Saltwater, Days 4-5

It rained last night, and today was cold and overcast and completely unfit for swimming. That was alright. I took a many-hour walk up and down the beach with my feet in the warm surf, listening to Dirty Three's Horse Stories and Colleen's Les Ondes Silencieuses. Something about the airy swooning of Dirty Three's string harmonies and Colleen's minimal reverberations complements the gull-grey Atlantic under a swath of leftover rainclouds and the white-noise floor of dispersing waves. Dirty Three is the sound of the sea as character, and Colleen is the sound of the sea as setting. When Dirty Three played (fitting that my first introduction to them was seeing them on a beach in Taiwan four years ago) it was a dialogue between Mick Turner's lucid guitar, like the mutters of the sea breeze, and Warren Ellis' reeling violin, like the drawling of the water. When Colleen started playing the entire shoreline stopped. Ces ondes n'étaient pas silencieuses. (Was that right? Maybe.)

It was actually good that the weather was less than brilliant today; I found the thinking time useful. Maura stepped out abruptly late last night without really explaining where she was going or why, and we (Matt, Mike and I) were concerned about what she was doing, or more specifically what she and John had been talking about in the room for at least an hour immediately before. Sometimes it seems that Matt, Mike, and I are merely witnesses to this impossibly (and oft-frustratingly) persistent drama that has somehow oriented itself as the core of everything we collectively are and do; as those two go, so goes the nation, or at least this so-called "EA" thing (whatever it is). (Which is another reason why I excuse myself from the group so often--indeed, sometimes it seems I spend more energy avoiding people than hanging out with them--but that's another story.) Who knows; maybe the fact that it seems this affair will never end despite all the recurrent breakdowns is the surest sign it's meant to last.

I never took a side on this issue, and what opinions I had I expressed a long time ago. But the important point is: damaged people can turn around and inflict the same damage to another when they get the chance. Maybe it's because those to whom damage is done forget they are capable of causing any harm themselves; there's a kind of self-righteousness that comes from rolling with punches, and righteousness often causes one to overlook its antithesis. I'll always remember that line toward the end of Falling Down: "I'm the bad guy? ...How did that happen?"

For a long time now I've not been able to do much in the way of hurting others because I don't really connect with anyone enough to have that kind of leverage on them. Sad as that sounds, in a way it's an ideal situation, because it makes doing the good thing (or at least not doing the bad thing) easy. The surest way to preserve "first, do no harm" is to not become a doctor. But reality's hardly an ideal situation, and the last couple of times I found myself in a position to hurt someone, I botched it, mainly because I didn't know how to deal with the unfamiliar situation. Not every situation is cut and dry and sometimes all possible answers seem wrong. This whole kindness thing--I'm still working on it. Maybe one day I'll get it right.

I should stop viewing my friends as allegories, probably.