“I’d been crushed, skinned, diced, seared, and salted. The Universe pointed and laughed; I laughed too.”
The Garlic sizzled and hissed sweet protest from my saucepan. I’d separated this clove from his bulb of brothers, crushed him under the flat of my knife, torn off his skin, diced him into tiny pieces julienne style, and tossed his pulpy remains into searing hot butter. To add savory insult to injury, I cracked fresh pepper over him, and threw kosher salt into his open wounds. He frothed in fragrant dissent.
“Hush,” I chastised. ”I am preparing you to be part of something delicious.”
There are few things that make a house smell more like home than fresh garlic sauteing in salted creamery butter. Scented candles and incense reeked to me of artifice and affectation, but a man fixing a home cooked meal from scratch is pure aphrodisia. I had always found solace in the scents and sounds of my kitchen. As I waited for my date to arrive, I considered carefully the Counsel of Garlic.
♦◊♦
The Universe has a twisted sense of humor. Ask for courage and it will manifest your greatest terrors. Ask for wisdom and it will present you with perplexing puzzles. Ask for strength and you’ll be forced to bear unreasonably heavy loads. Ask for patience and you will end up on the Grand Central Parkway behind some Mr. Magoo motherfucker, driving thirty-five miles an hour in the fast lane, while you curse through clenched teeth and shake your fists in apoplectic fits.
Dare ask what else in your life could go wrong and it will show you just how much you have to be grateful for. Never give the Universe a reason to show you how much worse your life could be.
Ask for love and The Universe will laugh, and whisper “Are you ready?” knowing full well that you are not. And then it will prime you. It will scrape away your preconceptions, strip you down to your bare essence, and then it will point, and snicker at your naked desires. The Universe is not a magic lamp for you to rub and command. It is not served by creating ungrateful children who are handed their every wish and whim. The Universe wants you to earn its gifts; to learn, to grow, to evolve. Whatever blessing you ask, it will present you with the appropriate tools needed to develop in you the qualities you require to obtain that which you seek. The Universe will send you teachers.
The Garlic offered aromatic promises as it softened into translucent tastiness. I considered what grandiose things I had asked of the Universe, and how perfectly perverse its responses were.
♦◊♦
Picture in your mind’s eye, a clear glass filled to the brim with spring water, pure and transparent. Sitting beside it, imagine an old fashioned bottle of india ink, equal in its opaqueness. Now remove the eyedropper from the bottle, and gently squeeze a single drop of ink into the glass of water, and watch it diffuse into gossamer strands as it dissolves.
That drop of ink was me, during my marriage.
Sometimes, when you love too deep, your personality gets lost, like tears in rain. Anna, my ex-wife, loved me best when I was out of work, out of shape, and out of luck. In vain attempts to appease her sense of lack, I’d abandoned the things that I thought defined me: I stopped drawing, I stopped writing, I stopped exercising. I became less than a shadow of myself, and it didn’t make either of us happy.
Resuming activities I enjoyed that were healthy for me only fueled her insecurities. When it ended, I swore: never again would I self-dilute. Never again would I make myself less in order to make someone else feel like more. If I had to be any less of who I was–less intelligent, less passionate, less creative–I just was not the right person. If you couldn’t handle me, straight up no chaser, you couldn’t have me, period.
I next recalled the dark, lusty prayers I sent out into the ether, post-divorce. I considered the series of scandalous affairs that ensued; delicious apples I’d shaken loose, only to be discarded after one or two tasty bites.
While I couldn’t deny that my life was much simpler when sex was just about fucking, it was equally less meaningful. One year’s worth of fucking was worth less to me than a single night of making love. This didn’t mean I was suddenly endorsing celibacy because I wasn’t in a relationship. I needed emotional content, but I wasn’t about to give up sex because I wasn’t in love any more than I was going to give up pizza because it wasn’t Grimaldis. I just wasn’t going to be indiscriminate. My feet didn’t have the right to tell me where to walk, my hands weren’t allowed to determine what turns of phrase I put to paper, and my dick didn’t get to decide what women graced my sheets.
