The Deep End

Swimming pools have those stencils  around the sides--- "2 ft.", "6 ft",  "14 ft".  I understand these.  If the sign says it's two feet deep,  I know not to dive in.  Fourteen feet - it's safe to dive.  I understand these stencils, these signs.

The mystery is why I sometimes ascribe depth to people when it's not actually there.  I have a history of misreading it in men.  For a long time, I think I believed that if a man were kind, smart, witty, charming, charismatic and a drinker, then the drinking was the stencil - it pointed to depth.  Not to be too hard on myself, but what an idiot.  I've been told,  by one of them, ironically,  that my powers of discernment were less than dazzling.

Of course, we are not swimming pools.  None of us has one depth.  None of us is always at 2 feet or 14 feet.  But some reach for 14 and some stay contentedly or discontentedly in 2.  14 is scarier; the water gets dark; you can drown.  Two feet is two feet.  One of the simplest and most elegant observations came in Clyde Edgerton's wonderful novel "Raney".  One character says "There are three kinds of people in the world: those who talk about themselves, those who talk about other people and those who talk about ideas".  

But as people, we wander about on the spectrum.  The deepest among us will at times watch American Idol or Real Housewives and talk about themselves or other people, but some 2 feet people never seem to aim for 14.  Some can't muster the courage or simply don't see the point; the risk of 14 feet has no obvious reward.

But we are each capable of only what we are capable of.  Most of my friends glide easily along the range of depths; we have superficial days and interests and then glide to the relative depth of examined lives.   (And I will say that among my Sudden Cardiac Arrest survivor friends, I have yet to meet one who is not in the deep.  We are all seekers; our hearts stopped without warning and we didn't die. It gives one pause).

My life would be simpler if the shallow end dwellers could wear those stencils.  Since I stink at sorting out which men are which - particularly among my ridiculously beloved heavy drinkers.  As Hayes Carl put it "you're not a poet, you're a drunk with a pen".  Or a lens.  Or a cab.  A drunk with a pen.

There was a day with one of them.  We were talking about why he had stayed so long in a relationship that had been miserable for years.  And he said "She cooked, she cleaned, she drank".   I was speechless.  Could someone actually be shallow enough that those were the criteria for a relationship???  "She cooked, she cleaned, she drank".  I understood she cooked a lot, cleaned a lot and drank a lot.  Enabling him not to cook,  never to clean and  of course, to drink with abandon.   True to form, I got it wrong.  Instead of admitting that my friend was in fact that shallow, I, ever the idiot, ascribed depth even to that.  He knew the absurdity of the rationale, the criteria -- or he would never have said it. At least not to me.  Me, ever the idiot. The reality is that he saw it that way because he forces himself to live in two feet.  He is terrified to see beyond 2 feet; he drinks to make sure he can stay in 2 feet.  Everything else is simply too uncomfortable to manage sober.  Idiot.

I need the stencils.  I sometimes give too much credit; sometimes people give themselves too little.