Chapter 21
It’s not fair. I go to the art museum, and I can’t just sit and read books.
I have to roam now, looking at all the art.
Even art that I don’t understand. Even art that is silly or garish.
I see it differently. I can’t unsee it. I want to unsee it.
I want to put the genie back in the bottle, but I can’t. And it is all Mike’s fault.
It’s Mike’s fault that I can’t stop thinking about him.
It’s Mike’s fault that now I read Shakespeare with his commentary running through my head.
The DVDs. I’ve watched all of them, but with my headphones on.
I didn’t want to run the risk of Mike overhearing.
And…he’s a star. He’s a freaking meteor, catapulting through the stratosphere, burning with an intensity that is unmistakable.
I could diminish what I saw at Macbeth, cram what I felt into a little space in my nightstand next to the borrowed sonnets.
But I can’t do that after watching (and rewatching) all of those DVDs.
It’s not fair. I can’t unsee those either. And I want to unsee them. Because if I unsee them, I can go back to ignoring what I feel for the majority of my waking hours. I can’t now. I know better.
I’ve been clocking a lot of hours at the art museum, trying to contain the breadth of my emotions in this space.
Maybe I hoped I could hide my feelings for Mike here and visit them on my terms. Study them like I would any contemporary sculpture.
But this doesn’t work either. Because even though the study of art, like the study of Shakespeare, is ultimately comforting, it’s painful too.
You confront things that you’d like to pretend aren’t there.
You see the parts of yourself that make you squirm.
It’s worth it because with the struggle comes the embrace of every other human—artist or not—who is trying to make sense of this life we all share.
But in the moment, it can feel unsettling.
I thought art was exclusive before—like when you stand in front of a Rothko and don’t feel anything, but the person next to you is sobbing.
I now see it’s subversive. Narratives are challenged, and that’s hard. Narratives are all we have.
Maybe this is why I recorded copies of all my favorite snippets from the DVDs before I returned them. Maybe this is why I’ve started adding my own comments to Mike’s sonnets, scattered in the little space that remains in the margins. My purple ink twists in and out of his blue.
I stand in front of you, and I feel things. So many things. I feel the tug of attraction, the pull of intrigue. I feel jealous. I feel frustrated because you don’t feel the same way. I feel despair. I feel hope. I feel so much desperation for more. I feel. Therefore, I am.
Yeah, Mike’s commentary is better. No contest.