:onland://online/journal/october

15 - october - 2001 - monday

[ //:woman in the dunes:// by Kobo Abe ] :
"He had not realized that soap opera could survive even
in the midst of sand. . . . Yet the average woman was
firmly convinced, it seemed, that she could not make
a man recognize her worth unless every time she
opened her legs she did so as if it were a scene in a
soap opera. But this very pathetic and innocent illusion
in fact made women the victims of a one-sided spiritual rape."

[ facts ]

Meeting someone for the first time: you shake their hands with a preconceived vision. Some way, somehow, you are related to them. You must be, for your are meeting them right now, at this very minute. You never recognize your own pure opinion of that person or of a thing or moment until you force yourself, for a second or minute, to no longer have a relation to that person, thing or moment. Only then do you see it as it stands.

He wrinkles his nose when he smiles, and you finally see the wrinkle in the nose, and not the teeth shining through his upturned lips. You realize: he's not really smiling. You notice the crack on the back side of the gorgeous "platinum" ring after you've worn it awhile, showed it off to your friends, held it to your cheek in the face of a mirror. You suddenly recognize that your are uncomfortable, holding a bunch of roses, the thorns' prick registering first in the thick pads of your fingers, then your nerves, then your brain. "Ouch!"

This is how relationships never meant to be last so long. Eventually, you realize you don't like how his nose does that when he smiles at you. It looks like he's disgusted; he's trying not to be, but can't help it. Is he keeping something from you? You fight about it. You insist he is. Five years later, lying in your bed (he lying in his somewhere else in the world), perhaps with a book pressed on your chest and your fingertips stretching (hardcovers can be heavy), you realize: he always smiled like that. That's just how he always smiled. You never noticed before.

Never forget to notice. I hope that you will prepare yourself for something that isn't as [ lovely ] as the original, but somehow, upon a realization, more so . . . because it is about you, not them.

beam me up, scotty