Together, We, In this Stillness (Part I)

Poised as if still reading, left leg crossed casually over right, thick novel balanced in one hand, other hand fingering page’s edge, ears seemingly plugged with earphones actually silenced, occasionally reaching to sip decaf americano—no caffeine for me after noon—monitoring my posture and motions to approximate one lost inward while focusing outward, in the bright autumn air I sit, listening intently to the conversation behind me that has suddenly grabbed my attention and will not let go. From the utterances that have so far reached me, it seems clear that these two, a man and a woman, remain suspended between formality and familiarity, personal and professional, distant and intimate. Neither has said so explicitly, but it seems clear from the silences and laughs and inflections and cadences that shape what they say. What they are saying is of middling interest, to be honest, all research and writing and grading and moving to new cities and so much mundane minutiae of academic life, but all that they do not say—the silences especially, ah the silences that are so rich and profound they have required the invention of multitudinous punctuation marks and organizing principles and syntactic braidings to even begin to approximate in writing their significances, significations that remain elusive, that is why so few of us can write worth a damn, we mistakenly believe writing is about the things we say and not about playing upon silence, the eternal quiet, here before the universe began, all that will remain when even the universe has died—refracts all that they do such that I feel I know them better from their pauses and falterings and slight vocal quiverings and tactically timed coffee sips than from anything they say, most of which are lies, since the things they are saying are so clearly not the things they are thinking. I say they, but in truth, the silences from him are easier for me to detect and decipher than those from her, partly because, probably, I too am a man, of similar age, of similar background, of similar desires. The silences he shapes are as if dolphins playfully breaching sparkling waters of the lower Chesapeake, crying out to a delighted sailor riding calm but sturdy winds to nowhere in particular, dolphins leaping skyward, beckoning recognition and admiration and love; the silences she shapes are as if manta rays gliding just beneath the surface of the same waters, sometimes revealing themselves to the sailor from a distance by their wingtips fluttering in and out of sight, sometimes glimpsed only suddenly and momentarily as they burst into the small radius of clarity around the vessel for long enough to be seen and then they dive or divert back out into the bay’s opacity, striking as much with their beauty as their brevity, present only long enough to be felt in their absence. I am no expert on women, as my own turbulent past testifies—in a recent text exchange with a friend for whom I once possessed feelings that never came to anything, she joked that I “date recklessly,” which made me laugh but also fall silent for a bit—so I hesitate to attribute any meaning in particular. There are many possibilities. Perhaps she feels nothing for him but friendship, maybe not even that. Perhaps she feels but does not wish to admit it to herself. Perhaps she feels but fears or knows that allowing her feelings to be known could devastate their lives. For from listening I have gathered that they are at the university, that they are of the same age, that they have shared interests, that they are in the same department, that he is a graduate student as was she, until very recently, when she came to this university, as a new professor. It seems they do not work together, she does not teach him, nor will she ever, he is done with courses, she has no power over him; from where I’m sitting, there should be no problem, and yet they are separated by an invisible but very real wall, the history and weight and will of the university, or at least its people, or at least some of them, hard to say how many, some is enough to cause problems. I have heard many similar stories. Some end in happiness and joy—whatever can be fleetingly had in this false world where neither has ever existed for longer than a struck match—others in heartbreak and joblessness. The longer I listen, the more he becomes clarified, the more she becomes indecipherable. There, something there, I can hear it in his voice. A subtle change. Does she hear it? A clumsy segue, he clearly meant it to be smooth and effortless, perhaps it was to others, but to me it was as if a sailboat under full sail experienced a sudden and violent shift of building wind from port to starboard, headsail backfilling, the pilot confronted with too much power and too little control. He is on a tack into uncharted waters, chaotic winds, storms on the horizon. I think he knows it. He sounds uncertain, to me at least. I don’t know what he is trying to will himself to say, maybe he doesn’t either, but I know that he knows the risks ahead, I can hear that knowledge in the changes to his inflections and cadence and word choice and pauses. I think she can hear it too. Here it comes, the gale approaches. What will he say? Will he say anything? What do I feel? Is this hopeful anticipation or fear? The symptoms can be the same, quickened heart, shortened breath, heightened awareness of the shape and color and feel of everything, narrowed focus on the details of only what is most important. How long can this silence stretch? It is as if the world has frozen. Through the opening of this eternal stillness my mind races down all the paths I can conceive for him, for her, for—in some, many, really an infinite set, but smaller in size than the infinite set in which they diverge—them. All paths lead eventually to pain, suffering, not always the same, the specific contents of each devastation determined by the forces and events that birth them, but always there. But of course this is true for all, so hardly profound, this would-be ‘insight.’ I cannot say which path is best, which is worst. Not that it matters. I have no decision to make here. And yet I want to know how to feel about this moment, I need to know what to hope, what to fear, what to celebrate or mourn when the moment passes. I want to know, need to know, because until I know, I can’t even know myself, my self is now bound-up with them, this self cannot exist forever superposed in the pure possibility of them, it cannot remain forever torn in all directions, desiring a collapse into determinacy incessantly delayed. And yet here I am, neither myself nor them; and yet here they are, neither themselves nor me. Together, we, in this stillness, remain.