I don’t know. It’s like I go to the grocery store on a loop. All this getting and consuming. It’s eternal. Why eat it, if you’re only going to crap it out a couple of hours later? It’s cruel. It’s unending. You know what I mean?
Yeah, sure. I guess so.
I mean, we spend so much time shoving things in our mouths, forgetting that all we’re doing is giving our colons something to excrete. Why do we enjoy ourselves so much when we eat—why all the smelling and exclaiming, the ordering, the paying—why all the pleasure, when eating is something we have to do? Do we forget that we are about to do precisely the same thing in about three hours? It’s like we’ve never tasted food before. I just don’t understand why we aren’t more embarrassed. I literally walk around embarrassed to be human.
That’s so bleak, Juliet. Maybe you’re overthinking it?
Rain? Were they predicting rain?
It’s really coming down.
Someone share with Juliet. She’s got the baby.
I don’t think she notices.
You want my umbrella, Juliet? Juliet?
And loyalty. We are so sure that we mean what we say. But we can’t make promises. The person who makes a promise in one moment vanishes in the next. Because of course selfhood is constantly shifting. No one can keep a promise because no one can remain the same person for long enough. To keep a promise would require a psychotically consistent self. Which is impossible.
Juliet. Are you OK?
What do you mean?
Is everything OK with you and Michael? Are you…are you trying to tell me something?
I’m not trying to tell you something, Alison. I am telling you something. I’m telling you why I’m embarrassed to be human.
OK, OK. I’m sorry.
Why don’t they ever open these doors early? I mean, it’s pouring out here.
Let us in early, people!
This is a church! Have mercy!
Yeah, people. Make an exception. Let us stand in the freaking vestibule.
No. I’m sorry, Alison. It must be terrible. To have to listen to me when I’m—when I’m—I’ve been a little depressed. I think I—
Oh, Juliet. Oh, poor Juliet. Please don’t cry.
FROM “THE DOUBLE IMAGE” (1960)
by Anne Sexton
1.
I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain,
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I’d never get you back again.
I tell you what you’ll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.
Harry Borawski December 10, 8:12 p.m.
Michael,
Hola from the Connecticut River Valley. How is she sailin’?
Harry
“Man marks the earth with ruin—his control stops with the shore.” —Byron
Harry Borawski December 23, 9:33 p.m.
Michael.
Harry again. How is the boat? I am itching to know. Didn’t you leave from Bocas last month? I’m an old man—it could be I’ve lost count of the days. We are having a cold winter here. These big ice floes come downriver with birds standing on them.
Merry Christmas.
Harry
“Man marks the earth with ruin—his control stops with the shore.” —Byron
Harry Borawski January 3, 10:39 p.m.
Michael.
I’m worried now. But I have checked the nets and so far no reports of a yacht sunk in the gulf of San Blas