Other than the date being homicidally disinclined to civility, the arguments G and I have are always about one thing: I want to be a pirate and explorer and of course want to prove to him that it is possible, easy, whereas he wants both his feet on the ground (He actually does that even when he’s sleeping on a hammock, oddly enough, he anchors one leg down to touch the ground and it’s not because swaying would bother him.) and refuses to let me stray. He would divorce or even kill me sooner than allow me to wander into the unknown, that’s how much the idea of just starting to walk and not stopping, whatever road may throw at you, horrifies him. The unknown road.
The one thing on the whole wide world I would cheat on him with. The unknown road.
Our arguments are always crazy dramatic. Trying to explain to him I am border on the spectrum and being surrounded by strange people, with screaming kids and even louder screaming babies and being snappy to me will put me on a defence, nothing to do with him. I WANT to be here, I CHOSE this spot because it is the most beautiful I’ve seen thus far along the coast, but the cottages are positively nightmarish and for him to say he would rather stay inside and read his book - the one instance where a naked man reading a book is not good enough even for me - than explore an unknown island is enough to send me packing and walking into the unknown. Or fucking paddling, if I could get the boat, please? And the pump? And an oar?
People ask how I prevent myself from doing something stupid when I’m angry, like “leaving”. Well. Since you ask. The camera, watercolors and sleeping gear combined weight 60 pounds. Of that the sleeping gear is 9 pounds. And no adventurer on the planet is brave and perky when the night falls and 7 billion mosquitoes the size of sparrows hone in on you.
Funny, this time of my life. I am not afraid of a single thing in nature (okay, maybe gravity, but fear of falling down crumbly rock is not a fear, it is common sense), not darkness, not the ocean (Which is only pleasant when it’s pleasant, in every other instance it’s lethal), not wildlife, snakes, spiders, fish, weather, nothing - but people bother me. Not in the same sense they bother the General, like he can see a small sign saying ‘no nude swimming’ and yet everyone on this side of the island, because it is just 98% wilderness and retreat from civilisation, is mostly naked - he doesn’t like that. If he catches me swimming naked he makes me put trunks on. Not because some fish could swim up my hoo-ha or someone might take a photo or something, no, he just finds that sort of idea uncomfortable and would never take all of his clothes off himself, regardless of his physical superiority. I don’t even care most naked people are hot, I don’t stand looking at them. Their trash, their sounds, their attitudes unsettle me. I am a paying fucking customer, man, I came to your resort as a guest. And these things are not cheap! Why the fuck do you keep acting like it’s bothering you I am here… there is a dozen screaming newborns and infants here, man, how does THAT not drive you crazy? The camp is NEVER quiet. Crickets barely get to have a say.
Had the ferry which brought us here capsized or something, or just broke down so nobody would be hurt, and everyone swam back to the mainland but we were in a boat that got drifted to a remote island, I would be happiest. With everything I packed, all the water, food, books, drawing gear, dingy, swim gear, hiking stuff, camera, coffee, I would be fine for a month. Longer, if we found a water source (karst terrain, no springs, and no dew to speak of, either, for tarp licking last resort) and one of us had the temperament to fish. Or even hunt, if need be, there’s plenty bunnies around, even some wild goats, maybe even some bird eggs. Plenty food if you have no empathy. As if I would ever harm another living thing.
But that would be my paradise. The General, in his obsessive urge to control everything, even the environment, would see it as being stuck on a barren island with a woman who menstruates three times a month, refuses to accept the fact there are other people who wish to have a good time in a pretty patch of the world and spent an hour stomping maniacally on a box of crackers because she couldn’t get the stove to unscrew so she could change the gas charge.
My heaven is his Sartre’s nightmare and his heaven is mine.
If that’s not a group dynamic, I don’t know what is.
Oo, did I ever tell you about a fantasy I have, of a man or a merman coming out of the sea, in the dark, while I am alone sitting on a shore? I’m just saying, THAT, last night, would have been an awesome fuck, because good grief even in silhouette he looks like a conquering titan, were it not for the fucking mosquitoes.
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