stranded
It’s an exercise in not giving a shit, in thickening your skin, in being curious about how you respond to weird behavior. (So a friend tells me, though she’s been married over half her life so she says this like a scholar studying a different universe.) It’s putting yourself into a box of algorithmic attributes and seeing what the machine pumps out, what the digital wizardry of computer science majors mixed with MBAs — those people you looked down on in college as they readied themselves for Wall Street and you went off towards who knows what with your soul filled with humanities idealism — deem you’re worthy of.
Are you worthy of Fred who farms in Belleville? Or of Amrit who is divorced and seeking a submissive woman in Dallas? Of Steve from Dubuque who’s not sure why he’s here or Don who wants to be completely transparent that he’s not monogamous and NOT cheating in Indianapolis. Of Jerome down in Florida recently divorced and looking for his soul mate or TJ over in Peoria who chose not to fill in any information other than the photo of himself with a fish. Of Adam who is ENTP and ambisexual and pro-choice and seems to only be from expensive looking restaurants. Of which are you worthy?
Sitting in the coffee shop, waiting for one such Y-chromosome carrying human to appear, you play a word in the ongoing game with your friend. She is at home recovering from yet another round of medical treatment. She is worthy of science. She is worthy of life. For her, you are most definitely pro life. There are three boards open and you make vine and if (all vowels - impossible!) and cain — paltry plays all — and then move to The New York Times where you wonder about the spy balloon and what it looked like as it came down, imagining a jellyfish gently deflating, leaving the endless blue of sky and sinking to soil.
It’s impossible not to listen to the young couple sitting nearby with laptops open toward each other — the computers in flirtation — as they map a route for a journey through the southwest. They easily digress to the other’s whim. Each gently makes the case for their own out of the way cul-de-sac, one in New Mexico, the other in Arizona, that adds an extra day. They are joined in pleasure at what awaits them. They are worthy of this adventure, of each other’s company, of the juicy anticipation of traveling beyond this place, the map of here.
Twelve minutes. Is that enough to wait? I plant my feet on the ground, lengthen my spine, and take a deep breath. I’ll wait fifteen. Fifteen is enough. It’s enough to say I’m sorry. It’s enough to text I’m sick. It’s enough to account for the crash on the highway and the lost dog whose tags you had to decipher. It’s enough to still be funny when you tell your story years from now. It’s enough to recover from.
Breathe into the belly. I am here. Exhale I am worthy.
The clatter of the coffee shop, its aroma, the students with books, the women meeting to discuss the state of their marriages, a dad with a son grabbing a hot chocolate as a Saturday prize. It swirls. And strands me. Stranded alone - island in the morass; stranded together as entwined. Both true, all at once.
At sixteen past the hour I get up. Out in the warm February afternoon I tell myself I’m okay, he’s a fool, the algorithm is a trick of capitalism. And I wonder how much the price of eggs will be this week as I head to the grocery store.
