bus pulls up and feel maybe, just maybe this time you’ll actually get out.  outside the sky is white and gray- a drab and dreary world.

I think of us forgetting to dance to “What a wonderful world” played at our wedding, but hearing it the next day- a rainy one- in a Starbucks in NYC near Grand Central.  We headed out of the W where’d we’d spent the night and picked up stuff for our upcoming honeymoon at Duane Reade- then ducked in from the rain for a cup of coffee at Starbucks when this song came on.  It was the most wonderful day, and the most wonderful moment.

Another day after we were married, we sat at our dinner table overlooking a Brooklyn street, looking out the windows covered in thick white paint around the moldings- we saw a rainbow.  We looked at each other- maybe we kissed.  I’m pretty sure we held hands.  In that moment, and in moments like that, I always felt nervous or embarrassed or something when you looked in my eyes.  It felt too sentimental- even for me.  but i should have gladly accepted those moments, since we didn’t have that many of them.

Audrey is in a tutu while the music plays and I stand at the window.  I look at her and try to tell myself, “you must pull it together- look at her…you must do it for her.”  because it feels the world has nothing for me anymore…i really, really, really miss you dan.  i go to church and meet new people who will never know you or “us”- “dan and jul.”  Instead, they’ll eventually learn my tragic story but to them it will be just that- because they’ll only have known me through that lens.  They won’t understand that I really was just like them.  just as i didn’t understand that before this happened- i thought this kind of thing only happened to “stronger” people.  i shied away from them when it happened as if it might be contagious.

i must start making dinner.

but i keep thinking why is there no narrative…why this way- without an proper ending, symbolism eludes me, foreshadowing’s not enough…where is the narrative that we all feel is inherent in life? why do i look for it and feel so disturbed that here…it’s gone.  or is the narrative just different than i thought…grow up, fall in love, get married, have children…grow old…it’s not that- so maybe i just don’t know what it is…or maybe it’s not a narrative at all, but a poem.

or maybe it’s not either one.

JAC

April 10, 2011

1 Comment

  1. Anonymous

    You aren't done yet; your story isn't finished.
    Karen in Boston

    Reply

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