equal and opposite

March 17th, 2005

An overanxious waiter hovered nearby – was everything alright? How was the salmon? He’d winked at me earlier. My mother had been shocked and then seemingly, slightly offended. Then she grew animated. Backlit in hazy blue by the restaurant’s aquarium, hands flitting in exaggerated gestures, she told Jen stories about my childhood. The time we stole next door when the neighbors weren’t home and made toast. The time they found us, covered head to toe in a dusting of Hershey’s chocolate milk mix, mouths ringed in a sweet grainy mud. Jen laughed.

You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?
Yes. Yes, I would.

Neither mischief nor the love of chocolate has faded in twenty-five years. I suppose there’s something genetic to it, like a hitchhiker’s thumb or the ability to roll your tongue. I don’t have either of those. But I am wily and I do love chocolate. Just like my father.

We ordered the pineapple macadamia nut tart. We reminisced some more, perhaps exposing Jen to more unedited family stories than she’d have liked. Embarrassing moments. Dingy, if not dirty laundry aired. Somehow, even my piano lessons came up. I’d hated them.

Of course you did. Because you hated being told what to do.
That’s so true.

Perhaps it’s also genetic — passed from mother to daughter, through the umbilical cord along with the coding for our eyes and our hands — I hate being corrected and I hate being told what to do. It is not difficult to tell which other qualities are my mother’s. The long nail beds. The brow furrow. The overwhelming compulsion to sing along to Richie Valenz. We were in a bar by then, waiting for the band to stop puttering around.

It grew late. The Irish were just getting rowdy as we spilled out of Doc Watson’s, lusting for bed. We yelped at the cold, pulling scarves tighter. Mom and Jen were headed downtown. We hugged and kissed and I tottered off on sore feet in the other direction. It had been a night of none-too-subtle lessons. It had been agreed to over dinner that qualities which are most compelling in people can also be their greatest drawback. Equal and opposite.

Passion. Hubris. Even tenderness.

I know what these qualities are in those I love – the way she entertains and overpowers me with her feist; his insecurities, simultaneously endearing and frustrating; how she can be defensive and so loyally quick to defend.

There are times when I feel I am doing more repelling than compelling. Times that I do not know why anyone loves me, being fairly certain I haven’t earned it. Dinner with a newer friend and my oldest fan is something of a buoy – because I suspect that someone sees — and accepts — my equal and my opposite. My charms and my faults.

Learning to let yourself just be loved is no meager task. But that the potential even exists can be enough to keep you warm on your ten-block walk home on a cold March night.

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