A Stroll Down Melancholy Lane

I sit calmly looking out of the curved window of my intergalactic craft. It is a bay-type viewing area and it is my eye to the universe in which I am currently traversing. The space outside is still, serene, and in fact quite pleasing to my eye. But I know it to be savagely and bitterly cold —cold enough to cause grievous harm, or be of threat to my life. If I were to, even momentarily, step outside of the vehicle, and without proper protection let’s say, gently bump my hand, my hand would snap off of my arm and shatter into pieces. 

My thought process is disrupted as I view a creature zipping across the cold vastness. This is quite unusual. “Good luck, little being,” I think.

I glance at my horology apparatus. There are still three hours to go before the time I have determined most beneficial for my partaking in my allotment of nourishment —without depleting my current supplies, that is. So with a push of a button I procure a warm, non-nourishing liquid to quell my hunger pangs…

 ***

Ah shucks, I spot my nearest neighbor’s bold combination of neon, LED and other multi-colored pulsing Christmas lights. How the heck am I supposed to visualize in my mind that I am an alien being viewing outer space when there are these glaring, flashing, tacky lights going 24 hours a day. Can't they please put them on some kind of a timer? I mean, what the heck! What about the wildlife in the area that, for their defense, for their cover, for their very survival, depend on a portion of a day’s hours to be in darkness or semi-darkness. What about them?…

Where was I?… Oh, yes, fantasizing about being an alien traveling the universe and alighting upon planet Earth…

***

I will relate the account of my adventure, (actually “our” adventure since I travel with a companion) using a new software that will automatically translate into one of over one million of the most widely used and known languages in a dozen of the nearest parallel realities to where I am now visiting. Anyone who has ever used automated translation-ware will know that there will, of course, be the usual linear transformation and vector space mathematics errors, but also that language is just so doggone subjective… --For my own amusement, I used a bit of jargon in that last sentence. I wonder how that will translate. 

I was chosen for the mission because I am a polyglot.  

My companion was chosen for his engineering abilities. I use a male pronoun here to describe my companion. There are many parallel realities where there are primarily two genders, as there are also places where beings are endowed with a single neutral gender and yet successfully reproduce. And let us not forget, as some of you reading this will know, the plural locations with productive multiple genders, six of which are quite commonly known. But, for our purposes now, we will stick with two of the common genders, female and male…

***

Seriously, as I look out of the window of the back of my house, I feel at home, content, grateful for a wonderful life partner. But, when I venture outside and encounter my neighboring community members I feel like an alien being, like I live in a completely different parallel realm, or dimension, or spectrum. And it’s not anyone else’s fault. This is all on me. The people living nearby are generally quite kind and welcoming of friendship.

But if I had to point a finger of blame for my feeling a bit like a foreigner in my own community I would say it is more than the fact I tend to be what a behaviorist might label an “introvert.” The deeper alienation I’m experiencing at the moment, the feeling that has driven me under the shelter of my carapace came about just over a year ago, on the fateful day of the latest U.S. presidential election.  And since that day, I’ve found it difficult to view any but a handful of my neighbors without suspicion that they may have voted for our current president and thus embrace his philosophical ideals, (if you can call them that and by "that" I mean ideals.) 

The current president is a man who did not hide his agenda. It was there for all to witness —to witness his hatred, his misogyny, his sexual predatory behavior, his dishonesty, his bias against those less fortunate in acquisition of money and in physical appearance, his bias against those of any religious belief beside his so called "Christianity"and against those with preferences as to which gender to love, and, and --and if you can believe it, his desire to deny health coverage to the chronically sick… 

And then from "day one" in office, his horrendous agenda was carried out by his GOP cronies! He puts out easily provable lies (largest inauguration attendance?) And the group of them, like some kind of antithesis of the fabled Robin Hood and company, the bunch of them will collectively do their best to rob the poor and give everything they steal to the richest…

Despite all of this, I still occasionally drag my otherwise happily-introverted body to a local community social event. Like last Spring when I attended a meeting for women interested in participating in an informal golf league. Maybe two dozen or so women attended. We ordered lunch seated in a squared-off, skinny u-shaped table formation, which might have been fine for a UN meeting or a formal presentation of some kind where only one person spoke at a time, but…

Anyway, I found myself sitting near the bend of the narrow U, with women on six sides of me. How do humans do it? How do they listen and engage in small talk with so many people at once? —to my left is a someone describing falling on broken cement in front of J.C. Penney’s —kitty-corner to my left someone is telling an engaging tidbit about neighbors who locked themselves out of their home on a stair-less upper balcony (on a frigid day, no less.) —kitty-corner to my right a women shows off her new jewelry —somewhere nearby I hear an interesting story about how someone met her husband on a blind date. I begin to partake in a topic I love: gardening, but I am tapped from behind by someone I recognize as a fellow introvert, who says, “It is so nice to see you here.”

It is all too much for me and I can see it in the face of a friend, the one who encouraged me to attend this gathering and who is sitting directly across from me, staring at me in surprise as she recognizes that I am virtually struggling for breath in a din that is nearly drowning me.

So what am I getting at? What is the impetus of my writing today?

Today we are invited to visit friends we have not seen for a couple of years, friends from our former Chicago-area home. Plus, the visit will allow us an additional chance to meet up with a treasured friend visiting Chicago from Erie, PA. Friends I am missing so dearly at the given moment. But we have awaken to a -17 Fahrenheit temperature. Cautious Husband is not very keen on making the four-hour+ roundtrip drive in our five year old car. And not to put it all on Cautious Husband, as I kind of agree that it’s best that we stay home on this arctic-like day.

Do I really miss these old friends so much, or am I simply nostalgic from hearing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s eve last night? Is this post-holiday melancholy after a lovely Thanksgiving and Christmas spent with loved ones and friends, beloved family and real friends who get my humor, who have political views similar to mine, people with whom there is often laughter until our tears flow, because we know each other so well…

I think of this statement that I copied from a recent NYT or NewYorker article:

...Stanford neurobiologist, …: “People who do best are those who have become more selective about whom they affiliate with… You don’t need a lot of friends; you just need a few very good ones.”

And I turn my electric blanket up to number five and I crawl back under my shell.

So sorry we won’t see you today, Jodie, Jen and Mike. Please forgive us. And do please visit us, if you can. You know where to find us: Planet Earth, just make a sharp right at the garish tacky Christmas lights that flash 24/7.

***

Here on planet Earth

The Chincoteague ponies keeping their heads above water, or struggling for breath??

I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

~~~ Martin Luther King Jr. 

***
Oh, yes and Happy 2018 everyone!!!