why plato’s hermaphrodites don’t exist
May 11, 2005
I have a girlfriend who believes that romance is like a two-hour romantic comedy film. That a man must woo and bring daffodils, that he’ll error–perhaps in Las Vegas where he gets a little whacky with his bachelor buddies–she’ll find out, and he’ll lose the girl. He’ll later realize how worthless his life is without her, and that she is forever gone. He’ll chase her to oblivion–ultimately winning her forgiveness, confessing that his loins and heart belong to only her. Afterward, an engagement and a happy ending. All this in two hours and 23 minutes.It’s no wonder that she is constantly broken-hearted and disappointed when the reality of her affair slips after two months of courtship and falls into a sadistic world of his “I-don’t-know-what-I-want” and unreturned phone calls. Her confidence shattered, she blames herself for his disappearance. “What’s wrong with me?” she’ll ask. Soon, she’ll become infatuated with her spinning class; she’ll fall asleep to her Netflix rentals or the imaginary bohunk that has entertained her many lonely nights.
Perhaps this is the result of years sitting in front of the television, of being brainwashed to the point that “entertainment” is reality, and reality is just not good enough. A man is unable to commit. A woman must tell herself, “Give a little but not too much. Play the game like a man. Wear a mask and never expose the real you just in case he decides to leave. A defense mechanism. He leaves because of the face you wear and not because of you, the real you.”
Many search for that heightened sense of the first kiss, that magical moment at the end of the film when the two are reunited passionately. After all, this is what romance is supposed to feel like. Or is it?
Just a couple of months ago, the friend read me excerpts from He’s Just Not That into You by Greg Behrendt, which had become her bedside manifesto. Suddenly, the day-dreamy ideals that she developed during years of watching Jennifer Aniston movies became more far-fetched and separated from reality. She says to me, for example, “I want to find a chiseled 6’2 male who doesn’t cheat, who doesn’t look at other women, who’s a successful artist, who is rich and says ‘I will support you; I’ll pay off your debts. Please go and pursue your painting….I’ll take care of everything.’ He also cleans the bathtub, has a great sense of humor, won’t like porn, won’t care if my thighs are chunky, enjoys shopping and likes to cuddle, will buy me gifts on Valentine’s day and after two years of dating he’ll propose in Hawaii, and it will be the happiest day of my life!”
Consumed with her ideal of Mr. Wonderful, she searches for him, dates around but realizes that she’ll never be satisfied with Mr. Normal when Mr. Perfect is what she deserves. She decides to stop dating because fate will bring him to her. Yes, he will appear on her front porch randomly one evening as she’s flopped on the couch with another re-run of Seinfeld.
She’ll watch as the many nights she spent waiting for him have now passed–the last ones of her twenties. She’ll sink into a deeper loneliness. She’ll discover her strongest traits are bitterness and jealousy.
I could tell her that love isn’t the things that are locked up in her heart pendant–that the road to a healthy relationship is sometimes crooked and dysfunctional and not even close to the daily events that are conjured up in her daydream or her favorite film. But, she refuses to turn off her television and hand over Mr. Perfect.
I wonder if she’ll ever leave her self open enough to experience a partner that is not only a lover but an annoying brother, a best friend and an enemy? A partner who becomes her other half–who catches her when she stumbles but is also the culprit behind her fall.
I confess to her that in most relationships there are wars declared behind bedroom doors, and peace treaties signed over vegan lasagna and a clean kitchen. She looks at me blankly and responds, “Isn’t it tragic that Brad left Jennifer for Angelina Jolie?”
A gift for you realists and those who have found their other half:
“If we have the strength to take a relationship as far as it will go. To discard the false masks, to live through the outbursts of hatred and violence, to confront honestly our full range of feelings, we may discover and emotional capacity that is much deeper and richer than we expect. The doubts are never quieted, the struggle is never over, the confusion is never eliminated, but the imperfect love comforts and survives.”
