luni, 25 mai 2009

filosofam urban despre cupluri I

I was looking at the medieval castle up on the hill, enjoying nature for the first time since… forever, it seemed. With the wind coming down from the snowed mountains, the lovely raw green leaves of the trees beneath the castle seemed like one single organism, one living creature that was so restlessly trying to change something that was against its nature. So I decided to get out of the house and climb the hill, and hear what the leaves have to say.

I wasn’t always like this, so deep into the nesting instinct. I used to love long walks after a long day at the office. The fresh air of our mountain city helped me to clear my head after hours of listening to couples that pretended to want to save their relationships, when all they did was argue, if not fight in front of me. Or sometimes with me.

“Dan”, the girl told me, “I get the feeling that you are taking his side on this”…

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Roxanne” I took a long breath, and continued: “I believe that you are not happy about your life, and I believe that it has nothing to do with him. Actually, I recommend couples not to see their personal happiness as something related to the relationship they’re in at the moment.” Sometimes, for the younger and more progressive couples, I even quoted faithless. “No one can be the source of your content. It lies within

I have never thought that type of thinking might mean the loss of my job. My father, who’s always so rigorous about words, would say it did not lead to the loss of my job, but rather to the death of it. Ever since the solitaire movement caught so many adepts, my job started to die. Don’t get me wrong, I had enough clients to survive, but they were older and older. Like an extinction endangered species. It all was official when the “Solitaire Act” was voted by the United Nations Parliament, which not only outlawed marriage, but, because the cultural heritage regarding the idea of the couple was so great, they had to eliminate everything.

After closing the office down, I started realizing what the insane psychiatrists were probably feeling. The lonely couples therapist. The barefoot shoe maker. The empty heart. Who knows, maybe that’s why I was so good at solving other couples’ problems, because I was so goddamn rational about everything.

What difference does it make now? Now, all the remaining couples are couples because they get along so nicely. And, of course, they don’t need a couple therapist.

Thinking about this – which I seem to be doing a lot these days – made me forget about myself on the couch. So I decided to shake those thoughts off, and look to the future. To the green leaves and what their restlessness might bring. I climb the hill with my heart pounding, filled with some sort of hope for new things. The kind of hope you feel when you are young and foolish, and think that the best is still to come.

I pass by an old house, with a beautiful garden. The metal plated sign by the main entrance says “The Family Association”. It made me wonder why do they care about their right to marriage? Like in my college days, when all the gay community was fighting for it. I never understood them either. They can live together, share all their possessions, why would they need a piece of paper? Who would have thought that the solution to the gay problem was the abolishment of marriage? Seems like an evil genius idea…

I shake those thoughts off as I get out of the residential area and enter the woods beneath the castle. I feel glad that after 30 years, these woods were not touched by the expansion plans of the city. It seems society evolved in different directions…

I arrive at the castle gate, and sit on one of the benches. On the bench next to mine, sits a pretty woman, in her late thirty’s. She looks at me and smiles. I smile back at her. She comes over and asks for a light. As I grab for my lighter, I wonder how many couples told me that’s how they met, and why did the Solitaire Act did not forbid this too. Oh yes, they did not ask me about that… I smile about that thought. I actually start laughing, and she asks me what is so funny?

When I tell her my idea, she starts into a sort of sad laughter, then says “oh well, you’d better not give them any ideas.” She lights her own cigarette, holds the smoke in for a while, with her head back, and then says: “so you’re actually pro couples?”

Believe it or not, that’s the first time somebody ever asked me that. In stead of trying to say yes or no, I remembered an article I’ve read in a government controlled paper. It said that 10 years after the Solitaire Act was passed, the percentage of happy people in the world went up 15%.

“If you actually think about it, the number of happy couples has not changed. The only difference is that, back then, they were the ideals of the whole society. Everybody wanted that. Now, they are freaks!”

She laughs from the heart this time, and I wonder how she laughs in her sleep…