In Three Things Is a Man Revealed

Oh, crap. Yesterday....oh crap. What a terrible day. Living in squalor because of the office move and because I had new carpeting installed on the upper floor which means that all the crap is downstairs and needs sorting through. All Madeleine's stuff was in garbage bags but, in looking for something, she emptied them all on the floor in the piano room and now I'm knee deep in her stuff. There are days of work to do and  with me limping around from the fall down the stairs, I'm finding it hard to just get a cup of coffee nevermind clean. Mess takes a huge psychic toll - the chaos infiltrates the brain.

And because I'm finding it challenging to entertain and still lose weight, I made no plans for the holiday which would usually involve me cooking wonderful things I can't eat - or eating the wonderful things and then having to face myself and the scale the next day. Latest strategy is to just not cook for people, much to their chagrin - everyone loves my cooking.

So last night just simple plans for Lucas (Liza) and Convex (James) to come over for a few hours in the evening for chat and maybe Scrabble. Lucas came with drama - her power was out, her kids calling her crying because they had no way to entertain themselves with no electricity - life ends for them without their devices. So Convex was dispatched to bring them to my house so they could tap their devices into my electric grid and cool off. Somewhere in the frenzy of all that drama, Liza and I decided to have a martini. One became many. She (we) rationalized that federal holidays should be exempt from the no martini rule. Bad idea. We drank way too much (by now the kids had gone again and James had been dispatched again to babysit her littlest one while her husband took the older kids to the fireworks) - we saw very little of James during the evening.

I think we had the most amazing talk - I remember saying, "Why don't we talk like this sober?" And really that's a good question because, of late, conversation has become uninspired, austere, rote, spartan - looking for the right adjective, can't quite grasp it. What I'm trying to get at, is that living an always moderate life can have a dulling effect. I know it's the right thing to do for so many reasons - health, responsibility, dignity, etc. but the unintended consequence is that you never kick up your heels.

My favorite move is Babette's Feast. OK, it's really my second favorite movie - Babe, Pig in the City being the first. It's about a woman refugee who finds herself in an austere religious colony in some dour Scandanavian country. She takes a job as a housekeeper for two elderly women whose father founded a religious sect. Each day, the two old women do their religious duty and deliver sustenance to ne'er do well villagers, hydrated salt cod cooked with no seasonings being the main fare - nutrition but little more. Babette, using those same ingredients, makes food magic and the offerings bring not only needed calories but a large measure of joy to the recipients. Later she wins the lottery and uses the money for one epic meal, cooked in appreciation for the elderly women who took her in. The entire sect is invited and they try ever so hard to deny and resist the warming effects of the alcohol and the wonderful food (turns out Babette was a world-reknowned French chef in Paris). Eventually they surrender to the food and drink and the result is a happiness they hadn't allowed themselves to experience before. Truths are finally revealed, old grudges fall away, love blooms.

Alcohol...damn. Tricky stuff. I'm starting to think it has its place in our lives if it can be used strategically like in Babette's Feast. I'm trying to decide what to think about last night. Liza and I hadn't kicked off our shoes like that in a very long time and gotten really honest with each other, revealed ourselves so vulnerably. Without the alcohol, I don't think we would have cracked our brave facades. But it was predictable and in character that, as I came down the back stretch of the high, the crying started - it's always right below the surface. And ugh, when she left, I drunk texted him and called him a coward for not just telling me to go away - that he wants me gone completely, that I'm an annoying gnat buzzing around his head. He didn't respond.

From the Incognito book:

The Greek poet Alcaeus of Mytilene coined a popular phrase En oino alatheia (In wine there is the truth), which was repeated by the Roman Pliny the Elder as" In vino veritas". The Babylonian Talmud contains a passage in the same spirit: "In came wine, out went a secret." It later advises, "In three things is a man revealed: in his wine goblet, in his purse, and in his wrath." The Roman historian Tacitus claimed that the Germanic peoples always drank alcohol while holding councils to prevent anyone from lying.

Challenge today is thinking about your relationship with alcohol. Should it be part of your life, can it be a tool in your bag of tricks, used judiciously to get closer to people, or is the danger of abuse too great for you? I'm thinking life without euphoric highs just isn't worth living - living in an always responsible flat line way isn't gratifying. And yet, we have goals and dreams and realizing them requires steady, sober effort, slavishly putting one foot in front of the other as we trudge towards the prize. I've seen what alcohol can do to people and relationships - it is something to be fearful of - or at least very respectful of. Thinking this is something we need to think about more and talk about more. I'm not sure what my position should be and I'd like to hear yours. Maybe the federal holiday idea isn't such a silly idea! Next time though (Labor Day) I hope I don't end the evening with embarrassing drunk texts. Kind of hating myself this morning.

Peace,
Sarah