Happy All The Time
Sunbathing with my sweetheart on a stretch of grass and fall leaves last weekend, I didn't want or expect to be confronted with "relationship talk." I was blindsided when he suddenly grabbed my by the wrists and declared, "You are such a Holly." Hmm... A Holly. Could he love a Holly? Could I love or even be a Holly? Was he merely drunk on sunshine and the scent of my new shampoo, or did he have a point? I mentally raced through the pages of the book he was referring to, Laurie Colwin's Happy All the Time , searching to some clue as to what had been meant by the comment. On the defensive, I first checked off things Holly and I don't have in common. "I don't wear my hair the way Japanese children wear theirs, I can't even figure out how large a pan I need for a batch of brownies, I hate gossip columns... what are you talking about?" "No no no, you're a relationship Holly. Ohhh... He knows me so well. Like Holly, I can't think clearly about a relationship when I am in the thick of it. Holly sleeps with a man for the first time and then wakes up in the morning and does a crossword puzzle, then asks him to bring her a newspaper. Pressed for the reason behind her
Our advances and retreats seems as if they have come out of the same playbook, and we find comfort in the idea that nobody knows the whirlwind emotions underneath our cool facades. Acknowledging love's existence brings into a relationship a deliberateness that we try to avoid. For example, in my head there is a collection of loose sketches of my boyfriend in movement, cropped images of his eyes, the way his hands cupped around a bowl of strawberries, his clasped sandal buckle. When an important crossroad is reached in a relationship, I often retreat to think it over, or immerse myself in something mundane until I am ready to consider its significance. Ok, so I can't cook or iron, but I love the finality and weight of linen sheets, mismatched cups and saucers, reorganizing the house when my life feels off-kilter. Similarly, Holly uses her home and her aesthetic sense to add order and precision to her life, and to keep out the uncertainty caused by relationships. With the sandal there is the presence of the phantom hand that clasped the buckle, a person captured during a moment of complete absorption in the ordinary. Holly and I fall in love in much the same way. These images carry with them everything else about him. Holly and I are both afraid of being lulled into expecting to be "Happy All the Time. We trust to the small things about a person, focusing our love of the person into our pleasure over these discoveries. She is queen of the domestic sphere, taking classes in Japanese cooking and flower arranging during her spare time. The mere mention of the word seems to cheapen things, to make love seem fragile and desperate. Now why can't I simply love you and not talk about it all the time?"Holly Sturgis may have better hair than me, and several more years of cooking experience under her belt, but we are very similar in the way that we relate to people. Our perverse logic is that if we can acclimate ourselves to the feeling of imperfect happiness, we will be more prepared to receive perfect happiness with open arms.
Common topics in this essay:
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Similarly Holly,
Colwin's Happy,
Holly Sturgis,
,
Hmm Holly,
Holly Guido,
love holly,
holly love holly,
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