–Ingmar Bergman
seashell shoes
May 2, 2005
They washed ashore, more than a hundred pairs of shoes separated from their mate. Made from mollusks, these mother-of-pearl foot coverings were intricately decorated–adorned with red coral and phosphorescent algae. Many were shaped like ballerina slippers with seaweed ribbons that tied around the ankle. They shimmered in the morning sun and had not yet been buried in the soft beach sand. The ocean’s tongue attempted to collect such a secret back into its womb but had failed. Middle-aged women had already arrived, calling out to their husbands in a greedy panic to help in the gathering. Soon the tourists would be arriving; soon the remaining seashell shoes would be whisked back into the sea.
We happened to be there that morning. Having awakened chilled by the seaside breeze; my father suggested a morning stroll along the ocean.
He had grown closely acquainted with his solitude, offering silence instead of the lively father I once knew. Days into his visit, we found ourselves soft stepping and feeding each other courtesies. I hesitated when speaking to him openly about what had happened, and he too spoke with caution, avoiding the issue that had brought him here. Still, the stabbing disappointment reflected in his eyes, I was no longer the daughter he knew and understood.
He walked several feet ahead of me in the sand dunes while I strolled along the lapping tides. I left him to his thoughts, and walked toward the crouched ladies digging into the sand with their frantic fingers. As the distance lengthened between him and I, as the women’s voices became louder, I came across a shoe. It was the softest hue of pink like the inside of a conch shell, striped like the fin of a lionfish with the delicate green of river moss. Taking off my left sandal, I tried it on. My heel slipped into its pearly curve. A perfect fit.
Holding onto the shoe, I combed the beach floor looking for the matching pair. I became one of them, upturning the beached seaweed and pods, digging through the sand and cursing the incoming waves for reclaiming the shoes. Having spied a piece of seashell chard, I bent down upon my knees allowing the cold seawater to soak into my jeans and the wet sand to collect under my fingernails. It was another shoe; a large one with green stripes like the one I kept beside me.
It was then that I heard her heavy sobs, or was it the waves, the celebratory shouts from the women in the distance? I couldn’t tell only that it was coming from behind, in the ocean, moments after the crescendo of the breaking tide. I refused to turn around; instead, I looked for my father who had become a speck in the horizon.
Her sobbing became a string of words in what first sounded like Latin, and then she spoke, “Those are my shoes!”
Having pulled the other shoe from the sand, I rose up, pretending not to hear –avoiding the curiosity of turning around. The voice was not human. She repeated, “Those are my shoes. Please, those are mine!”
I told myself, it was probably one of the ladies who had seen me digging and thought that she was the rightful owner of such a treasure. But, she spoke again this time louder. Fierce.
“Give me back my shoes!”
The pitch of her voice was one that I’d never heard. One that danced between the audible and a sound not meant for the human ear. As I compared the two shoes, I became aware of the cold Pacific breeze; I noticed that my heart was responding with fear. The shoes matched.
I looked at the other women who were now in the parking lot; emptying armloads of shoes into their cars. For once, luck had found me. “Bravely,” I thought, “you will turn around and tell her that these shoes are yours and not hers. You will tell her you found them first.”
Instead, I returned to the sand dunes where he sat waiting. The tourists were arriving, and the rainbow umbrellas were set for a busy summer afternoon. Her voice had almost faded into the thunderous roar of the ocean, but I could still hear her. I showed him my shoes, which he examined with amazement and then asked, “Where did you find these?”
I pointed to where I found them adding that the women who were gone had taken armfuls of them. His look of disappointment deepened, “Did you tell her you were taking her shoes?”
“Who?”
He pointed at the ghostlike, barely recognizable image. She stood in the ocean, waist deep in the white foam, disappearing and reappearing with each passing wave.
There was no response that would please him; no excuse that could justify why I couldn’t turn around and face her.
We watched as she crawled out of the tide and beached herself–clawing through the sand with her fingers, looking to see if I had left the shoes behind. Shortly, the children in the neon swimsuits would gather to poke at her scaly black tail. The husbands would pull out cameras to document the event. Maybe, she would make the evening news.
“Do you know how difficult it is to stare into a mermaid’s face?” I asked as the tourists began to gather, as the little ones ran to grab their parent’s hand.
