Wading in the Velvet Sea

You can rearrange paintings, buy new candles, try a new restaurant. You can put one foot in front of the other, do good work, contribute to society. You can keep what's eating you up inside concealed from the world they kat large because that�s the complicit contract, isn�t it? Everyone�s got his or her problems. Someone can always top yours, so hey, who are you to add to the collective angst?

After all, no one really wanted to hear about it when you were happy. Elated, even. Couldn't share it then. The only thing people hate more than a sob story sometimes is a fairy tale. Can't be shown to be inadequate, lacking, somehow inferior. We as feeling, sentient entities are equally protective of our peaks and valleys, wary of intruders. We set up fences, build up dams, wall ourselves in and keep each other out simultaneously.

The language of happiness, of love, is in the end more unique, more specialized, more contained within us than the language of pain, loss, and hurt. Love lies in the details, whether it be a certain code of conduct between two people, the way one can rub exactly the right part on another's lower back, the psychic connection that lies in a look across the room when one of you is ready to leave a party. The way two particular bodies can fit on an early Sunday morning when neither of you is quite awake, but you're definitely not asleep. The way one person knows exactly what to say, and when to say nothing at all.

Just a few of a million possible examples, as varied as snowflakes and as prevalent as them on a wintry Northeast night. When we talk of pain, of grief, of anguish, we are talking about an admittedly vast but much more finite set of circumstances. Death, infidelity, lack of communication, a feeling of unrest within one's life...people share their grief more often than their joy not only because of the purgative qualities of such sharing, but also because we feel that someone, somewhere can know exactly what we are going through at that moment. Whether or not that�s in fact true is up for debate, and I certainly won't come down on either side just yet, but there's a reason we establish support groups for pain and not communities based on ecstasy.

There's something so intensely private about intense joy that it would be futile to share in any case. Perhaps this is why we've created cursory shortcuts in everyday discourse through which we establish a person's joy and than quickly move on to the next topic. Joy is never explored in the detail in which grief is. It simply doesn't happen. We poke and prod at grief. Dissecting the roots, analyzing the symptoms, recalling previous examples, and offering a diagnosis and/or treatment. When it comes to joy, though, well, the declaration thereof is greeting with an (in)sincere response of, "That's great!" or "How lucky for you!" or some stock phrase handed down from generation to generation, perhaps even in our genes.

It's not simply due to a person�s lack of caring towards this joy'although that can certainly be the case. More often than not, though, the one declaring his or her happiness is not looking for a response per say. They are sharing an emotional state with another, to be certain, but whereas a declaration of grief invites the listener in, a declaration of love keeps the listener at a distance. A potentially close distance, to be certain, but a distance nonetheless.

In declarations of grief, one seeks validation of his or her despair. Love, or true happiness in whatever form it takes, needs no validation. Communication beyond the mere utterance of this state is by and large unnecessary. Benign at best, destructive at worst. There's no commonality to love, period. Mine's got nothing to do with yours or your aunt's or the milkman's. The search for love may be universal, but the actuality discovery thereof is one of the most personal, unique encounters possible.

One could of course counterargue that the same holds true for grief, and I am not saying grief is in anyway simpler or more easily lumped into a specific category. However, I would argue that the potential ways in which one can make another happy greatly outnumbers the ways in which one can disappoint another. Maybe that's the best way to explain it. I can sleep with a dozen girls behind a dozen girlfriends' backs but I'll never be able to make those twelve girls' eyes shine in exactly the same way when we're alone together.

That specificity is what "Lost in Translation" is about. That inability for anyone else besides the combination of two individuals to truly understand what a connection that deep can possibly mean. Doesn't mean it's any better or any worse than anyone else in a similar (yet utterly different) situation. Comparisons are futile. It's not even comparing apples and oranges. Comparisons miss the point entirely. It's about combination, about chemistry, about connection. About two people despite all the odds fitting together so closely that, when watching them walk down the street, you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Two in 6 billion plus making their way in a place Peter Gabriel calls the "secret world". A world behind a door. A door with a lock. A lock which can only be opened by two keys.

We're always looking for that door, I think. Wondering if anyone's behind it. Wondering if the other person's as scared as you to open it in the first place. Wondering if the two of you can step through together, disappearing into the world where's there's a mutual support service for two and only two. Knowing that if you leave, you'll leave something behind. Something you'll never really get back. Promising the other you'll catch them when they fall, and not knowing if they believe you or will ever believe you. It's heaven and hell on earth. Peaks and valleys. Now laid bare. Two naked selves, open for the taking. The loving. The killing.

All equally possible. The chance we take. If we can take it at all. Sometimes we step through the door, only to have the other close the door on you before they enter. Other times you'll leave them after cohabitating in this world, leaving them trapped. And yet other times, you both discard the key before ever walking through in the first place, wandering away aimlessly in different directions. And maybe later you look for the door again, but the door has since moved. The chemistry has changed. The pieces no longer fit. The keys are lost forever.

We often times ignore our hearts for the fear of our inadequacies. Fear that we're not strong enough. Fear we can't live up to expectations. Whatever the case may be, we leave, out of the desire to in the end do what�s right for those we love. We want strength, yet we want strength. We desire and lack simultaneously. Hardest thing in the world: to leave the world you know and enter the secret one. Only thing that's worthwhile in the end, however. Only journey worth taking. The only stamp your passport will ever need.

I�ll leave it to Stephen Dunn, and his poem �Mon Semblable�, to talk a bit more about this secret world, our fear to seek it out, and the ultimate importance thereof.

Altruism is for those
who can't endure their desires.
There's a world

poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone else has.

I've always wondered about the use of the word "disappointment" here. I mean, it seems a bit counterintuitive at best, and flat out inappropriate at worst. Maybe the disappointment comes from the fact that love, after that initial declaration, takes work. Takes sweat. Takes tears. Doesn�t always live up to that initial, perfect symbiosis when you declare your heart's truth. Doesn't always live up to the fairy tale you had in your head growing up. Doesn't always fit into the type of relationship you imagined.

But maybe Dunn, in talking about disappointing his love better than anyone else, in fact means that love, in its specificity, both never lives up to, and simultaneously supercedes, our expectations. To expect perfection is to invite hesitation. To waver is to falter. To falter is to fail. And to fail leaves one ever and only outside of any secret world.

Dunno about you, but I�m looking forward to disappointing someone soon.