InaCatrinescu
Specta cl es of
Choice
2 Ina Catrinescu
Spectacles of Choice 3
inacatrinescu
Spectaofcles Choice
Title: “Spectacles of Choice” Author: Ina Catrinescu Style: Short prose Date: 17-06-2013 Words: 4210
1 Ina Catrinescu
Spectacles of Faith To make the journey and not believe in the magic of things, I might as well not have lived at all. Spectacles of faith wrapped my awareness up in cotton wool. They gave my imagination a resting place. As a child, I believed in everything - in gods and ghosts, in white and black magic, in dragons and knights. And it paid off. I met you. Just as I always imagined I would, I instantly knew that you were that knight in shining armour they commended in fairytales. Only - custom-fit to me. My one. The once vaguely fathomed concept suddenly made perfect sense and matured into an astute comprehension. Our actual encounter in itself was short of magic. We were the product of algorithmic deduction. Accordant online profiles had prompted us to a match, which we then took to a next level. Bringing our rapport from the computer generated universe onto the the physical realm. Even so, ours was not a chance meeting. How could such a significant happening as the merger of two hearts be accredited to chance? I hardly believe in chance. When there are two hearts bound by a strong connection and captivation, I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I believe it was our fate to meet. It was our destiny. Even if things didn’t just magically fall into place. In our case destiny was part chance and part choice. You were slightly shorter than I had my preferences set on, but athletic and sturdy in your complexion. I knew that you were not from around, yet your accent made it impossible to detect your origins. “I studied in Canada,” you told me in an attempt to explain. Witty, bordering on inappropriate, your jokes broke the ice and eased our game of acquainting into a cheerful glide. We spoke of studies, songs and movies. We shared the ins and outs of our jobs. “I want to take you away,” you told me on our third date. And so we put our infatuation glasses on and embarked on a trip, first to Portugal and from there into the empire of a rousing love.
Spectacles of Choice 2
Rhapsody Lenses Ours was a frolicsome affection. We played, laughed and jested. An uncomplicated compatibility scurried from between our sheets into everything else we did. We found a way to divide even the most tedious chores without ever having to say a word. The predicaments often described by couples, which we have also experienced in our former relationships, seemed to have passed us by, leaving our idilic kinship untarnished by the earthly huffs. Chimerical rose, glazing euphoric delight over sight, able to uplift the most melancholic propensity to a joie de vivre and bewitch the beholder with sensual enchantment, bestowing upon the object of perception an embellished allure - the rose-tinted glasses. You rarely parted with them. From the very first day we met, until that evening in Eze. The brief periods of separation amounted to the moments when we interrupted our routine for sleep. You would carefully shed and stow them on the nightstand, fondly tucked in their lush, leather case. I liked them. I thought they made you look diffident, in a seductive way. So naturally befitting you. I never stopped to think that you might one day not wear them and all the consequences attached to that. The subtle rosy tint complimented your olive skin, intensifying the indigo of your roguish gaze. You always looked with the eyes of a boy who was up to some mischief. It was this childlike piquancy that made me love you with such vigour. Or was I - the object of perception, equally affected by your lenses’ charms? I felt enraptured, captivated. I don’t quite recall an akin feeling overtaking my senses ever before. The longing, the impatience, the trepidations were not quenched by our encounters; merely mollified. Only to exasperate again as soon as we parted. Love, passion, obsession...all those things that made me forget my head.
3 Ina Catrinescu
The lens of Reason Not many succumb to these idilic states anymore. Instead of listening to our hearts, countless hurts and disappointments press us into dressing our expectations with spectacles of reason and cling onto what “makes sense.” Opting for safe, instead of head-over-heels in love. Albeit, aren’t our heads already over our heels? These are the same spectacles that a child is given to wear on the day when he finds out that Santa Clause is not the magical, incorporeal being that he believed him to be. That his, in fact, very corporeal father, or uncle, dressed for the part, year after year fulfilled his duty of settling the practicalities of infant entertainment. These spectacles cloak our worlds with a false feeling of protection. They blur out Ovidian rapture and sharpen the focus on Machiavellian diligence, giving us the mature vision that we need in order to grow-up and stop believing in princesses, fairytales and in happy-ever-after. The audacity of exposing a heart to such beliefs after-all, comes packed with danger of sending one on a trip to the heartbreak valley. Not giving away too much of your heart ensures that there will be less of it for the breaking. You came just in time to save me from reason. The creeping up fear of eternal solitude...I was approaching the age when the societal straight-jacket starts tightening-up on a woman. Engulfing her with preconceived collective expectations and prejudice that one must be a part of the total sum of two, to be a full-fledged entity. Suddenly no longer faith, but pressure was driving me into the arms of commitment. My friends were coupled, planning children and yet I was running through life alone. Solitude was not a stranger to me, only the dread of it had aggravated now that I was older. Having struggled to shake off this fear for the past year, I was slowly beginning to give in and consider settling. Watching some of my friends resign to it, gave me the final peer-pressured nudge. I was beginning to contemplate whether it was not the mature and the right thing to do. Maybe my time had come to start looking at life through the lenses of reason? Allowing passion to give way to logic, by choosing a trustworthy, compatible option from the current, selected number of suitors and settle, like people frequently did.
