The Loveable Suffering

27 July 09

More fog this morning, dripping out of the sky, slicking the balcony, washing out the cypress and roof-bunched ridge to west. Being near the ocean gives a sense of limitlessness or connection to other places and continents. But there's also the feeling of the land's end, the last of the West I love so much. San Francisco, bounded by ocean and bay like a three-sided island. There are no more mountains or river valleys or high deserts in which to roam beyond that fog-clenched ridge, only the vast moat of the sea. The warm flowery smells of land scoured away by the brackish grey of the sea's bouquet. Am I pining to move? Is Idaho calling me, or perhaps Italy or Australia, places with abundant countryside? Each summer spent in SF kills a little of the kid in you, the kid who even at age eighty will be yearning to get out and play on a dew-wet July morning.

_________

Bicycling home from the job I saw S. walking on 19th and pulled over to talk. He was carrying a porcelain cup of coffee, straight out of his studio around the corner. I asked him how the writing was going and he told me a book release party was being thrown at a nearby bar to celebrate his new work, a memoir. I liked his last book, but everything he writes has that overtly self-conscious quality of a transvestite strutting around soaking up the catcalls and taunts. (And I mean that as a compliment.) In the end, he's a good guy, a hard-working writer who's contributed a lot to the local literary and political scenes.

"How's the family," he asked.

"Good, good. Ada's cute and terrible as ever."

"Getting any sleep?"

"Sleep isn't so bad. But I'm lucky if I get a half hour in the morning to write."

"Nobody I know has anything good to say about having kids. Nobody. I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it."

"Maybe you should wonder about your friends."

"No, no," he said, half seriously, "I just don't think kid's are worth it."

"Oh, it's worth it. One or two anyway."

"Hmm," he hummed through pressed lips. "I don't know. Tell me how it's worth it. I need facts. Nobody can give me facts, and when they do the numbers don't add up to how ruining your life's worth having a kid."

"No," I agreed, "all the facts point against it. Kids are intangible things."

"Like love."

"Like love. On paper nobody should ever have any kids, I agree. But then the same goes for writing, doesn't it? What's it worth to you? What's your pay boil down to per hour, for all the hours you spend writing each day?"

"Yeah, it wouldn't be worth it," he shook his head. "I just don't know."

"Maybe nothing's worth it when you add up all the facts."

"Guess that's why us artists do so little with the rest of our lives, outside of art. We're cutting down our losses."

Cutting out more than that, I didn't say. The losses add up to gains if you live richly through the swings, I didn't say, and don't know myself if I believe it. The little wonder is a pain in the ass that hurts all the way sweetly to my heart, I didn't say, and do know as truly as I know anything. And what the hell, I could be strolling out of my cramped apartment toting a porcelain cup of coffee with nothing to do but drift around doubting anything's worth the trouble, nothing doing but a few books written about that same narcissistic wondering, with a few beery book release parties thrown in as facts proving their own self-worth. But I didn't say any of that. I could see S. was itching to get strolling. His coffee cup looked cold.

"Well, have a good one," I said.

"Say hello to the family."

"You bet."

And home I rode, into the loveable suffering.