going to be here I want to be here.”
They sat there, practically knee-to-knee, and the thing that was really at issue, the unnameable thing that neither of them could see clearly or focus on because it was too big and too close and too nameless, rotated above their heads like a mirrored ball over an empty dance floor. The argument was never really about logistics but about each one’s desire for the other to feel what they felt. How had they gotten so dug into their positions?
Alice looked at Craig evenly and seriously and said, “I want you to acknowledge that this is a scary, backward, inconvenient place to live, and that we are putting our children at risk by living here.”
“So—bottom line—you want to move. Right? Where do you want to live? That’s what I asked you before.”
“I’ll repeat what I said, Craig: What I want is for you to acknowledge…”
“Right, right—that New Orleans is a horrible place and we should go back to Ann Arbor.”
“No,” she almost screamed. What she wanted was for him toacknowledge that her fears had some basis in the reality of the situation. At least that way, if they were going to stay, they could face the fears together, instead of her feelings being negated because there was no immediate practical solution. She wanted them to be on the same page; that in itself would have relieved much of the pressure that fueled her anger.
That is what she thought, when she could think quietly about it, although there was another element, harder to admit. She was, at heart, jangled by the city. It was garish, loud, full of abrupt and, to her, inharmonious contrasts. Yes, it was fun to visit, fun as a spice, as a side dish. But as she had gotten older she found herself, to her surprise, wanting something closer to what she had never wanted for herself growing up. Muted colors, tasteful room arrangements, recognizable social and cultural activities with literate, educated friends…All the things she had grown up wanting to escape, the overtones of class anxiety that drove her crazy in her parents, she was discovering to her own intense discomfort were embedded in her. And in her hopes for Annie and Malcolm. She wished that Craig could have shouldered some of that desire, let it rest less completely on her shoulders. She had married someone who reflected her need to distance herself from her upbringing, and now because of that she had been left alone to defend the part of her that was still stuck back there with those values.
And for Craig’s part, Alice had been the person who completed his adventure, the perfect companion to his love for the city and the life that he had sought out for himself. Alice had been the one who combed the newspaper looking for new restaurants to try out, and who bought the guide books and found romantic bed-and-breakfast getaways in plantation houses half an hour out of town. Craig had found nothing less than himself in New Orleans, and then he had found Alice, and the picture of his life seemed complete. And now part of that picture was shifting out of recognition, for reasons hedidn’t understand, and the loss was stabbing him in the heart. He wished that she could at least have admitted a sense of loss for her youthful embrace of the city; that might have let them share the experience more. But instead he felt as if she were, simply, attacking this place and the life that they had loved and shared together. As if she had become a different person.
They both felt the sense of loss. And as they sat there, some angle, some look caught unguarded, some ghost of memory passed over them because at almost the same moment they both began to speak, then they both chuckled at the collision. Craig let Alice speak first.
“Can we please have a conversation—not now, but sometime—about other options? Just talking about it at least will feel like I’m not…I don’t know—trapped in someone else’s movie.”
Craig breathed from his stomach. “Why
They sat there, practically knee-to-knee, and the thing that was really at issue, the unnameable thing that neither of them could see clearly or focus on because it was too big and too close and too nameless, rotated above their heads like a mirrored ball over an empty dance floor. The argument was never really about logistics but about each one’s desire for the other to feel what they felt. How had they gotten so dug into their positions?
Alice looked at Craig evenly and seriously and said, “I want you to acknowledge that this is a scary, backward, inconvenient place to live, and that we are putting our children at risk by living here.”
“So—bottom line—you want to move. Right? Where do you want to live? That’s what I asked you before.”
“I’ll repeat what I said, Craig: What I want is for you to acknowledge…”
“Right, right—that New Orleans is a horrible place and we should go back to Ann Arbor.”
“No,” she almost screamed. What she wanted was for him toacknowledge that her fears had some basis in the reality of the situation. At least that way, if they were going to stay, they could face the fears together, instead of her feelings being negated because there was no immediate practical solution. She wanted them to be on the same page; that in itself would have relieved much of the pressure that fueled her anger.
That is what she thought, when she could think quietly about it, although there was another element, harder to admit. She was, at heart, jangled by the city. It was garish, loud, full of abrupt and, to her, inharmonious contrasts. Yes, it was fun to visit, fun as a spice, as a side dish. But as she had gotten older she found herself, to her surprise, wanting something closer to what she had never wanted for herself growing up. Muted colors, tasteful room arrangements, recognizable social and cultural activities with literate, educated friends…All the things she had grown up wanting to escape, the overtones of class anxiety that drove her crazy in her parents, she was discovering to her own intense discomfort were embedded in her. And in her hopes for Annie and Malcolm. She wished that Craig could have shouldered some of that desire, let it rest less completely on her shoulders. She had married someone who reflected her need to distance herself from her upbringing, and now because of that she had been left alone to defend the part of her that was still stuck back there with those values.
And for Craig’s part, Alice had been the person who completed his adventure, the perfect companion to his love for the city and the life that he had sought out for himself. Alice had been the one who combed the newspaper looking for new restaurants to try out, and who bought the guide books and found romantic bed-and-breakfast getaways in plantation houses half an hour out of town. Craig had found nothing less than himself in New Orleans, and then he had found Alice, and the picture of his life seemed complete. And now part of that picture was shifting out of recognition, for reasons hedidn’t understand, and the loss was stabbing him in the heart. He wished that she could at least have admitted a sense of loss for her youthful embrace of the city; that might have let them share the experience more. But instead he felt as if she were, simply, attacking this place and the life that they had loved and shared together. As if she had become a different person.
They both felt the sense of loss. And as they sat there, some angle, some look caught unguarded, some ghost of memory passed over them because at almost the same moment they both began to speak, then they both chuckled at the collision. Craig let Alice speak first.
“Can we please have a conversation—not now, but sometime—about other options? Just talking about it at least will feel like I’m not…I don’t know—trapped in someone else’s movie.”
Craig breathed from his stomach. “Why
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