And then I thought of Betty. Betty had been so emotionally cauterized, she was happy to burn if it meant she felt something, anything. There was a Nietzschean quality about the way she stared into the abyss, but just because you could walk up to the brink of madness and wave didn’t make it a good idea. Love didn’t have to be manic, adventure was still fun even if it wasn’t life-threatening, and ghosts might stop haunting you if you had the courage to address them.
♦◊♦
I cursed the Universe, as the Garlic in my saucepan had cursed me. I’d been crushed, skinned, diced, seared and salted. The Universe pointed and laughed; I laughed too. ”Do you think your experience is unique?” it queried. ”Love owes you nothing, and The Universe owes you no favors.”
I still didn’t know exactly what I wanted, and that was fine. Predetermining what you want seemed a surefire way to set yourself up for disappointment. What I didn’t want, couldn’t tolerate and was dangerously unhealthy for me was being made painfully clear, and I wanted to move forward. When you find yourself stuck in groundhog’s day, you’d best figure out the lesson, or you’re doomed to repeat it for eternity.
I thanked the Universe for loving me enough to send teachers. I wondered: what lessons was I imparting? What inadvertent part did I play in the evolution of the women who had been sent to instruct me? ”Egotist!” the Universe chimed. ”Pay attention to your own saucepan. How I season others is not your concern.”
The doorbell rang. My date was wearing her best pair of CFMBs, and carrying a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I kissed her in the doorway, and silently asked the Universe if I was ready to be part of something delicious.
“Not yet,” it hushed. ”Not yet…”
Originally posted at www.jackfrombkln.com.
Photo by CarbonNYC/Flickr.
About Jackie Summers
Gorgeous words, as always Jackie.
Hey GMP editors–
If I may be so bold, a request. I’ve read this site for a long time now because it’s a good at showing that Good Men are not objectified, stoic action heroes, or bumbling child-men who couldn’t survive without female caretakers. It makes sense due to the site’s provenance to focus on articles exploring men’s relationships (with women, men, parents, children, etc.), but I feel as a consequence the picture that then gets drawn of the single man’s existence is one of an endless stream of near back-to-back hot dates, casual hook-ups, and steamy romances. What about men who lack those relationships?
I keep reading Jackie’s entries because it’s facinating to read about how a ravishingly-fine-looking, confident man lives, in a city with the gender balance tipped in his favor, because he has much to teach, but… his experience doesn’t match that of so many men out there. So how about, in addition, some articles that bring to light the travails of Good Men whose experiences run toward serial rejections, awkward dates, and loneliness. Perhaps even an examination of the phenomenon of involuntary celibacy?
There’s a lot of emotion and pain for them, too, but rather than being “crushed, skinned, diced, seared, and salted,” it’s more a feeling like a glacier, a stupefyingly immense weight year after year incrementally, inexorably scraping and grinding your heart to dust beneath it.
I’m not an editor. I do know that the editors are always looking for new writers and articles. So I’m willing to bet that if/when an editor sees this comment they’ll invite you to write an article about that topic and submit it.
I know that I, personally, would be really interested in reading such an article, so long as it wasn’t just – oh all these women suck because they rejected me.
Johnathan, thank you for your comment. I actually have written about rejection: http://goodmenproject.com/guy-talk/the-riddle-of-steel/
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-frequency/ Being cheated on:
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/ahora-mismo-a-retrospective/
Loneliness: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-case-against-settling/ REALLY awkward dates: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-check-please-moment/ heartbreak http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-deep-end-of-the-pool/ and the dissolution of my marriage: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/being-the-man-does-not-automatically-make-everything-your-fault/
That said, as the editor of the Sex & Relationship section, I would welcome a piece by you on said topics. The broader the perspective, the more we all can learn. Please contact me at your convenience.
