My Road-Greek morals

“I committed to you, it isn’t unfair for you to think I could stay in a compromised position for years.  No matter how informal your life is, I live in a real society and I have real people with real morals that I have to answer to.”

“I’ve never seen anyone who could commit and uncommit so quickly.”

“Very funny.”

“You know those same moral dilemmas are the thing which is holding me back.  I am dealing with one crisis after another and you want me to pick up and double my cost of living when I can’t even afford what I’m paying now.”

“You can come live with me.  It won’t cost anything.”

“And when you change your mind again?”

“What makes you think I’ll change my mind?”

“Because the second I tell you that I’m moving in you’re going to tell me I need to start with my own place until things calm down.”  This was followed by silence on her part.  I reach out and take you hand.  “I love you, I don’t have this figured out.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I love you.”

We are sitting on a bench outside of a cemetery.  It is dark, but there are noises and people everywhere.

Arriving long before her, instead of the quiet dinner, the empty restaurants there was a car show.  Hundreds of antique cars parked and parading down the streets and even more people.  I called her laughing and telling her the night wouldn’t be exactly what we’d planned but that I wouldn’t spoil the surprise by telling her why.

And so we found ourselves sitting on a bench outside a cemetery with people walking by, mostly tipsy, all happy.  They saw us holding hands, recognized us for lovers, and no one passed without a kind word.

We found ourselves kissing, then down on the beach, the shadows from the storm wall protecting us with its shadow, the calm waters lapping gently against the sand that held us, the canopy of stars and the cool breeze over the water keeping our heat down and assuring our privacy.

Unstated, but aglow with the feelings we had for each other, we eventually left the beach and had dinner and a conversation that tasted of the wine before leaving, kissing her goodnight, the last memory of her, the taste of the wine on her tongue.  I was uncertain what had happened, I just wanted to explain to her that whatever else happened, I knew that I belonged there, at that time with her.  It was as if I could see the predestination of the universe, the entire plan and that she and I being together was what the rest of it, the entire thing, past, present and future, here and there, was about us and nothing else.

There are so many ways that I have been judged and found wanting.  And occasionally not.  I will leave it to you to figure out how I have been classified, reclassified, audited and found wanting, adequate or superior, in writing, employment, as an advisor, an adventurer, in business or in bed. And then there are my many creditors, past, present and future.

The statistics of credit classification compare poorly to the realities of a person’s values.  I assume there is an actuary or some such person, or perhaps someone with no training who characterizes us, hopefully on the basis of some actual reality.  But does that really have anything to do with the value of a person.  Isn't "creditworthiness" so irrelevant as to be an insult?

And does it have anything to do with the value of two people together?

Siddhartha gave up his fortune for vision.  Half of the signers of the declaration of independence were men of inadequate means.  Paine (Pain) essentially bankrupted, coming to the new world in near poverty.  Our ancestors domesticated dogs in part so that they could increase their properties by the weight the dog could bear.  And these people survived to allow some bean counter to compare me to others based on how much money I made, inherited or stole and how many credit cards I paid off every month, what property I held against the nature of communism.

At this time I was not judged poorly.  In fact, the future of wild success, terrific failure, redemption and virtue result from this starting point which I had achieved through no mean expenditure of time and effort, time wasted which could have been spent on the things I would not do till later.

I don't know exactly what I am.   But as the sun was setting on that day, and drove towards it as it set on the horizon, knowing in my heart that she would be there; I was something intangible, looking for someone intangible.  I knew even then how much we belonged together and what a tragedy it would be not to share what was left of my life with her.

I am at the coast, driving towards the warm sun which is gradually heating the waters of the gulf, driving to Mississippi looking for something intangible, that I am not quite sure of but which draws me inexorably forward.  And then later, I am driving home, she is headed in the opposite direction and I can feel my soul as if it were a tangible thing and I were a character in Greek mythology.  What horrible thing had to happen to me to teach what moral?