Spectacles of Choice 4
Spectacles of Contentment I am so glad I forbore. I know now, after having met you, that settling would have been a one-way ticket into the arms of contentment and imprisonment. The spectacles of couples that settle are framed by rims of obligation. Obligation to various agreements made before and throughout the relationship, devised to accord the rights and duties of each partner, and to keep the marital contract in force. To that end, returning home after work, becomes a cold act of supply and demand, instead of an impatient urge. Sitting through dinner every evening, turns into a constant test of patience, instead of a joint, zesty savouring. Love making turns into an occasional ho-hum act of mitigation of carnal needs, instead of a lustful expression of ardor. And instead of creative expansion of love, procreation turns into a “fixing agent”, aimed at covering up the bones of recurrent problems. You and I, we recognised the people who wore the spectacles of contentment from miles away. Their monotone, zombiac togetherness, beaming through their postures and appearances contrasted tremendously with our jolly rapport. “I am so happy we are not like them!” you would say, “Let’s promise each other we will never become like that!?” Our laughter turned heads and irritated bystanders, for we were the very example of what they lost, or what they deliberately gave up in return for security. “I’ve never felt this way before,” I heard you say so many times. And I could tell that it was true. “Why do you think we met?” my speculative mind frequently investigated for cracks, for flaws, for the unexpected. Deep down I always feared that I would have to eventually give you away. Somehow, my brain would not allow me to yield into the ease with which our relationship was progressing. We are after-all conditioned to think that if it feels like it is too good too be true, it probably is. Moreover, it was hard to believe that I could have been so lucky. Luck was never part of my vocabulary. Arduous hardship, on the other hand, could have been my middle-name. “We met because we are so perfect together,” you would respond, “and because you are so beautiful.” Those words fleeted, only briefly reaching my ears, rigidly rejected from sinking in. Instead, I secretly dwelt on my backwardness. Grateful that your rosy spectacles, coloured your world in chimerical shades, I safely hid behind them.
5 Ina Catrinescu
Rims of Conditioning What is it that makes me incapable of owning laud? A negative comment will cannily glue itself to my brain and eat at me from within, like a worm mouldering an apple. While the positive, loving mentions seem to leave the premises of my hearing range before they even get the chance to be grasped. I guess I am just not accustomed to praise. How could I be?! My mother wasn’t the warmest being after all and certainly not the most cajoling one. My father, though of the happy kind, was rarely there, finally, to permanently depart on my eleventh birthday, deserting me to absorb the blows of my mother’s retaliation and tribulations. Oh! And those came vehemently, imparting upon me my daily dose of blame and slander. I knew very well when to expect it. And, the tears...they just stopped after a while as I learned to accept that I was, in fact, “unworthy.” This primordial belief, deposited upon my perception through spectacles of conditioning, has shaped each and every one of my experiences. No wonder I felt the need to work hard for everything in life. Especially when it came to love. Unconditional, selfless, affection was alien to me. Sometimes I do wonder, whose eyes I watch the world through - my own, or maybe my mother’s? Reverberating critique from deep within me, each time I am about to hit a target or do something that I really enjoy, is one-on-one paired with her judgments. To the point that I no longer know whether my immutable insecurity and fear of failure are an astute ability to calculate and predict a gloomy outcome, or a deeply-altering effect of her detrimental discipline. They say that conditioning can augment reality, overriding it with bits and pieces of collective creed, inherited from forebears and society. Which other of my preconceptions have been forged by spectacles of conditioning? In what ways do their crooked adaptations manifest in my life? How much of my truth is in fact vagaries of this moulded acumen? “One must work hard to earn affection.” “Trust is futile and brimmed with hurt.” “Men leave” - are just a few of my credo’s.
