Brown Salt posted 9/28/2009 7:28:52 PM | 7 kudos what's this?     report abuse

ColdinWisconsin

Those who, in short, lived mostly for themselves in the era of withdrawal from commitment

Stephen King, Under the Dome...due to be released in November.

This is a little snippet of King's new book set in the 80's. As a child/sometimes adult of that era, I found this phrase to be most poignant. That phrase was "a thinker" as I often say to my daughter. King has given birth to more than a few of my life's mantra's over the years. Little doozies that have bounced around in my head like a pitcher full of bb's spilled across the floor.

The mind is a muscle that can move the world

One of my all time favorites. This from a pill poppin' junkie who quit the habit in his sleep in Firestarter.

But this...withdrawal from commitment. It shut me up and set me down for more than a few minutes. It might not phase the rest of the world in the least, but this one was like thumping on an overly ripe melon and having the sound echo back.

That was the era. The era in which we told the manufactures that we wanted full sized things that ran on economy. Big hair and even bigger amounts of spray to keep it afloat while also waving our hands in the air over the environment.

It was Tienanmen square and the walls tumbling down. Female executives becoming the norm. Maybe it was the shoulder pads and maybe it was just the right time, who knows?

All I know is that we did withdraw from commitment around about that time. We as a nation. The earth as a whole in many ways. Planed parenthood was on every corner and we no longer had to duck our head when we ran in the door. We simply filled out a piece of paperwork to get the afternoon off and told the boss we were going for the "P & P" (pap and pill to the birth control uneducated)

And we began to live for ourselves.

Nothing wrong with a bit of selfishness now and again. No shame in indulging in a box of chocolates that only you really like. 3 stolen hours with a new book. Waiting until you are absolutely alone before you crack the binding on the spine and savor it like a lover's moan. A meal consisting solely of garlic bread, sauteed mushrooms and a thin mint chaser...a delicacy and we found a way to indulge without regret.

$45.00 on a pair of shoes to work out in. Not for work mind you, but something for three hours a week of sweat and toil. Shoes that don't help fix your car and they can't make dinner either.

Is this where love comes in? Is there where in this strange and unstoppable metamorphosis that man meets woman and the two lives swirl around each other...together like an acid trippers most fabulous dream? Is this where we revert to doing things once again simply because they must be done. They need to be done. A time of always doing (whatever it is that you are doing) and it is always done for someone else?

Think back. It was always the wacko's who had the freedom. The artists, painters, dancers, mimes in the park (a few carnie folk too I suppose) But it was them...only them that got to ignore family time meals, regular jobs with punch in and punch out times. Birthdays, anniversaries, parent teacher conferences. It was only those in the arts or "madly genius" (think Einstein) who could lock themselves in a room and masturbate their Psyche's until they found their release. Their closure. Their answers. Because some part of you knows that if you don't allow them to seek out their passion, they could go totally hooey. Right off the edge. Really crouch down in the corner with that rot gut booze and not wash their hair until it smells like a dead body. You had to be pretty passionate to be selfish in the past.

No more. Now it is just expected. Accepted. Like vitamin D added to your orange juice and trans fat removed from your McDonald Land french fries....it is just the way things have become.

It was pretty painless for the most part, this slow withdrawal from commitment. But it becomes easier I think. You look around and see how people treat their partners, either ignoring them or looking for something better whenever the "other" isn't right next to them and it becomes pretty easy. I can live without the trans fat if I can have the bottle of wine that I like, and if I can do it while listening to the music that I myself have picked out each and every one of the songs...I can listen to my music alone too.

We can entertain ourselves. Satisfy ourselves even. And I think King was right...we will soon see where this era of withdrawal of commitment takes us. Either way, it doesn't matter. I don't have to ask any of you to take your shoes off. Put your toothbrush in the holder (please) or even actually carry your dishes to the sink to save me a bit of time.

Soon. Soon I will cash in my change jar, walk into the slightly orgasmic smell of ink on paper and pick up the new Stephen King book. I will get in line and while surreptitiously watching strangers from the corner of my eye, I will try not to lust after the Godiva chocolates at the counter. I will pay for my purchase in cash (as it seems to be the only way it actually feels like "mine") and I will go home.

Most comfortable pants. Jar of planters peanuts (purchased as to which jar has the most brown salt in the bottom of the jar) 2, 20 oz. bottles of coke, a sausage and mushroom pizza in the freezer (extra mozzarella in the dairy drawer) And I will sprawl out on the couch...the soft green pillow on the back of my neck, jar of peanuts wedged between my hip and a large couch cushion...good bra on to catch any strays that don't make it down my chute, and I will spend the day with King.

By myself.

I won't think of any of you. Nor my electrician who still doesn't have the job done. My dentist who would seriously like me to schedule a cleaning, the check engine light in the car, the sock bag moaning like a pile of dying babies.

None of it. No one thing will stop me from seeking my personal joy. Because my withdrawal is over. No more pangs or pains...it's just me baby. (and some weird cricket in a top hat and a monocle) and frankly...I can't think of anything anyone else could give me that could make me one ounce happier.

And maybe that's it. Maybe that is the greatest gift of all about lack of commitment...It's that you finally learn what makes you happy. And the wonder of it all is that the solution was inside you the whole time.

But honey....if I could find a man that could do for my body what King does for my mind...well, this little Wisconsin gal could die happy. I most surely could. Hell, that would be my kind of commitment. It's the getting them to go away after wards that is a problem. But then...that's probably no commitment at that point.

Whatever. I have to go. Zumba in about 4 minutes. For me. No commitment. I don't have to go if I don't want to (but why

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