Bring on the pink elephants...

...or the troupe of South American Dancing Girls

I am starting to find this deep introspection and explication exhausting which, I think, is a good thing - my body is starting to re-assert control where my mind has failed.

It may mean that I stop posting here about these subjects for a while or, if I am lucky, forever. But fear not, dear readers, the silence just means I am just resting and healing, nothing more.

A phase change?

To be honest, I was somewhat surprised by my reaction to learning that she now has a baby, but I genuinely do feel an emotion bordering on happiness for her.

Sure, it is tinged with a little sadness, since there is no socially acceptable way that I can contribute to or share her joy - whatever comfort she might draw from my expressions of happiness for her would likely and understandably be dwarfed by her displeasure at learning that aspects of her life had fallen within the reach of Google.

Learning that she was married was a bitter pill to swallow, but it didn't fundamentally change the way I felt or thought about her. It merely cooled the temperature of my feelings, not their fundamental character.

This news brings with it, I think, the chance to effect a more fundamental, qualititative change in the way I think about her - akin to the phase change between water and ice.

Beside the interests of her new baby --- which, of course, are none of my business -- my self-indulgent concerns are really quite a trifling matter. That's why I have retracted my recent posts.

They just don't matter any more.

And then they were three...

And then they were three.
May he inherit the charm of his mother,
and the good fortune of his father.

...he says, feeling somewhat guilty about learning this happy news by stumbling a little too far through the web.

Half Of Infinity

As metaphors go, the metaphor of an invisible wall is not a bad one. It captures how I feel and the futility of my desire.

Where did this metaphor come from?

It was inspired in part by Ed, a guy from Utah I met at WWW7 in Brisbane in 1998. We spent a few enjoyable nights discussing philosophies of life over a beer or two. During one of these discussions he mentioned how he conceived of his marriage as a house of many rooms, some rooms were hers, some were his and some were shared. The house was never quite finished, always being worked on.

I thought that his metaphor was great and when I related it to my own life at the time, the metaphor of the invisible wall just made so much sense. I could catch glimpses of her, but I could no longer get near to her - emotionally or physically.

What are the attributes of this wall? Invisible, impenetrable, timeless and infinite.

It's invisibility is not so relevant any more - it was more relevant when we were still working for the same employer and occasionally communicating. If I look through the wall now, there is rarely anything to see, since she is so very far away in every sense of those words.

Impenetrable? It is surely that. There is nothing I can do to break it down and I have long since stopped trying. I flail my arms against it occasionally, but not because I expect it to give way. There is, perhaps, a certain irony that in the last couple of years I have taken to climbing walls at the gym. Only up and down, mind you - never across the top.

Timeless? When I first noticed the wall, it appeared to have arisen spontaneously out of nowhere. At first, I hoped it would disappear, but the horrifying realisation that it was here to stay slowly dawned on me. Now, however, I think it is more useful to consider that it always has been and always will be there and that I only noticed its existence when she started to move away and I found myself unable to follow.

Infinite? Yep, that it is. This wall has no top, it has no edge. There is no way around it, over it or under it.

In effect, the wall divides the universe in two: between the universe of the impossible and the universe of the possible. She is beyond the wall, in the land of the impossible. I am here in front of the wall in the land of the possible, forever wanting to move beyond it.

On the bright side, half of infinity is still infinity. And, yes, I know I should content myself with that which I can find in this half of infinity. The Whitlams have a song with lyrics that are somewhat relevant:

Some say love it only comes once in a lifetime
Well once is enough for me
She was one in a million
So there's five more just in New South Wales

I had to laugh today when I realised that these lyrics come from a song whose title is none other than: Up Against The Wall.

The Invisible Wall

In a previous post I wrote:

When I occasionally force myself to imagine the real person - to remind myself of the difference - the person I imagine gazes upon me warily from a distance: still, silent, cold, aloof and with little sympathy. I imagine her disdain for me.

On reflection I realise it is absurd to consider these words as a description of the real her. They are as much a confabulation as anything else I think about in relation to her.

What we actually have here is an inanimate, two-dimensional projection of what I think her stance with respect to me would be. It presumes that there is a stance which, of course, there usually isn't. Aside from the rare email from me there is no reason to believe that she has any reason consider me at all.

Yes that is all it is - a painting. To be hung on a wall. What better wall to hang it on, than the one I conceived of a long time ago...

There is an invisible wall between myself and her. All there is left for me to do is ponder the question: what colour should I paint it?

I never did paint that wall though I do seem to spend a lot of time decorating it with curios.