Sweet Madeleine

Wanting

                                   Greed by ImpulsiveCreativity on Etsy

So a while ago I talked about how I was going to go see a man about a couch.I did, in fact, go see a man about a couch. And the man was gorgeous and if the visit had been about vetting him as a suitable mate for any of my available sisters or best friends, everything would have gone swimmingly and we would have received gold stars and A+’s all the way around and I would have treated myself to a mojito afterwards, toasting my own ingenuity.

But of course the visit was not about the man, but the couch. A couch which was too small and chunky, strangely smaller and chunkier than pictured. So there were no gold stars or A+’s and we drove back home.

Then last weekend, another couch beckoned from the seedy pages of craigslist, otherwise packed with red vinyl and sad schlumpy black.

This time a ridiculously inexpensive, caramel coloured beauty, clean lined with chrome legs and a chaise - a CHAISE! Oh the reading and leg extending and curling and cuddling that would be had on that chaise!

It was a hard sell to convince Adam to take his day off to drive an hour in his huge truck to go see this thing. In order to do so I had to all but guarantee that we would be bringing it back with us. And, indeed, I thought we would. I had done all my homework, asked for pictures of any scratches or stains and the photos sent indicated minimal wear and tear - what they showed in fact, was a nice, worn look that was appealing to me.

But. BUT! When we arrived and went inside the teeny tiny apartment (seriously, just one room juggling the multiple hats of kitchenlivingroomdiningroombedroom. Our house for a moment seemed spacious and airy by comparison) the couch stood in pieces, all of the cushions taken off and piled in the corner. Adam immediately set to work re-assembling the couch as I made pleasant chitchat with the seller.

And as the cushions came together it was like a monstrous puzzle began to take shape in front of our very eyes. Stains, weird dark blotches, oily smudges where your head would rest. We all stared at it, this gorgeous creature turned Frankenstein, and the seller offered helpfully, “Those will probably come out with a bit of leather cleaner.”

We did not get the couch.

Adam was surprisingly good-natured about the whole thing. Far more-so than I would have been in the same situation.

And as we drove home with the radio blaring and Gus’ heavy head resting in my lap I kept thinking of that quote I posted a while ago by Chuck Palahniuk:

Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.

Those words rang in my head - true! Oh god, so embarrassing piercingly accurately TRUE - and I decided I was done. No more couches. No more driving. No more meeting strange men and lurking on Craigslist.

Because where does it end, this wanting? And what does it mean to be happy with what you have? And five years ago I wanted the couch we have now. Lobbied for it, saved up for it, ecstatically watched as Adam single-handedly heaved it up four flights of stairs because it wouldn’t fit in the elevator of our old condo.

I was thinking the other day how lucky we are. I struggle with this sentiment because in the conventional, financial sense of this word we are not at all, (lucky I mean). We make next to nothing, spend even less. We save, we always try to save, but with Gus and food and rent there isn’t always much left over.

But where the luck comes in, or the good fortune or the karma or the blessing, however you choose to phrase it, is that we are happy. Not extravagantly so, there’s nothing mind blowing here, no fireworks or parades, but we genuinely enjoy each other’s company and the shape and rhythm of this small live we’ve built.

Some days I feel like we are living this sweet fairy tale existence that you only really hear about from your grandparents anymore, “We lived in this tiny house that didn’t even have room for a table to eat at. We had a huge dog that ate more than we did and we didn’t have cable and I made my own laundry detergent and although we didn’t have debt,  we didn’t have anything else either! But oh- Oh! We were happy.”

Sometimes it seems like you can’t have both, money and happiness. And sometimes (perhaps this is just a way to justify this imbalance, explain it, create a salve for my full heart and empty wallet) sometimes one seems to preclude the other.

Is it true? Does money create unhappiness? Does money create wanting? Does having very little mean you become happier with what you have if you can just let that wanting go?

And since we have now become accustomed to being happy with so very little, what will happen if we ever have more?

Nocturnal

I can’t sleep. I lie here listening to the faint whirr of the fan, Adam breathing softly beside me and Gus snoring two rooms over. I can feel my heart thudding steadily in my chest and it reassures me.

When we were at the waterfall the other day we stood for quite a while on the little observation deck high above the mist. I remember staring at the constant frothy flow and realizing that for every day I had been alive, it had been here, just like this. For every moment and experience and thought I’ve ever had, every celebration or disgrace, it had been here, rushing an unending stream of water over its edge, for the most part completely unchanged. That reassured me too.

I finished Room. It wasn’t half as disturbing as I thought it would be, my months of avoidance and dread were unnecessary and in fact, I found myself wanting more. I wished we could have heard Ma’s side of the story, I found myself wanting to know how she coped. How she managed.

I also began wondering about our lives and the rooms we live in, bound by routine and expectation and a strict sense of how things should be, and how utterly impossible it seems to break free of all the bullshit. Is this what we’re doing? Is all of this worth it, is it a good enough trade off for two weeks of vacation a year and a big house? And if not, how to you politely refuse it without seeming crazy, without completely alienating yourself or others?

We’ve become so uncomfortable with wanting. Not wanting and getting but just, wanting. Desiring something without being able to attain it. I think all sorts of modern day evils can be ascribed to our unfamiliarity with this most delicious of states: infidelity, debt, obesity, ADHD, crime, depression, facebook.

It’s not enough now to simply desire something, to feel the irresistible pull of lust and attraction, imagining yourself possessing it, imagining who you would be if you had it. No, the desire must be satiated and the wanting must be cured by getting, even though we all know that much of the fun is in the wanting itself.

Never mind, we whisper, onto the next one.

The cycle begins anew.

Can we be content with just wanting? Are we really so simple that we don’t realize that every time one desire is fulfilled another crops up in its place? Our life becomes like an infuriating game of whac-a-mole, but the stakes are far higher than a stuffed toy or a sweaty handful of tickets. I’m stuck here too, rubber mallet in hand, alternating wildly between decrying the system and wanting desperately to avail myself of its trappings.

This is what I think about as I lay quietly unable to sleep, trying to sync the thrumming of my heart with the swift chopping of the fan.

Waterfalls and wanting. The gilded cages we build for ourselves and the things we keep buying in futile attempts to get ourselves out.