Warm Regards,
JFB
I agree with Jonathan G, in that while the writer’s self awareness and his path towards that understanding is interesting and very well written, it does not reflect what most men experience. Also with Heather N, about not putting a piece out there that is angst-riddled and full of tirades against women who reject someone.
There’s something lacking in Jackie Summers’ article here, something that many men experience and most men dread, it’s that feeling of being pathetic. The routine of hot casual sex and dating in the backdrop of the world’s most electric city does not speak to the mailman who goes home from his 9-5 every day to his cat, the takeout menu and xbox, falling asleep on the couch to the 11pm Sportscenter.
There’s a despair that men can feel in that solitude that doesn’t manifest in Jackie’s writing. In part because you can’t feel bad for him, he’s the 1% of men, gifted, attractive, passionate, emotional, he seemingly possesses qualities most men ache for in abundance. So I guess the tagline would be, Where’s the story of the schlub?
Jon, Mine is a story of evolution; from the end of a marriage, to dating and the process of self-discovery: a series of choices that–hopefully–finds me worthy of love in the end. But if you cut me, do I bleed any differently that “the schlub?”
JFB
I did not mean to diminish your pain, but was commenting more on Jonathan G’s comment above mine where we felt that it might be hard for a lot men to really identify with your pain. Because your path to deeper understanding and the realization that you were only hurting yourself was paved by numerous sexual encounters. Most men do not posess such prowess over women and frankly would be jealous of that, and it can be very difficult to identify with the pain of someone who has enjoyed such success in the sexual realm. I do understand that while you found sexual relationships quite easy to come by, the elusive loving relationship was your actual desire, and your pursuits were possibly leading you away from that.
I also am relatively new to this site and have not taken time to plumb the archives for your earlier works, so my comment was not to judge you, just my feelings about this particular piece.
You write about a different pain. A man who has not enjoyed the ego boosting, physically pleasing string of sexual conquests that you have, while also enduring a long held pining for love, is probably suffering a much different plight. It’s like the hot girl who complains about getting too much of the wrong kind of attention from guys when the mousy friend in the shadow quietly longs for any kind of attention whatsoever.
Jon D, I took no offense. I will offer this: having been in an abusive marriage, my divorce left me emotionally, spiritually and financially bereft. It took years of therapy–and then years of me working on myself–to build the confidence I now possess. It was only by coming to a deeper understanding of myself that I was able to overcome the trauma of abuse. What I attempt to chronicle is the journey, from a broken man from a failed marriage, to someone who reinvents themselves. Every path is unique; my experiences are mine to learn and grow from. I’d argue this is true for all of us: in the words of Lao Tzu: let go of who you are, and become who you might be.
I spoke a little bit about the process of becoming self-aware in my first essay for GMP: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/becoming-bugs-bunny/. I will make it a point in the future to detail more of my own process of discovery. As the editor for the Sex & Relationships section, I’d welcome an essay from someone as articulate and well-spoken on the subjects we’re discussing.
Best,
JFB
Jackie, sorry to drop a turd in the comments and then run.
Y’know, life off the web, and all…. I wouldn’t want to wade into the emotionally-fraught swamp of whose-pain-is-worse. Because, honestly, I don’t know. I like reading your writings because they give me perspective on others’ experiences.
This just happened to be the post I read last before it struck me: People on this site talk about the Success Myth, one of its tenets being that a Real Man has a way with women and can get all the attention and sex he wants. I thought I read lots of pieces on this site that are… not inconsistent with the myth. And in a search through the archives, I didn’t see much that goes to busting that part of the myth.
Anyway, since you mentioned it, I guess I do have an idea for a piece that’s been kicking around in the back of my mind for a few years. Let’s find out whether I have the courage to put it out in public…
Excellent…Just so.
This was exactly what I needed to read right this second. You’ve got a great voice.
I recommend this article as a response to “Women’s rise, men’s demise”. At least to some of the comments. We need words of motivation like these to get us men out and achieving.
Women, too can use words like that these days. “Love owes you nothing, and The Universe owes you no favors.”