Michael lived with Lisa in Los Angeles. They lived in a beautiful mid-century modern house designed by Rudolph Schindler in a neighborhood called Rocky Hill. Michael had bought the house for 2.4 million dollars with the money he made from producing music for pop artists like Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, and Miley Cyrus. Lisa had recently become pregnant with their first child. Lisa and Michael had met when Michael was in a very low place and now he was in a higher place, in a Schindler house on top of Rocky Hill, it’s worth repeating. Michael and Lisa were the envy of all their friends and acquaintances. One night, after they had come home from a party, Michael decided to leave Lisa.
This decision had come both gradually and suddenly. He often felt that he had stayed in the relationship too long and it had, at some point, become too late to leave or change his mind, but he also knew that in ten years, it would be even later. This is how time worked, or rather, this is what time was. The essence of its cruelty was that it mocked you from the future and the past, and this mocking, a kind of squishing from both sides, left our protagonist, Michael, in what one would call, a situation. And the reality of this situation announced itself gradually. But the decision also came suddenly, while at a party, where Michael came face to face with his arena of possibility. He realized he could skew younger. He could start again.
Reader, please don’t misunderstand, his girlfriend Lisa was beautiful but she was 37. Part of the reason she wanted to keep the baby in the first place was because of this fact. It wasn’t that he thought she was “too old” and therefore unattractive, time just made women wiser, perhaps often it made them less idealistic, more demanding. He could start over with someone, hit the reset button, he could reset with someone who did not share memories with him. Sharing a past with someone, having “history” with them, wasn’t always a good thing. History lent itself to patterns and a pattern lent itself to a habit, and a habit lent itself to unconsciousness. Etc etc. He was suddenly certain that Lisa had tricked him or, as his friends joked, “tired him out”, backed him into a corner. And he REFUSED to be tired out, he was only 40, he had at least one more go left in him, one more round.
Back at the party, Michael realized, for the first time, that he was somewhat well known in the small circles of arts and entertainment in Los Angeles. Lots of young attractive women were being very nice to him and saying things like “you’re Michael right?” And “is that your girlfriend?’ Pointing at Lisa and staring at her belly. They had a knowing look in their eyes, all of them. All women had a distinct ability to pick up on the subtle vibes of a man who was not happy with his woman. A flighty man was easy to spot if you were a woman with at least some discernment or knowledge of gender dynamics and experience in sexual politics.
Michael saw a door and it’s always a door isn’t it…into something new or something else, “else” which can mean either beside or instead. Maybe he could just take on the “instead”, take on a lover. A “side chick”. He quickly scrapped the idea of a lover only because at 40 years old he knew enough about himself to know that he was not the multitasking type. He would much rather change one thing for another.
It was at this party that Michael realized what Lisa’s pregnancy meant. Yes, responsibility, yes the ol’ ball and chain, (finally), but also something much worse…. The definite and official entry into the world of conditions.
Lisa was pregnant and her pregnancy held not just their baby, but his confinement. Each moment, since they had gotten together was a moment closer to this confinement and sure, he secretly liked it, having someone to come home to, someone to text, someone who distracted him from his obvious loneliness but he also resented it, of course, rebelled against it, like how one rebels against a mother, or a teacher…something like the love of the divine that asks for our devotion and that’s enough for us to want to jump off a bridge. (Yes, the ASK for a DEVOTION makes us want to jump off a bridge!)
But unlike the divine, and unlike a mother, the love of a woman was conditional, everywhere there are conditions, and Michael, still seeking the possibility of uncondition, which he hadn’t even received from his mother (and maybe that’s why he was in this predicament), was seeking it from a woman who always presented, unfortunately, the conditions. From these conditions, whether it was, let’s live together, or let’s have a baby, both of which Michael had agreed to, springs the demand for responsibility. This is what separated the boy from the man, but also what separated the practical from the ideal. In the world of ideals, we always have the hope of uncondition.
He wasn’t ready. He felt, no, truly believed, that he had it in him for one more college try at irresponsibility, which led to joy and laughter and ketamine abuse. Irresponsibility was more than just freedom, it was the unaccountability to forms and rigidity. It was in itself a state of uncondition!
Yes, perhaps this is what they called privilege but who cares! Yes, in fact it was his cis white male privilege and who cares!
He was reminded of this at the party which led him to be reminded of a short story he read in college, it went something like this: a man is on a road trip with his family and they stop somewhere for gas or some food and the father is struck with a desire to leave his family, right then and there. He contemplates it and in the end, doesn’t leave them. Michael always thought the man was kind of a coward for not leaving his family.
He was also reminded by something his father once told him, “If I can do it all over again, I wouldn’t marry your mother, choosing a mate is the most important decision you will ever make.” This, more than anything, scared him to death.
Michael did not enjoy having sex with Lisa, even before she was pregnant, he knew it was because his arousal was tied to uncondition. Conditions deadened his libido, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. Men all over the world were castrated by conditions.
Lisa was beautiful, charming, and intelligent. She was a model and artist. When he first met her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her and now he was a flight risk. How did this happen?
Reflecting back on his life, Michael believed he had been lucky and he believed he would only truly be happy once his luck ran out. He felt he would be free if he got into an accident and lost the ability to walk or move. He was imprisoned by his freedom, his ability to coast on his natural good looks and charm, and now here he was committed to a woman, to a life, (“this is your lot in life” people said), and yet he felt that he could do more, he could have varied experiences, find someone or more than someone, who saw him better and clearer.
First, you create one illusion, then you create another. This is how it went. Until finally your luck runs out, God willing.
Plus, he should be allowed to be irresponsible because he was an artist, a seeker of uncondition!
Yes, there was a part of him that was afraid that there was something wrong with him. He was afraid he wasn’t able to appreciate Good Things in his life, pearls before swine, but he quickly realized that it was all relative, that he had been the pearls AND the swine at various points in his life, and perhaps life was a series of constantly shifting perspectives of pearls and swine.
The next morning, in bed, he turned to her and said, “I’m going to support you and this baby financially for the next 18 years, but I can no longer be in a romantic/sexual relationship with you.”
END OF PART ONE1
Part two will be posted in two weeks (Sunday, February 18, 2024) thank you for your patience and support.