Spectacles of Choice 6
Luckily I had found you and my spectacles of conditioning had started to corrode. Your love irrefutably attested that I was worthy and deserved someone to care for me. As such, you did not only represent romance for me, but also a shift in perspective, a positive outlook, a healing of an old, putrefying wound, a new start, a clean slate, a homecoming... Finally, my life was fulfilling. Until that evening in Eze. You had discovered Château de la Chèvre d’Or, a restaurant that you wanted us to try. We had it on our “bucket list” for awhile. We did this sort of things. Whether it was a far-land trip, an indolent picnic in the neighbouring woods, a boat ride on a sunny Sunday to Ile Saint-Honorat or a 5pm jet-ski ride - we didn’t hold back on filling-up our buckets with the small joys of life. Having savoured a delightful five-course meal and a bottle of Mouton Rothschild Pauillac, you invited me to take a walk in the chateau’s estate. A warm breeze was bringing in the salty scent of the Mediterranean, bathing the clammy edges of the cliff. The stars had just begun to lustre bright enough, capping over the cliff, giving the breathtaking view a fourth dimension and a fairytale sense of mystique. Dressed for the part, we strolled down the promenade outlined by the deep green conifers into a secluded alley, accompanied by a soft, soothing ambient melody, ushered by the murmur of a mid-sized fountain. We stopped. A pause filled with anticipation took over our light and joyful palaver. You courteously guided me to take a seat on the antique, roman-crafted bench, at the edge of the cliff, bordered by two sculptured lions. One for each of us. As if deliberately planted there to remind us of our astrological resemblance. “My love?” you uttered as you lowered yourself to one knee. Simultaneously, the music softened, the lights in the lanterns dimmed down, the water in the fountain ceased to sprinkle. This unplanned synchronicity of events, unfolding like pieces of a symphony, as if purposefully orchestrated for this very moment, crowned it with a sense of “meant to be.”
7 Ina Catrinescu
We laughed, nervously, but only briefly... until, struck by the realisation of the significance of your posture, I felt the alley commencing to spin at a befuddling speed, making the succeeding events vanish into a blur, up until the moment I heard: “I will!” Baffled by the fact that the words came from a very familiar voice - my own, I looked down to see my ring finger being bejewelled by a gold-rimmed diamond. Overflown with joy, I could hear every inch of my body, silently screaming out “I love! And I am loved back!” Just over a quarter of a second later, accelerated with an urgent velocity, as you impetuously rose, I rushed up into your arms. My eyes met yours. I discerned in anguish that the tears clouding them were not of joy. That your body was trembling, sweat pouring down your frown and confusion begrimed your face. “I can’t...I can’t go through with this...” Your words sent icy shivers down my spine, leaving paper-cuts through my heart. While my senses had not only decoded the meaning of this, but were already adequately responding, my brain solicited to jolt back in time and pretend these last few minutes never happened. Denial - the most predictable of human responses, is in fact on par with delusion. A quintessential reaction intended to pause time, to delay the unavoidable by blocking the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm reality. An emotion in response to the simple and obvious truth: we were un-engaged. A culmination so exuberantly anticipated by many, one that I myself have frequently envisioned, was now deflated to an interruptum. I had often rehearsed the act of “I will,” mirroring romantic scenes in movies. A retraction in the affairs of engagement however, has no prototype on which I could have learned the right reaction. What is the right way to respond to a revoked proposal? So I stood petrified, afraid to move for I would have collapsed. Choking the anguish of the significance of the latest unfolding. Thinking, “This is it! There go my dreams, my hopes, the future....there’s no way back from here. This, I cannot mend.” Painstakingly replaying every detail of this most beautiful and subsequently, most poignant night of the first quarter of my life.
Spectacles of Choice 8
Glasses of Incomprehension Our drive back home was awfully quiet. “I am so sorry,” was the only monologue that occasionally still resonated from your side of the car. The accompanying sobs and tears made me believe you were genuine. We drifted apart after that night. I watched you pull further and further away from me. The distance was becoming unbearable and overwhelming. Consumed by my own selfish pain I have not done the right things, haven’t said the right words. Did I drive you away? What was it that took over you on our most decisive night? What held you back from giving me the last bit of your heart? What had you realised that evening and how long had it already been scurrying in your mind? So many questions. Little did I know that they would remain just that - unanswered. For you, yourself did not have them. You were just as baffled by your own reaction. An acrid finale. Who would have thought? There has not yet been a fairytale written where the prince changes his mind at the eleventh hour and retires a proposal. That’s not how tales go. I was supposed to say “Yes,” you were supposed to burst of joy and we were supposed to return home happily gazing into each other’s eyes, announcing the best news of our lives to your father. The poor man was anxiously awaiting our return, having saved his best bottle for this occasion. We would have toasted on our happiness and take the next turn in our love epic, this time aiming at forever. I didn’t close an eye that night. And neither did you. The thing that troubled me most was that I couldn’t help but notice relief in your face as soon as I gave you back the ring. How could I want to keep it, if it did not contain your certitude? Isn’t that what a ring is supposed to symbolise? A bona fide promise of eternal love? Is that what made you change your mind? Eternity does sound long. Did you feel asphyxiated? The struggle I was facing was I could not be angry at you. I reached deep for animosity, but all I was able to dig up was compassion. I felt for you. Empathised with you. I felt bad that you were sad. I felt sad that you blamed yourself. I could feel your struggle and pain.
