Dec

22

Coupland d’état | Part Four

Filed Under Life Slice 

Mike + Doug Starn Snowflake 1 and 2

Distance is a funny thing. It behaves much like time. It never changes and yet it always feels different, mutable, depending on your place in life. Mine, for the time being, remained seated between my protector and my provoker; feeling inexplicably closer to one, and entirely remote from the other. Two distances from a common vantage point. The stroke of midnight shifted my position.

“Happy New Year!” Jonathan’s parents gathered to the living room, making their way over shoes and bags, like two explorers finding solid footing on unpolished rocks in a rushing stream.

“Happy New Year!” Gord lent his hand to Jonathan’s mom, who pulled it in to her, giving Gord a long hug.

“Happy New Year,” I followed suit.

“It’s so good of you to come,” Ellen kissed Jonathan’s dad on both sides of the cheek. Jonathan turned to smile to his parents.

“Well we wouldn’t have if we knew this was your idea of a party,” Jonathan’s dad walked into a clearing in the living room, looking mischievously over to Jonathan’s mom. “Where is the music? The dancing?”

Jonathan quickly located some smooth jazz. A soundtrack to a motion picture. I couldn’t place it although it sounded familiar.

Before making his way to me, Ellen pulled Jonathan over to her side.

It had been a standoff. I had gone to sit down.

Gord was already smoothing my spot next to him, waiting. Together, we looked to the couples dancing.

Gord swept his arm across my opposite shoulder; cupping my knee with his other hand.

“And then?” Gord was barely audible above a whisper. I smiled.

“Not much,” I tucked my head between Gord’s shoulder and neck, settling in.

“No?”

“Well, maybe one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Look,” I nudged my head upward, pointing out to Gord, Jonathan’s parents who were watching their son dancing with Ellen.

“Jonathan’s parents?” Gord didn’t quite understand.

“You can see it in their face,” Gord pulled away to look at me, “Hope. It’s right there, in the space between Jonathan’s mom and dad. You can just tell, they’re ready to dance like this at a wedding. They have that look. The look of forgiveness and that culmination of their life’s purpose. Do you see it?” I raised my head momentarily from Gord’s shoulder, him patting it gently back down in place.

I felt Gord’s chest puff up, then slowly release. Silence.

“I don’t think he’s happy,” Gord released another sigh, squeezing me closer.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Does that mean you’re over it?”

“That means I’m not interested in hurting myself anymore.”

Gord remained quiet. For a while, we didn’t speak to one another.

“No love is perfect, Gord. Not even the one dancing away to New Year’s.”

Not waiting for a response, I wrapped my arm around Gord’s middle and gave a gentle squeeze. I resisted looking up to his face. It didn’t matter.

For the first time, in ten years, my storm cloud had lifted. A little light had broken through.

I wondered. Could Douglas Coupland create greatness in nice weather?

IMAGE | Mike + Doug Starn | Snowfall #1 and #2 | 2006–2007 | 70 1/2″x33″| Archival inkjet prints Diasec mounted to Plexi glass

Comments

Leave a Reply