9 Ina Catrinescu
My own feelings were numb. Days later, eventually, after my friends and family have talked some “reason” into me, explaining in detail how I should be feeling, my emotions erupted like a fiery volcano. Having been given carte blanche to a vivid display of anger, I did just that. To this day, I don’t know whether that was the right thing to do. It certainly hadn’t helped us get closer. You were not one for conflict, so if your doubts hadn’t gotten the best of you, an eruption was bound to chase you away. I can forget sometimes, but I still cannot forgive myself. If I would have only acted a bit more mature. More reserved. Quieted my mother’s voice. Given you the calm comfort of pacing yourself to a speed that didn’t engulf you. So resolutely focussed on not losing you, I managed to get exactly what I so was afraid of. For as long as I live, I swear, I’ll never know, whether I let you down or let you go. Never, not even in my worst nightmares would I have imagined this is how our saga ends. Thus here I stand again, deserted again, faced with the unresolved, perplexing, inconclusive. Four years...have they gone by in a blink...
Fissured glass The meeting of two hearts is tantamount to a chemical change. If two elements react, both will be changed on a molecular level, forever. Once united, both hearts are transformed. Reversing the reaction would tally with attempting to make milk out of cheese. So how am I to go on as whole, without you, if the traces of your existence are still ingrained inside me? If I am no longer me, but merely a morphed version, which is partly...you. I wish I didn’t have this elephant brain that makes everything I cried for once come back around again. I guess I was the weaker of the two. While you seem to have moved on, stronger and perfected, fragments of you continue to taunt me from within, garbling my reality. It feels as if I am looking at the world through cracked lenses. Dozens of small fissures distort my vision. The once smoothly bonded glass has lost it’s enhancing property
Spectacles of Choice 10
and instead of clarity now gives back a mosaic of blur. The once opulent chromatic spectrum, now ranges from black to white, interweaving a multitude of shades of grey, clouding up my world, with gloom, weighing heavily upon my tired shoulders. I haven’t seen you since, you keep your distance. But, everyday I find you in some other face. Some bare me your love-me-not petals smile. Others will crack the grey of the crowd with a flash from your azurite-sun eyes. Brief, yet long enough to jolt me into memento. The unfortunate ones stay awhile. Long enough to inflict an indent on their hopeful hearts, temporarily paralysing them from the potential of something lasting and mutual with a partaking lover. A broken heart - not only crippled by it’s own pain, but also condemned to absorb the recoiling ripples of the unintended hurt it foists on others that attempt to heal it. Its pendulum oscillating between pain and more pain. Had we stayed home that night, in the comfort of your father’s house, had we skipped Eze in our story, the possibilities would still be promising. The future would still seem bright. We’d still be crazy about each other.
Spectacles of Choice Vision is neither a certain, nor a constant ability. Its highs and lows will fluctuate with time, undulated by experiences and stance in life. I was particularly at risk of surrendering its function then, in the darkest of my hours, in the deepest of despair, when I lost you. Deep, at the abyss of my gloom however, lay a callow, but mighty power. A power that was able to illuminate my senses and breathe new life into my soul. That power was Choice. I realized that I had the power to choose the type of lens I watched the world through. I realized that the ability to see gain even in the most painful lessons is a choice. Why insist on swimming athwart the current if you can cross the river slantwise? I will shed my old eyewear - they have served their purpose. Experience has shaped a more befitting pair. One that alloys a riper set of virtues, able to deflect the blinding glimmer of your retired diamond.
11 Ina Catrinescu
I may still not be the sole designer of my framing. Conditioning is still a part of me. But I can employ “awareness” to help remould my choices. I will never understand what took you away. So I can let the lens of inquisition drive me into the frustrations of speculation, or I can choose to wear the lens “letting go.” The more I resist the memory of you, the more persistently you spew back into my recollection. What I resists, persists. So I will not invoke the lenses of amnesia, but choose the lenses of “embrace.” Love is not bound by proximity, so I can embrace to love you from afar. Instead of letting memories confide and drown me, I can choose to float my weight upon their hollow stems. Wearing the lens of regret, or denial of my pain, would tally with denial of my soul. So I mould “acceptance” in my lenses. Like a crystal that lays in the broiling fires of the earth’s heart, pressured by tons of overlying rock into a raw gem, I willingly choose to bear the pressure of my burdens and yield my heart to the flames of pain. For it will only then be reborn from the remaining embers, a gem. It takes numerous cuts turn the gem into a shining diamond. So I will let my fissured heart employ the cuts of time, to gain in clarity and lustre. The light that will shine through it, will gently melt away my unrequited love, like a cloud melting away into the air. And like a phoenix from the flame, I will rise again and spread my wings to prospering breezes. I’ll be more stern this time, perhaps more cautious, but hope and love will still glow through my lens.
Spectacles of Choice 12
13 Ina Catrinescu